Global Adventurer

Super bad news ☹️ Mexico City, Mexico State, Zacatecas, Baja California and a few other areas are going on a full lockdown starting tomorrow, Saturday December 19th through January 10th. Only essential businesses to be open. I guess that explains why Walmart had people lined up all the way in the side of the building earlier today. I had already planned Christmas and New Years and booked hotels. Now, I need to find another place. Maybe back to Cancun. This really sucks!

On edit: Looked at the hotel rates in Cancun and they are ridiculously high and the airline tickets too. So, I'm going to Merida and check out Chichen Itza while down there.

volabam

The market at work. When the ridiculous lockdowns are almost everywhere, the places without the lockdowns are more valuable. Sucks, but understandable.

TravelingZoomer

Hawaii is basically open, unless you’re in the masks are bad camp

Boraxo

not really. The rules change at the whims of officials and if you don’t have the right test you are sol. I’d trust Mexico more and they just changed the rules as well.

volabam

Hawaii is dead to me after their Draconian policies.

ExpatExp

This is my view as well. Sure, the rules have changed a lot, some don't make sense, some have been poorly implemented, etc., but if you read the websites of the local papers, TV stations, and government on a regular basis, it's easy to keep ahead of any changes. So far, I haven't been surprised by anything in Hawaii, including the initial lockdown in March.

Heading back to Hawaii in a few days and will stay for a couple of months at least

the810

This is a good point. Someone should redevelop all those cheap deals scanners to find expensive deals instead. That would be a great way of finding places that are worth going to in 2021 😀

Sweden used to be a good example. Hotels were very expensive (basically at normal level) until a month ago, now the prices are sinking after the government adopted European strategy of creating a complete mess at the expense of growing infection rates.

stimpy

So where is everyone celebrating NYE? We started a new NYE family tradition in 2015 in Paris on the Champs-Élysées which was about 6 weeks after the terrible terrorist attacks in Paris. 130 innocent people were gunned down by terrorists and over 400 injured. So you can imagine there was a lot of fear in Paris. The government tried to shut down the annual celebration on the Champs-Élysées but the people, god bless them, stood up and said No Fear to terrorism. Tens of thousands went to the Champs-Élysées and our family joined them. And we have done so each year since.

2020 brings a different kind of fear, but I expect that we will see the same response from the French. I don't know how the police will treat the situation if many thousands of people are on the street on December 31st but I will be there to see for myself.

GUWonder

NYE at a home in Sweden.

I am more heavily invested in following Swedish hotel rates than probably just about anybody here, so pardon me for engaging in a fact check.

Fact-check: Swedish hotel rates have been materially lower than normal for most of this year than they were in 2019.

The Swedish hotel rates this year have very little to do with the Swedish government having "adopted European strategy", something the government here really hasn't done yet still.

During this pandemic in Sweden: except for Sweden's " nice weather" period when Swedes had most of their vacation for the year, Sweden's hotel rates have been very much below normal when doing comparisons to the same days in the prior year. This claim that rates in Sweden were basically at normal levels until a month ago is not true. Swedish hotel rates have been well below normal levels for most of this year as demand has been very low throughout most of this pandemic.

TravelingZoomer

I’m literally in Hawaii. It’s basically life as normal without large events.

Lmao at trusting Mexico more whatever buddy. Hawaii is the only state in the nation to actually control the virus

TravelingZoomer

Requiring a test = draconian?

TravelingZoomer

Have a good time! Eating in doors again was such a joyous occasion who would’ve thunk.

Global Adventurer

I don't travel in the US. Edit: unless it's absolutely necessary.

yvrcnx

Have cases been stable since it opened up to tourism based on having a negative corona test?
I wouldn't mind flying there in January or February especially as airfares are very reasonble and we can get a test within 72 hours here in Vancouver.

My main concern would be that you are all ready to go and your test comes back postive, just don't want to have to deal with the hassle of tryinng to get refunded by the airline, hotels etc.

Expat_flyer1

For those of us who were thinking Sweden, looks like their policies have not gone well relative to their neighbors:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...s-who-to-blame