To assume families with children too young to be vaccinated won’t be able to holiday overseas for years?

[ohcarolina2001]

So various countries are welcoming vaccinated people. By autumn my partner and I should both have had both vaccines, but our 1 year old DD is not eligible for a vaccine and by the time all the trials etc have been done on progressively younger people, we are years away from her being vaccinated. AIBU to assume we can’t take her on her first overseas holiday any time soon, because there is no exemption for unvaccinated children who can of course still spread Covid-19?

The only possibility I can see is going to a country which doesn’t require anyone to be vaccinated - but surely these destinations are a much riskier prospect (with an unvaccinated toddler licking everything and no vaccine 100% effective anyway).

Looking at holiday websites, most package holidays seem to be sold out for autumn already. These can’t all have been bought by couples without kids and older couples with adult children, surely? Have families with kids who won’t be vaccinated booked too and are hoping for positive news that kids will be exempt from the requirement to have their vaccines before entry?

Most counties so far seem to be saying vaccine, negative test or antibodies.
Turkey plans to let people in without any checks.
I'll be going as soon as I can.

Under 16s will probably be exempt but worth double checking up to date info for the country you are visiting

Tbh holidays abroad with under 2s are usually a bit shit. Save your money and have a better holiday next year.

Most places are accepting negative tests instead of vaccines. Also Turkey has said that people dont need to be vaccinated, and I suspect others will too once they realise they need the money.

France is open if you show a negative test at the moment, and once in France you can get around Schengen because the Schengen borders have to be open.

Logistically, for car or train travelers, it is possible once the uk allows it (may?)

But: you have to pay for three tests on your return to the uk at the moment and also quarantine, lockdown risks when you get somewhere etc. the vaccine passports discussed also allow negative tests or antibody tests too.

JustTurtlesAlltheWayDown:
All of my close family, including my parents and siblings, are in a different country to me and my DC.
I'm not expecting to see them for at least another year, possibly longer. It's hard but we video call regularly and that will have to do. Travelling is not a necessity. These aren't ordinary times.
.......
Exactly.

@jessstan2 have you seen your family at any point this past year? I haven't. I haven't seen my elderly parents since September 2019. Excuse me if I'm impatient to travel to see them

For those saying travelling to see family abroad is not a necessity - well, what it? As we've learned this past 12 months plenty of things are non essential. That doesn't mean we're happy to do without it, or will be expected to.

I'm assuming my DS will require a negative test to travel to see my family. If that's all it takes we will do it. The worry for me is will we need to hotel quarantine on return to the UK. We would not be able to do that

Most say vaccinated OR A NEGATIVE TEST

@jessstan2 if its legal and made easier to travel by this summer then of course people are going to go.
If you don't chose to its up to you but I don't understand people insisting no more travel for years yet.

@jessstan2 my dad is suicidal. I'm worried it might.

It's not depriving DCs if you don't take them on an overseas holiday. We went on holidays every year as a family but my first overseas holiday was my honeymoon aged 25. DH and I had holidayed in this country before that. And in the over 20 years since, we've holidayed abroad some years but stayed here in this country quite a few times as well.

For all of you proclaiming that travel isn’t a necessity - assume you don’t have family abroad who might actually want to see said children at some point? It annoys me that travel is so blithely written off as being indulgent holidays only. Honestly? This is something people need to consider when they move abroad. Currently people take it as a given that they can travel here there and everywhere whenever they choose, but actually that may not always be the case, and when people emigrate they should factor whether they are prepared to potentially not see family for years or potentially ever again if they do so into the decision process.

I grew up abroad and we didn’t see extended family for years.

One family member died within two years of us coming back, but if we’d still lived abroad we wouldn’t have seen him again.

I didn’t know my grandparents growing up. FaceTime wasn’t a thing and I saw both my grandmothers only once between the ages of 9 and 18.

Now people have the ability to travel but they take it for granted. Because nothing is guaranteed, as people are now discovering, and as people are now experiencing this it needs to be something which people give serious consideration to if they’re planning to go and live abroad and away from family.

@SexTrainGlue I think that's a crazy time frame! A friend of mine went to Greece in October half term just before we (Wales) had a circuit breaker. By July numbers will be far lower then they were then. Its ridiculous to think people wont be travelling abroad for years

It won't be years.
Everywhere needs to get the general level of the virus low and build up herd immunity by vaccinating.

You don't have to be vaccinated to travel, demonstrating a positive test is another option most countries have said alongside vaccination and I'm assuming that's what will be required of children. I believe one of the countries said under 6 will be exempt.

@HeartsAndClubs

For all of you proclaiming that travel isn’t a necessity - assume you don’t have family abroad who might actually want to see said children at some point? It annoys me that travel is so blithely written off as being indulgent holidays only. Honestly? This is something people need to consider when they move abroad. Currently people take it as a given that they can travel here there and everywhere whenever they choose, but actually that may not always be the case, and when people emigrate they should factor whether they are prepared to potentially not see family for years or potentially ever again if they do so into the decision process.

I grew up abroad and we didn’t see extended family for years.

One family member died within two years of us coming back, but if we’d still lived abroad we wouldn’t have seen him again.

I didn’t know my grandparents growing up. FaceTime wasn’t a thing and I saw both my grandmothers only once between the ages of 9 and 18.

Now people have the ability to travel but they take it for granted. Because nothing is guaranteed, as people are now discovering, and as people are now experiencing this it needs to be something which people give serious consideration to if they’re planning to go and live abroad and away from family.

I grew up this way too. Family are dotted around the world. Parents from two different countries. Just tried my best to make my way in the world, which had easily accessible flights.

Don't know how I was supposed to anticipate a global pandemic and plan accordingly, but great to know it's all my fault for not living near my family.

@HeartsAndClubs yes. We may have a future where annual flights to see family abroad are no longer feasible and we go back to waving family goodbye at the port never to be seen again.

We're not there yet though.

There are lovely parts of UK, so I think holidaying here isn't such a bad prospect for another year or two.

Christ what a depressing thought.

This is something people need to consider when they move abroad.

What a weird thing to say. You should risk-assess the possibility of a global once in a lifetime pandemic with school and border closures before accepting a job opportunity the other side of the channel?

We thought about currency fluctuations, job security, school performance etc, but we didn't think about one of the horsemen of the apocalypse showing up so it's our bad!!

At the moment, coming into the UK and returning to Italy, kids are except from the testing, so I imagine the passports would be the same.

The majority of travel isn’t a necessity whatsoever and the less we have of it this year the better as less routes for the virus and mutations and less strain on the nhs.

It makes sense to put heavy restrictions on it be it the vaccine or enforced hotel quarantine so that we don’t go back into another wave or lockdown.

Don't know how I was supposed to anticipate a global pandemic and plan accordingly, but great to know it's all my fault for not living near my family. don’t be so obtuse.

Fact is, when people choose to emigrate they take a number of different factors into account. There are in fact numerous threads here asking about whether moving abroad is the right thing to do and things which come up are:

Moving away from support
Language barriers
Cultural differences
Time taken to travel home and back (e.g. if moving to the Southern Hemisphere)
And one of the things which is considered is that people shouldn’t expect family to visit them if they are the ones to move.
Now all I’m saying is that an additional factor which people need to think about is that there’s always a chance that they might not get to come home as and when they want either, for numerous reasons.

It's really really easy to say this when all your family is close. But for those of us who married Europeans....it's absolutely shit and I think very unfair to say we should have anticipated that we wouldn't be allowed to enter the UK for an entire year, or that we would actually leave Europe. Honestly, that was not something I could have factored in 10 years ago when I got married, before the pandemic and Brexit. It was literally unthinkable. Have a bit of empathy please. I knew there may be periods of 6 months, I could never have predicted it would be years. I'm not saying it can be any different but please try and imagine a life that is different from your own situation. And apologies to people who have lost parents and family, as that is harder still.

As for people feeling depressed that they can’t travel abroad, how about holidaying in the UK and helping out our own economy before flitting off somewhere else.