TripAdvisor just announced its Write A Review Day by offering some advice on crafting an articulate opinion of an experience. Instead, they should mark the occasion by helping me hunt down the author of the review that led me to the "best fried chicken in Ecuador".
It wasn't fried. It definitely wasn't chicken. Wasn't terrible though...
State department wants us to think about more than COVID
The State Department is
reminding travelers that there's more to their travel warnings than COVID levels.
The department's levels have mirrored the CDC's since the beginning of the pandemic, but the latter's overhaul of its travel warning designation system means travelers now have two
systems to check.
The decision to split is meant to avoid confusion for travelers. Many experts felt that other serious health and safety concerns were being overlooked in favor of the COVID rates. For example, Spain is listed as a Level 3 by the CDC for high levels of COVID but is now a Level 2 on the State Department's list due to the mild possibility of terror attacks or potentially violent political demonstrations.
On the other end of the spectrum, Colombia has a Level 1: Low COVID level from the CDC but a Level 3 from the State Department, thanks to its high crime and terrorism rates. Previously, a tourist to Colombia may have disregarded the potential security threats they
could face after deciding the COVID levels were worth the risk. The new system separates these and lets travelers make informed decisions.
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Say hello to the future of outdoor dining
Outdoor-only furniture brand Outer now has everything you need to bring lounging, cooking, and dining outside.
Bobby Berk stole hearts with his wow-worthy home renovations on Queer Eye, and now he has teamed up with Outer to launch a brand new outdoor dining
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The US is in a new COVID transition phase according to Fauci
Yesterday, the White House's chief medical advisor, Anthony Fauci, stated that the US is out of the pandemic stage of COVID in an interview with PBS.
The next day, however, Fauci sought to clarify his words after he claimed the statement was mischaracterized to suggest the country's battle with COVID was over. Speaking to CNN this time, he explained that the United States was in a "new transition phase" where, despite COVID levels rising again, the nation could retain some control and normality.
To emphasize
his own standpoint, Fauci pulled out of the White House Correspondents' Dinner citing an "individual assessment of his own risk".
It should be noted that despite a clearly positive direction, hundreds of Americans are still dying every day. Meanwhile, the government is being widely criticized by members of the travel industry for not following its European and Asian counterparts in dropping the last of its travel restrictions.
| TRAVEL TRENDS
Our Google searches suggest a summer travel boom is coming
Recent Google search data suggests we might be in for a travel boom as summer rolls in.
According to Google's parent company, Alphabet, vacation heavy search terms like "beach" and "island" have skyrocketed by almost 30% compared to pre-pandemic levels, giving a clear indication of where consumers' heads are at.
Maybe more telling was an 80% increase in searches for passports and an almost 40% increase for travel insurance compared to the same period in 2019.
There is the possibility that the search queries are more
conjecture than solid proof of a full rebound. Rising gas prices are making travel expensive, along with pent-up demand driving hotel rates sky-high, which might be enough to put a sizeable portion of the population off for a little longer.
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