Where the Heck Should We Go? — But Where Will You Live?

Even as we’re all watching the number of Covid-19 cases in the US increase and the restrictions here in Denver, CO are getting tighter, more countries are opening their borders to US citizens. Of course, this is very good for us, but with continuing uncertainty about the disease and the responses from politicians, it’s not as helpful as you might think!

Since Barcelona, we’ve canceled our visits to Turkey, Japan, Mongolia, and Australia, but continued to hope that by December we could resume our original itinerary and spends the holidays in Medellin, Colombia. Airbnb has a strict policy for long-term stays (twenty-eight days or more) that allows for little to no refund if you cancel. Yes, they are making exceptions, but those only apply to reservations made before March 13. Reservations made after that date get no Covid waivers. We knew this when we booked our apartment in Medellin last April, but negotiated directly with the host of the property to give us an option to cancel for a full refund if things were still unclear by November.

While Colombia is open to Americans and their restrictions don’t seem much different than many places in the US, we were hopeful for much of October. But as we started discussing the circumstances with our host in Colombia, we quickly realized there’s too much uncertainty. Cases in the US continue to rise as we approach Thanksgiving, and we are fully expecting a big spike in cases in early December. This gives us a real concern that days before we’re set to leave, Colombia would close their borders again. So we agreed, reluctantly and sadly, to cancel our stay in Medellin a few days ago and have spent the past forty-eight hours or so trying to figure out where to go and what to do.

Tree frogs are plentiful at our Costa Rica Airbnb

We’ve been in the US for six months now and with the cold weather descending over us we are itching to get back out into the world and find someplace warm! After some quick research, we found that while most of the world still has severe travel restrictions, Panama, Costa Rica, and Belize are all open to Americans—Costa Rica doesn’t even require a negative COVID test to enter.

We spent countless hours poring over Airbnb exploring our options. After our experience in Barcelona, neither of us were keen to spend time in another large city—the risk of infection is much higher and the thought of enduring another lockdown in an apartment is not appealing. So we focused on more rural locations away from the cities.

Alas, the pickings were not nearly as rich as we had hoped. The reason why we try to book our accommodations several months in advance is that the variety of choices is far, far greater. Think of it this way: we normally look to stay in a given location between four to eight weeks or so. If someone books just a single night during our window, that location is no longer available to us. Multiply that by all the vacationers planning their trips, our options can dwindle rapidly. Since most people book their vacations three or four months in advance, we try to get a head start and book five or six months in advance.

However, we found a few locations that met our criteria and looked good. I reached out to all of them to get more details about their space and to negotiate cancelation options for us should Covid cause border restrictions.

After much back and forth, we’ve settled on spending a month on the west coast of Costa Rica starting December 7th. Then we’ll spend six weeks in a farmhouse by a small village on Belize’s famous Hummingbird Highway. We’re particularly excited for this one as it sits on a ten acre operating farm with two creeks, a river, and tons of wildlife—including over a hundred species of birds alone that have been recorded on the property. Don’t worry, we don’t have to do any farm work! But past reviewers rave about the daily fresh vegetables and eggs they received while staying there.

Where will we go after Belize? I have no idea but we’re both resisting our natural planner instincts so we can see what new options might become available to us over the next month or so. We don’t want to wait too long, however, and limit our Airbnb options. We’re always open to suggestions!