Q&A: Traveling in 2021, testing and more testing in Portugal

Hi guys! There are many of you who have not had a holiday abroad in a very long time and the key reason is because of the Covid-related regulations. I have managed to have holiday in Portugal and so I thought I would share my experience in this process with you. Perhaps you're rather worried about traveling abroad at a time like this - not so much because you're afraid of getting Covid but rather you don't want to fall foul of the complex rules and be out of pocket when you're unable to get on your flight. I shall use the Q&A format to help bring some clarity to the matter. Of course, you can view all the photos and videos from my recent trip to Portugal on Instagram; I hope you'll find this post informative and useful. 

Q: Are you allowed to go abroad for a holiday now? 

A: Well I am a British citizen living in England and yes, this has been permitted since the 17th May though there was an extremely short list of 12 countries that had been placed on the 'green list' - which means one does not need to quarantine upon return from these countries. But this list of 12 countries is quite misleading because it includes places like Saint Helena, Ascension Islands, Tristan Da Cunha and South Georgia - these are such extremely remote islands with no direct flights from the UK. Either you have to charter your own jet to fly there or you have to travel via a country like Brazil or South Africa to get there, so effectively, no you can't go there. Then stupidly enough, they included countries like Australia, New Zealand and Singapore on that list despite the fact that these countries have not opened their borders for international tourism yet - so when you remove all of those countries that are either so remote they are impossible to get to or have said "fuck off" to British tourists, you're left with three countries: Iceland, Israel and Portugal. Iceland and Israel have strict quarantine procedures even if you have tested negative and the only way to get around those quarantine requirements is to show that you have been fully vaccinated - which I am not. I have only had my first dose so far. That leaves me with Portugal as the only option where I can get off the plane and start my vacation without a quarantine so I went to Portugal from the 30th May to the 4th June. I do adore Portugal and was thrilled to visit Portugal. 

Q: Wait, what? I thought Portugal is no longer on the green list for the UK?

A: It was on the green list only from the 17th May to the 7th June - effectively, there was only short 22-day  window to visit and I was lucky to have been able to get my trip in during that window of opportunity. When I booked the trip, I had no that the window was closing fast and in hindsight, this might have put me off booking the trip in the first place if I had known that but regardless, I am absolutely delighted to have been able to go to Portugal for my holiday as I had a lovely time there. There are loads of British tourists in Portugal right now scrambling to get flights back to the UK before the 7th June deadline as the announcement was pretty sudden and I was very lucky to have been able to avoid that crazy situation altogether, as I have secured my seat on the flight back on the 4th June - three days before the window closed. 

Q: Are you afraid of getting Covid? 

A: No, because I've already had it. Given that I've also had my first shot of the vaccine, I am confident that even if I do get infected again, my body would know how to produce the right kind of immune response so I would only experience very mild symptoms. I am due to get my second dose of the vaccine in June as well and that day couldn't come any sooner. Quite frankly, I'm going to say something incredibly un-PC: I am not fat. Earlier today, I saw this fat woman in a shop who refused to wear a mask and I thought, it's your own funeral fat lady. It is fat people like you who really suffer severe symptoms when you get Covid and need hospitalization whilst younger, fitter and thinner people get over it a lot more quickly. I exercise very regularly, I have a healthy diet and thus I am not overweight, my body is able to deal with Covid and that was why I recovered relatively quickly unlike those who were more vulnerable because of their age, obesity or underlying medical conditions. I would have a different attitude towards the risk of Covid if I was 20 or 30 years older, but I have proven that my body is more than capable of fighting Covid. There's so much talk about how un-PC it is to fat-shame people who are obese, well I have news for you: the Corona virus doesn't care about being PC and it will make fat people a lot more sick than thinner people. We have been living with Covid for so long, I just want to get back to some degree of normality where we can do the things that we enjoy like travel abroad and experience a different culture. 

Q: Are many British people desperate to go on foreign holiday now?

I see two kinds of reactions to the situation: I have a friend (let's call him Paul - not his real name) who went to Greece on holiday and was willing to quarantine when he got back from Greece; Paul had not had a holiday for too long and in his words, "all that testing, it's just money. I can work from home anyway and I'll be tired after that holiday in Greece. You can't put a price on being able to travel again and have a real holiday." Then in contrast there is Sam (again, not his real name), Sam has to care for his elderly mother who has dementia and as you can imagine, this has been so difficult because of the pandemic. Sam criticized my decision to go on holiday in Portugal - he claimed that I am putting not only my own life at risk but endangering others as well by spreading the virus. I thought that was quite ridiculous because on this trip, I was being constantly tested: before I depart, whilst I am in Portugal and when I return. The risk is minimal because of the rules in place and of course, I took all necessary precautions and followed the rules in Portugal. But in Sam's case, I think he would dearly love a foreign holiday - he hasn't had one for years and under the current circumstances, it would be impossible for him to find someone to take care of his elderly mother whilst he jets off for a holiday in Portugal. So it is a case of sour grapes actually, Sam would love to do what Paul and I did, but given that he simply can't, he is taking a righteous stance by claiming that what Paul and I are doing is simply irresponsible during a pandemic. If taking that stance helps Sam cope with his current situation, so be it but it did put a strain on our friendship. 

Q: How many times do you have to test for this trip? How much does it costs? 

A: Three times: I had to take a test 72 hours before my flight to Porto, then 72 before my flight back to London and then the last one 24 hours after I return to London. A test in London can start from around £50 to £60 if you do a home-test whereby they send you the test kit, you swab yourself and then send off your swab - you will get your results within 24 hours. A more expensive test would be a test in a clinic, whereby you show up at a clinic, a nurse swabs you and then you get the result within 24 hours. Less can go wrong with a test in a clinic - the biggest risk for these tests is that you're completely dependent on the courier to get the test kits to you in time and then rush the test kits to the lab but if you're not under time pressure, then this is at least half the price of a test in a clinic. A test in Portugal costs about 100 euros (£85.90). So in all, I've spent £205.90 in testing - which actually costs considerably more than the flight to Portugal itself. 

Q: Was it stressful to get the tests? 

A: Holy fuck. Yes it was fucking stressful but really, it was mostly because I picked the cheap option. I got a voucher from Easyjet Holidays to use the test provided by Randox Health - it worked out to be £60 a test which is so cheap compared to if I walked into a clinic and got the test done by a nurse (this is typically around £120 to £130). I ordered the tests online nine days before I had to fly, given that I could only do the test 72 hours before the flight took off, I thought I had enough time. The tests I ordered didn't arrive until four days before I was meant to fly which was fine, it was still in time but to wait five days for them to post it to me did really stress me out. I called their hotline several times and each time you had a clueless young person say to me, "I'm sorry sir, I'll check with my manager and somebody will get back to you," but no I never got a call back but the test kits did eventually arrive. I then sent the tests back 72 hours before my flight and I had to wait about 24 hours before I got the results. I left enough time to dash into London to arrange another test just in case the test result was 'void' but thankfully, it never came to that and it did come back negative. Usually I love looking forward to my holidays, I enjoy studying a new language, reading about the things to do, making a list of things to eat but good grief, I could really only relax enough to do all that after I managed to get my Covid test results. Is this the new normal we all just have to get used to? Will our holidays ever go back to the way things were, before the pandemic? 

Q: What was it like getting tested in Portugal? 

A: I booked my test with Unilabs in Portugal and it was somewhat of a challenge as the website was all in Portuguese - fortunately for me, I do speak Portuguese but those who do not would be reliant on Google translate to navigate their website. The confusing thing was that Unilabs were a common sight in Portugal but only a select number of their clinics do Covid-testing so the challenge was to find a slot at your nearest clinic at a time that falls within the 72-hours prior to your flight. I thought I did everything right, I had booked a 5:30 pm slot for my test and so I went to the beach at Matosinhos at lunchtime, thinking I had plenty of time to make my late afternoon test. Then good grief, I forgot to bring my passport with me as that's not the kind of thing you take with you to the beach but I needed it for my test. I rushed back to my hotel, grabbed my passport but was already so late for my appointment as it was 5:30 pm when I got back to the hotel. The staff at the hotel were so incredibly helpful - duty manager called the test center for me and said to me, "I explained the situation to them, they are closing very soon but I asked them and they will wait for you - you must take a taxi to rush there as soon as possible. I will call a taxi for you now, okay?" So he got me a taxi driver who didn't speak English but spoke some French, which was always useful given how stressed I felt at that point already - struggling on in Portuguese would have stressed me out even more. When I got to the Unilabs clinic, they were indeed still open and I apologized profusely for being over an hour late for my slot but they were extremely nice about it - the staff at the clinic spoke some English as they do serve many tourists who needed the test. I got my results within 12 hours by email and apart from my forgetful episode with the passport (that was entirely my fault I must admit) everything else was very easy. 

Q: What were the airports like? Did you have to queue for hours for them to check everything? 

A: Actually the situation was pretty okay - on the way out, I arrived at London Gatwick airport early just in case there was chaos and actually, things were pretty normal and the airline did check at the gate that I had everything in place before I was allowed to board. It took a while longer at Porto airport when I landed but that was only because they didn't open all the counters due to the lack of staff, so everyone from the flight were waiting for the same two guys to check their passports and paperwork. But it is rare to breeze through any airport even in pre-pandemic times, some waiting is inevitable. On the way back, I had to wait over an hour to drop off my bags at the airport because they were checking both the Covid-tests as well as the passenger locator form at that counter, so that was the airline not allocating enough staff to man the counters that led to that delay. We actually brought our lunch along with us, so we were eating our lunch whilst waiting in line. However, after that, there was little fuss in getting through customs and boarding the plane. When we got back to Gatwick airport, there was a long queue because the custom officials were manually checking everyone's paperwork - the automatic gates which simply scanned your passport were not in use. However, credit to Gatwick airport, there were enough staff on hand to make sure that the passengers didn't have to wait too long before they could get through and I was pleasantly surprised that I only had to wait about ten minutes. Some other passengers were subjected to delay because they did not have the right paperwork, but that's entirely their fault for not complying with the new rules. 

Q: What is the impact of this additional costs on holidays then? 

A: Well need I state the obvious? It is going to make holidays a lot more expensive. You used to be able to spend as little as £205 on a long weekend away if got cheap flights with the budget airlines, stayed in the cheapest one star hostels and behaved sensibly with money when it came to food and shopping. But now that's the amount you have to set aside just for the testing alone. If you're spending thousands of pounds on a long holiday, then another £205 or so wouldn't really make that much of a difference. But if you're working on a tight budget and the cost of your holiday just doubled because of the testing required, then I think that's going to stop a lot of poorer people from traveling abroad and they will choose local, domestic destinations instead for their holidays. Likewise for the richer people who do go, they are probably going to take much longer holidays as once you have spent all that money to do all the tests, then you may as well stay longer. 

Q: What about future holidays then? 

A: This is a moving goal post - the Indian/Delta variant has taken root in a few cities in the UK like Bolton and Glasgow and for the first time in months, the number of daily cases is actually increasing - this was after a massive improvement since the peak last winter. But nonetheless the overall picture for the whole country still looks pretty okay. The UK government has resisted doing local lockdowns in places like Bolton where there is a local outbreak because despite the spike in cases there, hospital admissions and daily deaths remain low, suggesting that this is a direct result of our successful vaccination programme which means that even if people do get infected, they're unlikely to require hospitalization and will reap the benefits of being vaccinated. I am not convinced personally, it's easy for me to say that the government should put all of Bolton under lockdown immediately but I don't like in Bolton, I'm a long way away in London and I might feel very differently about another local if the outbreak was local for me in London. Potentially the situation could get worse in the next few weeks, just how bad it could get nobody knows - especially since we're entering a new phase of a pandemic whereby we're seeing a more infectious mutant variant of the virus in a country where there has been a pretty successful vaccination programme. We still have a long way to go before everyone is vaccinated, but at the very least, the oldest and most vulnerable are already vaccinated and they are the obviously ones who are most likely to get very sick from Covid whilst young people, particularly children, can easily recover with little or no medical attention. One of the key factors is to make sure our healthcare system is not overwhelmed, that there is enough capacity to treat anyone who needs oxygen and an ICU bed and so far, everything seems to be pretty okay on that front. 

Q: Will you travel again this summer?

A: Oh I certainly hope so. Even with the additional costs involved, I do enjoy traveling so much that it is a price I am willing to pay. I am lucky enough to be in a position to do this and to quote my friend Paul (as discussed above), "it's just money". My partner and I are due to get our second dose of the vaccine this month, so once we are both completely vaccinated, we will be looking at countries that are letting in fully vaccinated adults for holidays without the need to quarantine. I've just come back from Portugal anyway so I am not looking to travel again for at least a couple weeks - especially since I about to start a new job anyway. There is always the possibility of taking a local holiday of course within the UK and I actually have two friends who did do just that, they went to Wales and have posted some lovely photos on social media. But let's see - the situation may change in a couple of weeks as the weather gets warmer during summer. Last year, we did see a huge drop in infection rates during the summer months because people were not cooped up indoors but were spending more time outdoors and even something as simple as opening a window to let in more fresh air during a hot day (we have already seen the temperature hit 28.3 degrees in London this month) can make a lot of difference. The British government was pretty clueless last year anyway when it came to the whole pandemic anyway so it was clear that the hotter summer weather did make an impact on infection rates and so I have reason to cautiously remain optimistic that things will get somewhat better in the coming summer months as the big difference between this summer and last summer is the fact that the majority of adults in the UK would have been vaccinated already by August. 

Okay so that's it from me on this issue, I will do a follow up piece to talk about my interesting experiences in Portugal as it was so nice to be able to travel again. Please let me know if you have any questions with regards to traveling, testing and taking holidays during this pandemic and I will try my best to answer them. Have you managed to take a holiday this year at all? Do you have any plans to do so this summer? Leave a comment below please and many thanks for reading.