Traveling During a Pandemic

The last few weeks have been far less than ideal.

Our family and friends are either in lockdown (in NZ) or isolating in the States, Zahn can’t run her business, our travel plans have been disrupted and we are in a foreign county not knowing when we’ll be able to leave.

This isn’t just a holiday for us. We left our jobs (kind of), sold everything we owned and put all our savings on the line to go on this epic adventure that has stalled.

We are lucky; food is cheap, housing is inexpensive and we can do a weekly essentials shop to avoid going out often so this is by no means a sob story, just an update. Boy, it’s a long one!

To add to the disruption, on Sunday we were told that tourist accommodation including AirBnB will be closing as part of the isolation in the hopes we find our way home. “You don’t have to go home but get the hell outa here”!

Two weeks ago the advice was to stay where we are and find somewhere safe to stay so that is what we did.

We left our shitty AirBnB (video in the story highlights on IG if you missed it) in Guadalajara 10 days ago for Sayulita. Obviously, to find a nicer living situation but also reduce our exposure to people.

After a lot of discussions, we have decided to stay here in Sayulita.

We don’t have a house, belongings or full-time jobs to go back to in NZ so wouldn’t be able to support ourselves with the high cost of living plus there are limited flights. We’d need to take 6 different (very expensive) flights just to get quarantined in an Auckland hotel.

We have negotiated with our AirBnB host to rent our current little house off her directly for at the least the next 2 months (but probably longer) so we have somewhere safe to stay that technically is no longer AirBnB or a hotel.

Mexico offers a 6-month visa on arrival so we’ve got until September for the border restrictions to relax so we can get out and go somewhere else but we are really hoping we can actually see some of Mexico before we leave.🤞

So, for now, we’ll be in isolation in Sayulita, learning Spanish, talking to Ginger (the white horse across the road) and watching a lot of Nelflix like everyone else so if you have any good suggestions, flick them our way.