I’m at the verge of my whole phone news feed turning into Corona Virus COVID-19 stories. Backtracking to December though. I finally convinced my husband that although I wasn’t going to earn any money for the majority of the year, and we just spent our entire savings on our house renovation, it was the best time to fly to Europe for 2 months.

Fast forward to now and we have everything pretty much booked. But things are very much up in the air. After being asked by so many friends and family members if we are still going, the answer is “We will decide at the start of April.” Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. We lose thousands (and I mean thousands) if we don’t go. If we go, and something happens due to corona virus medically, or travel plans need to change, we could again spend thousands more.

State of mind

Start of March

Reading the data, it seemed kids and infants were at a lower risk but they don’t know why (reassuring). I’d hate myself though if my 9 month or 4 year old got really sick because we went. Plus, we went through some scary seizures with my daughter at that age so that brings back fun memories too. Either way, I’d say at the end of Feb/start of this month, I was leaning more to a yes.

Enter in the Italy travel ban, and a few articles saying airlines were now offering change of dates etc. and I’m back on the fence. If we don’t lose potentially half of our trips money (close to $10k), then maybe it is worthwhile cancelling?

End of March

Not much more to say apart from, “See ya Europe, maybe in another 5 years.” Fingers crossed we can do a road trip instead prior to me returning to work late this year. Refund wise, we are doing pretty well so far. Luckily we booked mainly AirBNB so a lot of those cancellation policies were pretty relaxed. Our airline has issued vouchers and now we are waiting to hear back about trains, and hotels. It’s tough, as every dollar you get back is being taken away from a business that desperately needs it to. No winners here.