Is It Safe to Not Travel ?
by Joe DiFranco
Our health is our greatest gift. We are reminded of this by people in our lives far beyond the exam room of our physician’s office. Family and friends who know us best and love us most remind us of this basic fact of life. Undoubtedly, we have all heard, “Well, at least we have our heath” when sharing with a neighbor our common challenges in life. Phone calls with old friends invariably include, “So how are you? Everybody healthy?” in the first 60 seconds of the conversation. We take our one-a-day vitamins religiously. We exercise, choose meals carefully, and eat responsibly (most of the time!…). Our health is, in a word, everything.
The coronavirus pandemic has reminded us of this like nothing else in our lifetimes. In some ways, it has served to accentuate many things we have always known and done, for better or worse. It has intensified, once could say, how we protect our gift of health. We have always refrained from hugging Aunt Pat when experiencing the sniffles; now we avoid visiting her altogether. We always washed our hands when returning from our weekly shopping; now many of us wash the groceries themselves. We always respected others’ personal space (at least in North America!); now we protect six feet of their personal space.
What we find so enlightening as we continue our voyage through these uncharted waters is our evolving interpretation of a simple term like “health”. There existed, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic, a singular interpretation for many: avoid contracting COVID-19 at all costs! With an unknown, unstudied, and aggressive threat, this strident reaction, we might argue, was prudent. Increasingly greater numbers of us now are taking a more comprehensive, and we can argue more, well, “healthy”, approach to protecting our gift of health. As we learn more about the virus as a society, we also are learning more about ourselves as individuals. We are learning that mental health – never independent of physical health – deserves equal protection.
The ill-effects of remaining hunkered down are surfacing in various ways never seen. One need not be a psychiatrist or sociologist to understand the statistical and anecdotal evidence now emerging. The health benefits of feeding our social nature as humans is proving irrefutable. The need to see people, connect with people, and meet new people is real, universal, and very, very healthy. And here is the great news: we are not faced with an either / or. It is not one or the other! Getting out, stretching our legs, seeing new places and meeting new people – in a word, traveling – is not simply something we do despite our health. We do it in support of our health.
Travelers are traveling today in ways that are responsible, safe, and very healthy. Airlines have been serving people for many months with precautions that make flying no less safe than any other part of our daily life. Hotels and resorts throughout the US, Mexico, and the Caribbean have in place protocols that are undeniably rigorous and effective. Hawaii has been open for a month with great success. Even places farther afield like the Maldives, Tahiti, and the Seychelles have been welcoming people safely for many months. The health benefits are enormous.
We are emerging back into the world in a way that is not only safe, but healthy. The next time we are asked, “Is it safe to travel?”, our response might be, “Is it safe not to travel?”
My 82-year old father and my 73-year old mother wouldn’t have it any other way. After the slight easing of draconian lock-down measures in Honduras, my parents booked the first flight they could to the USA. Don’t get me wrong, they love Honduras. But it was time – high time – for them to experience freedom. And, the freedom they seek is not freedom FROM these draconian measures, but freedom FOR living! Are they concerned about contracting COVID? Certainly. While they are careful and mask up everywhere they go, they simply needed to connect with others. They experience great joy in being with others, with going to Church, with going out to eat.
instituted weekly Zoom meetings to help connect with people living throughout North and Central America. However, audio and video are simply not the same as actual presence. It’s akin to replacing all food and drink with calorically-free alternatives: after a while, you starve! Technology may hit the spot for near-term needs, but it simply cannot replace our fundamental need to be physically present.
President Donald Trump, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and my home state’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer are just three of many American leaders who have likened the 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic to World War Two. While such a comparison can be both scrutinized and politicized, I would for my part respond this way: If the pandemic is like World War Two, then this past weekend’s uber-successful pilgrimage through Michigan, Indiana and upper Wisconsin is the Doolittle Raid.
Our company produces hundreds of group tours for tens of thousands of travelers each year. Any normal ‘day in the life’ at Corporate Travel Service is a bustling flurry of excitement and activity as multiple concurrent events are produced for bus load upon bus load of eager travelers. We franticly and passionately serve sorties of tourists who depart with complex and delicate itineraries. But all of that changed abruptly with the arrival of Covid-19. Like the Americans reading headlines after the attack on Pearl Harbor, our employees and our clients were left shell-shocked as the world was abruptly locked down. Years of work and preparation were franticly undone, as every single tour from March 10, 2020 forward was forced to cancel. The deluge of terrifying headlines accommodated no visible horizon for when group travel might return, and our industry atrophied under the unrelenting confusion and uncertainty of a frightened, paralyzed world. 
That is, until a few days ago, when on a warm sunlit Autumn morning, 30 Catholic pilgrims entrusted our organization and our amazing partner suppliers with their health and safety and departed on a 3-day, 1,100 mile jaunt through Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin. These travelers marveled at peak Fall colors enroute to serene National Shrines like the Shrine of St. Joseph at St. Norbert’s College and the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Wisconsin. They enjoyed delicious group meals before touring iconic American institutions like Cross in the Woods and the University of Notre Dame. They attended Mass and listened to live presentations from prolific Catholic authors. Under the prayerful direction of our dear friend and Catholic Radio Host Teresa Tomeo, her husband Deacon Dominick Pastore, and our Spiritual Director Fr. Derik Peterman, this intrepid group of people visited historic, natural and religious sites that will, as all travel does, affect them forever. They prayed. They learned. They traveled. 
