Travel advice for going to France and other countries during COVID-19 pandemic: Take precautions and you'll be fine

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This was published 2 years ago

Travel advice for going to France and other countries during COVID-19 pandemic: Take precautions and you'll be fine

By Lee Tulloch
A trip to France was worth it, despite the potential risks.

A trip to France was worth it, despite the potential risks.Credit: iStock

After Ash Barty won the women's final of the Australian Open last month, her mind-set coach, Ben Crowe, made several television appearances to talk about the techniques he employed to help her focus on her game.

"The process is about accepting the things you can't control … and focusing your attention back on the things you can," he told the ABC TV's The Drum. "Focusing on the future or past is wasted energy because we can't control either."

That's good advice for travellers too.

The pandemic has brought much uncertainty into our lives and added risks to international travel that we couldn't have imagined back in the golden era of travel, before 2020.

But is it really as risky as we think? Are our fears and anxieties about stepping out again mostly a mind-set thing?

I struggled with anxiety ahead of my first trip out of Australia for almost two years, to France in December. Australia's borders had just opened and I didn't entirely trust that the government wouldn't suddenly clamp them shut again, especially as a then new variant, Omicron, seemed to be taking hold in Europe.

The biggest worry was catching COVID-19 on the flight over. But there were plenty of other logistical concerns. I worried about where to get a pre-flight COVID test in Sydney that would give me my result in time. I worried about testing positive while overseas and not being able to get home for weeks. I worried that the French would reject my vaccination documents and not let me in. I worried how my international vaccine certificate would be "translated" into a necessary French QR code to access shops, restaurants and trains. I worried how I would get a PCR test in Paris ahead of my flight back.

I worried about small details and large concepts. I had to work most of it out myself, because information was contradictory, changing all the time and there weren't many travellers to ask. I almost didn't go because the risks seemed to outweigh the advantages.

I'm glad I did. Absolutely nothing I worried about came to pass.

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The French let me into the country without even a glance at my many documents. At the pharmacy next door to my hotel, for the cost of €36, it took 10 minutes for the pharmacist to change my vaccination certificate into a QR code, which was captured on the TousAntiCovid app, accepted everywhere with a tap.

When it came time to get a PCR test, I signed up for DoctoLib, the French version of HotDocs, and booked myself into one of the hundreds of small laboratories in the city that had availability. They were efficient at €46 ($73) and I got my results within 12 hours.

I did not catch COVID, even though I travelled in crowded economy class cabins, attended a conference with hundreds of others, battled through scrums of people at a chaotic Paris CDG check-in on my way out, and then stood online for more than an hour in an unventilated basement at Passport Control with only half the queue wearing their masks properly.

Things might have turned out differently. There was an element of luck, I suppose. But I also controlled the things I could control. I had my booster shot well before I flew. I wore the best possible mask I could wear and made sure I wore it properly. I kept my trip simple, without side trips or too many connections. I had travel insurance that covered COVID (included in the airfare.)

It was winter, so I dined indoors in crowded restaurants and bistros, that being unavoidable. I went to department stores and galleries and spent a lot of time, suitably distanced, in hotel bars and lobbies. But I avoided nightclubs, cinemas and limited my trips on the Metro. I walked where I could.

I had a wonderful time. Being careful and taking a few precautions didn't affect this at all.

I learned not to worry about the larger "what ifs". All travel is risk. In many ways, it's part of the pleasure, putting ourselves in unfamiliar environments and situations, socialising with strangers. Bubbling under the surface of any trip is a potential disaster that affects our plans, if we think about it this way. COVID is at least a known unknown, as they say.

The minute we step into a taxi to the airport, we've already controlled what we can control. The rest is out of our hands.

lee.tulloch@traveller.com.au

See also: Want to travel in Europe this year? The eight things you need to know

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