DW and I have returned from our first international flight in almost 3 years, a week in the Middle East visiting relatives, including grandchildren. Since travel through Israel (our entry point to the region was Ben Gurion Airport) to foreigners opened up on March 1st, we decided to go as quickly as possible in case anything changed.
The "scariest" part of the travel was what I will call WFCTRS - Waiting For Covid Test Result Stress. Knowing that a positive test 72 ours before leaving the U.S., or a positive test the day before the return flight could upend your plans - despite being fully vaccinated and boosted, with no symptoms - is a real thing.
A lot more paperwork has to be filled out, for airline travel, but fortunately United allows you to upload softcopies for prior approval (like vaccine records and covid test results) so that you do not have to bring them to the airport and airport check-ins went much faster (we kept copies on on phones just in case, but were never asked for them).
Our flights were full but overall the airports themselves were not that crowded. In my observation, on the planes the majority of folks would start wearing their masks over their mouth only, and there were a few announcements to remind folks that their nose and mouth had to be covered except when eating. Since I have allergies and have been used to wearing N95 masks for long periods, I was fine having a mask on for most of 12-15 hours of flight time.
The overseas covid testing costs varied. Flying into Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv you have to take a covid test before you leave the airport and then isolate at your destination until the results come back. We paid in advance for the test, which was about $25 for each of us. It was trickier finding a testing place to test and get results a day before our return flight - one place was charging over $250 each for a 12 hour turnaround. Fortunately we found a lab which only charged $23 each for a 14 hour turnaround.
On this trip we did no sightseeing, choosing to spend as much time with family, especially the grandchildren. So I do not know how busy the tourist sites were. But from talking to people currently or formerly (due to a lot of layoffs) in the local tourism industries, the number of tourists is still low. They are hoping, with Ramadan, Passover and Easter next month, for things to pick up.
Everything was more expensive, but you plan for that when FIREd
. We were not going to let the increased costs get in the way of enjoying time with family.
The "worst" part of the trip was the return, due to some no-maintenance plane and passenger issued we were delayed 2+ hours taking off from Israel, so we (and it seemed about a quarter of the passengers) missed their connections when we arrived in the U.S. So we spent a night in Newark, courtesy of United, who also paid for our dinner and breakfast meals (interesting to see that the vouchers now have "virtual" Master Card numbers good for 24 hours).
We may take another international fight this year, if we can improve how we deal with WFCTRS
.
