This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at CU Boulder chapter.
In 2020, I was supposed to go home during Christmas. I was surprised with a roundtrip ticket to Uganda and I couldn’t help but think that Covid-19 would be gone by the time I was leaving. This was in January 2020, when the pandemic seemed so far away from the world. The time came and I could no longer look back. I decided to risk it and travel, it seemed everything was safe, as new rules and regulations had been set.
Before traveling, I had to take five Covid tests for the duration of a week to make sure my tests aligned with the Covid restrictions of the countries I would be transiting in. I also had to take one more when I arrived in Uganda just to make sure I did not contract the virus while traveling.
Photo by Mufid Majnun from Unsplash
The journey started at Denver International Airport where I had to fill out two extensive contact documents for Covid-19 contact tracing, which meant arriving at the airport four-five hours before my flight and making sure I had all my information ready. It was calming to see that not many people were traveling and even more helpful to see the implications such as: changing air circulation, spraying the plane every few hours, and providing every meal in a sealed and sanitized package. I think the most challenging part of traveling is wearing a mask for 21+ hours, but it’s not impossible.
Anna Shvets via Pexels
Overall, from what I’ve seen, when it comes to traveling you have to be careful when you make the decision to do so. It requires a lot of sacrifice, isolation, and caution because this pandemic has not gone anywhere. I was just lucky enough to go home for the winter to be with my family in times when so many have lost theirs.
Ornella is a freshman and a writer for hercampus CU Boulder. She is majoring in Political Science, with a minor in leadership studies and philosophy. She likes to write about current events and news.
