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Booked: A Humble Homebound Journey
China 2021
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39 Comments
China 2021
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Hi Ricky, sorry to hear your grandfather is dying. Hope you can spend some time with him before he passes away.
With that aside, I don’t think we should be promoting travelling during the pandemic. Most people have not been travelling, but some people have been and that’s unfortunately why we have so many variants popping up in Canada from the UK, Brazil, South Africa and India.
Unfortunately the government in Canada has done such a bad job handling the pandemic and hasn’t been preventing people from travelling between regions and transmitting the virus further. We need to follow Australia and New Zealand’s lead if we will ever get the virus under control.
While we all want to travel and go back to normalcy, we can’t do that responsibly at this time. Plenty of travel influencers are able to work from home and in isolation, so they don’t have to deal with many of the consequences that result from increased transmission and community spread at workplaces. People who work in grocery stores, factories, warehouses, schools and hospitals have all had their health further jeopardized from more dangerous variants that continue entering Canada.
These people can’t avoid the virus by working at home. So when you as a travel blogger books a vacation and encourages others to travel, you are increasing the likelihood of further virus and variant transmission. Communities in Canada are impacted by travellers importing the virus.
I know you are the business of being a travel influencer. I know that your business is hurting. I know you are bored of staying home instead of flying around spending points. But so are most other small businesses and frequent travellers.
We will never end this pandemic in Canada if people like you keep travelling and bringing new variants into the country. Please think about the people who can’t stay safe at home, who have to go to work in person and end up catching the virus and dying. Please don’t be selfish and think about how your actions are going to impact others.
Stay safe.
To be clear, I don’t promote or encourage anyone to embark on leisure travel at this time.
I also think that we can’t possibly completely stamp out travel for essential purposes, and that it’s possible for such travel to take place in a way that minimizes virus transmission. For that to happen, those who do travel for essential purposes ought to be best-informed of the current state of travel around the world, and that’s the value that I hope to bring in producing current travel-related content. I strive to set the right example by fastidiously observing the many burdensome rules and requirements around travel these days.
As you’ve touched upon, after reading these articles, some readers may be “influenced” to embark on trips of their own. Statistically speaking, not all travellers will always be following the rules, and that may contribute to a higher likelihood of virus and variant transmission. While I don’t dispute that, I’d put forth that the value brought to travellers who might be embarking on similar essential journeys home (many of whom have left comments here) as well as Canadians looking ahead at future travels isn’t being factored in here.
Lastly I wanted to thank you for your comment. You’re right that I’ve been fortunate enough to be relatively insulated from the impacts of the virus’s spread at workplaces and public areas, and even though I’m firm in my belief that my reporting on present-day travel experiences does more good than harm, you’ve given me plenty to think about in terms of how the message is best communicated in future content.
Just a comment about the Pfizer vaccine, not sure if there’s a way for you get your second dose in HK still because here in BC, Canada (and I think for rest of Canada) you have to wait 120 days post first dose. Even if you’re ok with 120 days post first dose, since your first dose will be outside of Canada I’m not sure if you would be eligible to get second dose here especially if you don’t have the yellow slip for the Province’s COVID immunizations. They might not accept your slip from Hong Kong at the COVID vaccination sites here. Just a heads up.
Thanks for the heads-up. Yeah I’m aware it may be a logistical obstacle in the end, but I do feel like getting the first dose as early as possible would outweigh that – especially as the two doses are exactly the same, as I understand it.
I thoroughly enjoyed the St Regis Jingan in Shanghai.
Thanks for the tip Mike – I wasn’t too sure about the St. Regis looking at the pics, but I’ll try to check it out now that it’s been recommended.
I second that! Great lounge offerings.
Have a safe trip Ricky. I just had one back to China and returned to Canada recently. 14 days of centralized hotel quarantine is not that bad.
Just starting Day 1 now. I could see myself losing it by Day 8 or 9, but we shall see!
Have a safe trip Ricky, looking forward to seeing your updates on the hotels
Getting so fucking tired of Travel Influencers deciding they’ve had enough of following pandemic rules and flying abroad for vacations.
Of course your above the rules that everyone else is being asked to follow Ricky. While 99% of people have listened to public health and avoided non-essential travel, you felt it necessary to take a vacation to Dubai last Novemeber. You’re so fucking selfish. If everybody in Canada ignored essential travel guidelines like you do, we would have 100x as many cases and variants.
Sorry to hear your grandpa is dying. But like everybody else in Canada who has ill relatives abroad, this isn’t an excuse to go on vacation to China. Tens of thousands of Canadians have lost family abroad who became sick during COVID, but once again they didn’t travel and followed the guidelines of public health to try and keep themselves and everyone else safe.
Instead, you choose to repeatedly emanate the behaviour of the asshole politicians that were caught travelling last Christmas to see family and go on vacation.
So fucking tired of travel influencers like you being asshats and further endangering the health of everyone else by 1) travelling unnecessarily and 2) encouraging others to do so.
Guess you feel no guilt or shame about all your travel plans eh? No wonder. Thanks for being such a selfish prick!
This foul-mouthed tirade is a prime example of the sort of harmful and judgemental “travel shaming” culture that absolutely needs to end.
Under well-managed and well-enforced testing and quarantine procedures, the movement of people for essential purposes plays a minimal role in the spread of the virus. International travellers who must travel for family, work, or education purposes have been unfairly scapegoated in recent months, whereas half-hearted local restrictions have played a far greater role in facilitating the recent waves in Canada.
No one should feel “guilt or shame” for making the carefully considered decision to travel while abiding by testing and quarantine requirements and avoiding contact with vulnerable populations if they’ve also come in contact with others recently. Hell, I feel much more shame in the instances when I’ve admittedly met small groups of people outdoors with masks lowered, than in travelling around a country with 0.01 cases per 100,000 inhabitants after completing 14 days of quarantine and 7 days of health monitoring.
What’s happening in Canada is not a result of travel at this point.
“we would have 100x as many cases and variants.”
And? So be it. Such is life and if that’s the price to travel me and many travellers would happily pay it.
While travel cases are not to be ignored, 99% of the cases (you can look it up) are NOT travel related. There are many more “pricks’ who are not following local lockdown/screening rules. Travel for compassionate reasons is allowed and he is following all the testing and quarantine procedures. Take a chill pill and stay safe.
I don’t need to look it up – I work in a hospital looking after critically ill patients. 85% of what we see is the B117 variant. 5-7% B351 from South Africa. Suggesting they walked across the Atlantic ocean? Actually arrived right around the time Ricky came back from Dubai. These variants wouldn’t be here without travel.
When the covid-19 case was first reported in China, it caught everybody off-guard. Still, China had its new cases to single digit in 3 months
Why do things get so out of control here in North America? Take a walk at Dundas Square in Toronto and you will get an idea. Why should travelers take all the blames? What really matters is how people and the government are handling it.
Have a great trip!! Keep us up to date!
Good that you’ll be able to spend some time with your parents. The only region of China I have visited (beside the more common Beijing-Xian-Shanghai route) is Yunnan (Kungming-Dali-Lijiang-Shangri La) and I loved it. I would like to visit Sichuan too and probably the south of Yunnan. I’ll be very interested in reading about your experience in Sichuan. I wish you a good trip.
I have fond memories of Yunnan – Lijiang in particular. Hope to return one day (maybe even on this trip) to check out the unique Xishuangbanna region.
Looking forward to the hotel reviews in China, hopefully the experience will enable you to create more contents for the less known hotel programmes in Canada, such as Hyatt, IHG, and Accor.
how could you travel to China using Canadian passport?
Did you read the article?
Hi Ricky, If you are planning to get the first dose of Pfizer in Hong Kong, you should get it before the end of August as the vaccination centres will operate until September and that is the time when the Pfizer vaccines will expire. Not sure about your timetable but do note this. Please double check my information as this was announced through the government here
Thanks for the heads up, I didn’t know about that. Yes, I’d probably aim for early June to make it to Hong Kong.
Bon Voyage and looking forward to your hotel updates. I miss SE ASIA and am suffering withdrawal since covid hit. Havn’t been to Asia since January 2020
I’m glad the award ticket to Songyuan was able to be converted to a revenue ticket to PVG. Since it’s a revenue ticket, does that mean you’ll earn AP points on YYZ-PVG?
More accurately, it was one of the higher-tier revenue buckets (since cash and points book into the same fare buckets now). I don’t think I’ll be earning points since it was still a points redemption.
While the previous poster came off pretty harsh, I think it would have been better to just say you were returning to China to visit your grandpa instead of trying to turn it into a China sightseeing adventure. Bad optics right now.
I appreciate your concern, but I’d much rather be transparent for our readers. Since I’m in China to see my family, I’d like to spend some quality time with them, and travelling locally and safely is one of the ways I’ll be doing that.
Good luck and happy travels!
Hot tip in Shanghai for X Montrealer: Tock’s Montreal Deli.
Well done sir! I await your updates travel warrior! We have similar backgrounds with travel to YVR, PEK or PVG depending on where in-laws are. Add in some HKG and Shenzhen shopping for good measure!
Travel safe Ricky! Hope your grandpa will get better soon! And as always, thanks for this thoughtful article. I hope I could travel back home as well this year, i do feel a bit home sick.
Thanks for the good wishes. He’s been bedridden for a few years now, but is hanging in there strong. In the future I’ll always be grateful to have been able to make so many trips back to visit him.
Safe travels Ricky!
Wow Ricky, amazing that you were able to actually take advantage of Songyuan and save hundreds of thousands of APs on this flight. Can’t say I’m not jealous as I am also looking to visit family back in China. I hope you can write about the process of getting the visa in the future as I’ve heard it’s borderline impossible. Have a safe trip!
Guess a couple weeks in Mexico prior to your return, if the current US/Canada restrictions are still in place.
Nothing is off the table at this point – and certainly not a few weeks in sunny Mexico.
Have a good time there Ricky, I wish I had the flexibility you do.
I wouldn’t mind spending several months in Asia…Canada is such a mess right now.