How COVID-19 has affected our plans

2020 has been a year we would all just love to forget. Back in February, when we were first introduced to the word “coronavirus”, we were in the middle of finalizing our plans for this new lifestyle. We are planners, we had contingency plans for our contingency plans.

But we never expected something like this!

You can read “Why we chose Chiang Mai, Thailand as our first destination”, which I wrote pre-COVID. Plan A has always been to visit SE Asia first, due mainly to the low cost of living and its reputation as a digital nomad hot spot.

As I write this in July 2020, that plan seems very much in jeopardy. Our U.S. passports used to be a golden ticket for world travel, welcomed everywhere. Not so much right now!

But we will adjust as necessary. We’ve developed plans A, B, C, and D to fall back on for beginning our adventure.

Plan A – Chiang Mai, Thailand

I don’t need to say any more here, you can read the original article to find out why this is plan A. If travel from the U.S. to Thailand is allowed at the time, that is where we will go.

Plan B – Another international destination where travel is allowed

There are only a couple of dozen countries where U.S. citizens can freely travel right now, and we don’t know what it will look like when we launch this Fall. Here are a couple of possibilities we’re exploring:

• Mexico
• Puerto Rico
• Caribbean Islands

If we were leaving today, it would probably be to Mexico. They are open for U.S. travelers and there are many affordable destinations to choose from.

Plan C – RV travel in the USA

If travel is simply off-limits this fall, then we may revert to buy or rent an RV and travel the US full-time until April.

While not Plan A, we have definitely been inspired by reading Full Time Families and some various Youtubers who RV full time and share their adventures.

Plan D – Stay home and wait

Definitely the last thing we want to do, but we do have the ability to just wait it out…

COVID-19 has also given us an early taste of homeschooling. Schools shut down where we live in mid-March, so the kids had a good 2 months of time at home where we combined the work that our public school sent to the kids with work that we added as parents. Having never been homeschoolers before, this taste has been quite helpful in seeing how the kids react to learning at home. And it gave us parents some confidence that we will be able to worldschool our kids from anywhere in the world and be just fine.

Lastly, COVID forced our kids to re-imagine their interaction with friends. We know that being away from close friends will be one of the challenges our kiddos will face. During the stay-at-home lockdown they quite easily adapted to visiting friends virtually, mostly via Facetime or playing online games together.

So yes, COVID has been lemons, but there has certainly been some lemonade as well!