Tips for Traveling to the Beach During Covid-19

To vacation or not to vacation, that is the question!

Starting in April, I found my social media feed full of beautiful beach pictures. Since everyone was doing virtual school, families decided to to opt for a change of scenery. While I loved seeing the white sandy beach pictures and smiling faces, it made me wonder how safe it was to vacation during this crazy time.

On a normal pre Covid-19 day, I’m a very anxious mom when it comes to germs. After having 2 sons born over 3 months early, I’ve taken on the role of being super cautious. So, when my husband suggested going on vacation last month, my heart started racing immediately.

kids on the beachAfter doing some research for the best fit of accommodations for my family, stocking up on some cleaning supplies and going over some ground rules with our kiddos, we decided to give it a try and go on vacation.

Here are some tips I learned on our 2020 beach vacation ::

Accommodations

Renting a private vacation home would have been my first choice, but sadly it wasn’t in the budget this year for our family of 5. I started to look at condos on the Gulf Coast.

One thing that was important to me was having a condo on the first floor with an outer entrance / exit so we wouldn’t have to go inside of a lobby and use elevators. We also wanted to be in a less populated area that had a private beach for guests to limit an over crowded area.

Clean and Disinfect!

We all have seen those news segments where they show how dirty even “cleaned” hotels are, right? They are rather cringe worthy! So I knew that we would have to clean once we arrived at the condo. My husband and I developed a plan to clean it as best as we could. Upon arrival, we took the comforters off the bed and stored them in the closets. I’ve read that these aren’t laundered as often and since it was summer, we didn’t need them anyway; just placing these into the closet was the best option.

From there, we striped the beds and washed all sheets. We brought our own pillows from home. Next up was the bathrooms, we cleaned the tub / showers / toilets with disinfectant and sprayed down all handles and sinks. For the common living areas, we paid close attention to light switches and remotes. To clean the couches and living room chairs, we made sure to pick up some fabric safe disinfectant! As far as the kitchen goes, we cleaned as we normally would at home with disinfectant spray (make sure to not forget handles to the microwave, dishwasher, sink and fridge!).

Pro tip :: My husband stayed back and cleaned the condo while I went and picked up our curbside grocery order with the kiddos so none of the kids went into the condo before it was cleaned and disinfected!

Grocery Shopping and Meals

Mommas, curbside pickup is heaven sent during this crazy time! I was able to place a Walmart Pickup order days before we left on vacation. It was so easy to just head on over after check in, pop open my trunk and head on back to the condo! However, there is something you almost always forget despite double checking the list multiple times. So what to do then? SHIPT! I was ecstatic to see that Shipt delivered to our condo and was able to add those last few items we forgot. So we didn’t even have to enter one store.

restaurant take out for dinnerOn vacation, our family enjoys to eat out a handful of times but due to Covid-19, we chose to skip dining out at all. We froze some meals before we left and decided to pick up curbside from one of our favorite restaurants where we usually dine at during vacation. And if I have to be completely honest, it was rather refreshing being at the resort 95% of the time this vacation.

Beach and Pool

relaxing at the beachDue to social distancing, we decided to opt for the beach chair and umbrella daily rental to ensure we had ample space for our beach time. It was some of the best money we spent! It really gave us the space we needed and it was so nice to not have to haul so much gear daily to the beach.

As far as the pool, we noticed that the least crowded times were around 6PM. While most families were prepping or going to dinner, we decided to take advantage of this quiet time. So after we finished at the beach, we would head over to the pool.

enjoying the pool during the non-peak timesThis vacation was much needed for our family. And even though I spent the first 2 days full of anxiety, I was able to chill out after a few days and have fun. It was so nice to escape the “new normal” for a couple of days! So even though I had some reservations about traveling during Covid-19, I am glad we did it safely! I hope these tips help and are a start to make a plan for you to enjoy a getaway during the last month of summer.

Are you traveling this summer?

Mary Olivio
Mary is a caffeine addicted boy mom to Noah, Liam and Luke. This “stay at home” mom can typically been found cruising in her minivan, jamming to Beyonce with a Starbucks in hand on her way to carpool or after school activities. Mary has been married to her high school sweetheart since 2007. She is a founder of Delivering Hope NOLA and the Vanessa Wolff Scholarship Fund at her Alma Mater. Mary is passionate in the local preemie community and has been heavily involved with the March of Dimes since her sons Liam and Luke were born premature.

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