We Hope You’re Not Border All This COVID News

On Monday 8th November, after twenty long months, the USA opened its international borders to fully-vaccinated visitors from overseas. Here’s everything you need to know:

• Visitors from more than 30 countries can now visit the USA without quarantine, so long as they’re fully-vaccinated and have had a negative COVID test within the past three days.
• UK travellers can download the NHS COVID Pass as proof.
• Children under 18 don’t need to have proof of vaccination, but they will need to provide a negative COVID test.

To celebrate the news, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic put aside their long-standing feud (which we’ve written about before), taking off from Heathrow in unison as the first flights to depart from the UK. Hopefully there wasn’t a fight over the runway at JFK when they got to the other side...?

Meanwhile, across the world:

• Myanmar is planning to reopen its borders in early 2022 - but the political situation there means it’s unlikely you’ll be able to go anytime soon.
• Tourists are flocking back to Thailand - but the new rules are causing some headaches.
• Malaysia is making plans to open up air travel for vaccinated international travellers flying from Singapore.)

Wanderer's Corner: Meet Shuo

Shuo Huang is one of our amazing Premium members - and a seasoned traveller, as well as an award-winning photographer. (Follow him on Instagram here!)

For our new Wanderer’s Corner column, we sat down with Shuo and quizzed him about his most memorable travel experiences, as well as his tips for solo travel.

So what made you decide to begin travelling?

I grew up in a small town, Wantage, just outside Oxford. Back in the 90s, it was the kind of place that nobody ever left! We still dub it 'The Shire', as in the one from Lord of the Rings - nobody really ventured out of it.

And I remember, I was 19 years old, and one night I was watching the Leonardo di Caprio movie The Beach with three friends. We’d been out on lads’ holidays before, but nothing that farflung or serious.

That movie changed everything. It really inspired us, it filled us with curiosity and wanderlust! We decided we wanted to go on a backpacking adventure, to experience Thailand, to try and find our own 'Beach' (or the good bits of it, anyway - not the parts of the film with all the murders!)

We got summer jobs, we saved up, and we bought open-door tickets to Bangkok, coming back from Singapore after a couple of months.

And like Michael Palin once said, 'Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life!'

But that was only the beginning, wasn’t it? What came next?

Back in 2008, I wanted to begin taking travel a bit more seriously. I’d never had a gap year, so I decided I was going to take a career break and travel around South America.

Again, it was very open-ended. I bought a plane ticket to Mexico City, flying back from Rio De Janeiro. All I had to do was figure out how to make the 5,000-mile journey from one to the other!

Before I went on that trip, I actually bought a nice new camera and lens. The results were good enough that I decided I wanted to start taking more photographs.

I’m completely self-taught, it’s just something I’ve picked up along the way during my travels, and it’s really taken off.

After South America, I decided to set myself a challenge. I wanted to visit the Seven Wonders of the World (man-made and natural - so fourteen in total!).

I completed that challenge in 2017. Now I’ve set myself the challenge of visiting every single country in the world. I’ve made it to 90 so far, and I want to reach 100 before I turn 40 next July.

Right now, because of COVID, I’m looking for destinations that don’t need you to quarantine or take a multitude of tests - I just got back from the very underrated Austria and Slovenia.

Next, I’m considering Mozambique and Malawi. Although I actually did take up a Jack’s Flight Club deal during lockdown - flights to Lithuania from London City Airport for just £80, which are on hold at the moment.

I’ve still got that as an option, so I might head there, and then tick off Poland and Sweden as well! Three in one.

What’s been your most memorable off-the-cuff experience while travelling?

I was travelling through Belize, taking a bus from the coast to the capital, Belmopan. And we stopped off at a town called San Ignacio.

I was reading my Lonely Planet guide while we waited to move on, so I skimmed through it to find out more about the town.

It turned out that they had these incredible Mayan ruins nearby - a place called Actun Tunichil Muknal, or the Cave of the Crystal Sepulchre. And inside the cave, there’s the crystallised, preserved body of an ancient Mayan sacrifice.

It sounded absolutely fascinating, so I grabbed my bag, and leapt off the bus before it could leave.

I ended up staying there in town for a couple of nights so I could visit the cave. It was just amazing!

That, for me, sums up how brilliant it can be to make these spontaneous, spur of the moment decisions when you’re travelling.

I’d never have experienced all that if I’d just gone on holiday and sat on a beach!

Do you have any advice for solo travellers?

1: Take advantage of indirect flights - make as many stopovers as you can.

Don’t think of it as an inconvenience, treat it as an opportunity to see somewhere else and get a cheaper flight into the bargain!

2: Say yes! I was 20 when I went on my first solo trip, and I remember I was really trepidatious, but it wasn’t necessary at all!

There’s no need to worry - you will meet others. Travelling solo forces you to meet people, to be sociable. You have to fend for yourself, get that train ticket, learn that language. I know a lot of solo travellers use Couchsurfing to meet locals and immerse themselves in the culture.

Along the way, you’ll meet like-minded people who’ll ask if you want to join in their own mini adventures. Don’t live your life in regret, just say yes (within reason, of course)!

3: Get up early and savour it. Waking up before dawn on your holiday is far from relaxing, but getting to a wonder of the world before the hordes is worth every hour of sleep lost. (As an added bonus, this is also a time of day when the light is phenomenal.)

When I was the first of the day’s visitors to set my eyes on the Treasury in Petra, I felt like I was the first explorer ever to discover it!

4: Trust your instincts. Be streetwise and vigilant, don’t get expensive things out, stay on the inside of the pavement. Make sure you don’t come across like a tourist, like someone who doesn’t belong!

That’s why I always plan my routes out ahead of time - I use Google Maps and save the pin points, so that even if I need to take my phone out, I can do it quickly and discreetly, then keep moving.

In South America, I also used to carry a spoof wallet with a bit of money in it, just in case it was ever needed in a mugging.

And finally - what’s the one undiscovered destination that you’d recommend to other JFCers?

There are so many to choose from, but the one that leaves an indelible mark in my mind is the Antarctic Peninsula! I went there with Quark Expeditions back in 2019.

You can sail across the Drake Passage, which will add 4 days onto the trip, but I opted for the quicker flight option, which lands in an Antarctic military base from Chile, and then circled around the Peninsula on a small cruise ship.

It’s not just about looking at glaciers or seeing penguins - the absolute vastness of the place is just incredible. It’s really humbling!

A huge thank-you to Shuo for sharing his story with us! You can see more of his photography here.

If you’ve got a travel story or insight of your own that you’d like to share, drop us a quick email at [email protected] - we’d love to hear from you!

Our Pick Of The Clicks

All the important (or silly, or strange) travel news from across the web this week.

• This remote Indiana town has come up with an interesting way to attract new residents. Move there to work and they’ll offer you a free grandparent. (No, we’re not joking.)
• After two decades of protests and campaigning, Dartmoor Railway in the UK has re-opened. Here’s all the stunning sights you can check out if you hop aboard.
• One flight attendant offers her advice on how to get around airline baggage restrictions - by stuffing a pillowcase full of clothes.
• Curd your enthusiasm, folks: the world’s best cheese has just been announced.
• Meanwhile, Rome is going full Blade Runner, with a plan to implement flying taxis by 2024.

Would You Look At The State Of That

After two long years, the USA has opened up its borders to vaccinated travellers - and horrifyingly, hotel bookings are already up 63%. So where can you go if you want to dodge the crowds?

We take a look at the country’s three least-visited states, and give you some recommendations on the strangest and most interesting under-seen tourist destinations:

3: Delaware (9.2 million visitors per year)

Poor Delaware.

At 96 miles across, the second-smallest state in the USA, no wonder it doesn’t see a huge number of travellers coming its way (the very smallest, Rhode Island, at least has sailing and clam chowder to bring in the punters).

Where should I visit?

Rehoboth Beach claims to be Delaware’s ‘most-visited city’ - which, as we’ve established, is a bit of a low bar, but good for them.

This quaint, old-fashioned boardwalk resort might look like the town out of Jaws, but it’s a good deal more than its appearance - Rehoboth has a thriving, historic LGBTQ+ scene and an array of delicious seafood restaurants.

Its beach has been well-rated for its beauty and cleanliness, too (which we’re sure has nothing to do with the suits from Washington DC coming over every summer for a break in the sun).

Where’s next on the road trip?

Well, if you’re sick of all the small-town charm and friendliness, you can hop on a ferry from Rehoboth to Cape May, and then drive up the coast to New York.

Alternatively, head west over the extraordinary 5-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge towards Washington - you’ll be checking out the Lincoln Memorial and jogging around the Reflecting Pool with Captain America in just a few hours.

2: Wyoming (9 million visitors per year)

This one surprised us a little - but then again, while Yellowstone National Park is the state’s most famous draw, there’s not necessarily much in Wyoming for travellers who aren’t interested in bears, picnics, and terrifying supervolcanoes.

Where should I visit?

Other than all that awe-inspiring natural beauty, Wyoming has one very unusual draw - really awesome treehouses.

Yes, the Cowboy State’s residents have kept themselves busy by constructing ingenious wooden structures that tower over the nearby landscapes.

There’s the Smith Mansion, a beautiful if ill-advised home whose owner eventually fell from one of its many balconies. (It’s too rickety to enter, but you can get some great pics from outside).

And then there’s the Crow’s Nest in Yellowstone, a treehouse in the Old Faithful Inn, built by a young architect to try and live up to his childhood dreams. You can visit this one, but just make sure to call ahead and reserve - the inn is open from May to October.

Where’s next on the road trip?

Outside of Wyoming, you’ll find magnificent landscapes and national forests to the west and south, in Idaho and Colorado.

But assuming you’re in the mood for something different, we’d drive south-west; you can take the Interstate 15 through Utah and watch the landscape change. Pass through Salt Lake City, and you’ll make it all the way down to the Mojave Desert (and Vegas, baby!).

1: Alaska (2.5 million visitors per year)

Yes, the USA’s biggest state is also its emptiest. But because of Alaska’s freezing climate and low overall population, the relatively few travellers who do show up have an outsized impact. (In 2017, one in 10 Alaskans were working in the tourist industry.)

Still, if you want to avoid the crowds, 1.7 million km of sweeping wilderness is probably the way to go, right?

Where should I visit?

Alaska’s landscape is dotted with eerie, beautiful ghost towns - old ruins of frontier life, filled with fascinating detail.

We’d recommend you check out the ghost town of Solomon on Alaska’s southern coast - population zero, although it does have a single seasonal BnB. It’s famous for the wrecked, ancient steam trains that sit just outside it, half-collapsed into the marsh, abandoned after efforts to build a railway were halted by weather conditions ‘unfit for man or beast'.

‘The Last Train To Nowhere’ has become a popular tourist attraction in its own right (and makes for some great photos for the Gram).

Where’s next on the road trip?

Alaska is cut off from the rest of the USA, of course, but that just means you can take a road trip east across the border and into the Yukon Territory of Canada.

Between the caribou and grizzly bears roaming the nature reserves, and the stunning glacial lakes, there’s plenty here to keep you entertained.

Speaking of Canada, epic scenes in Saskatchewan...as a moose gets loose.

Thanks for reading!