Have you noticed the number of cars parked at local hotels? I’ve noticed that tho lots are not full, there are nevertheless several cars - probably 1/2 full. Are you seeing anything similar? Who is traveling in these days of COVID?
1 or 2 times a week my drive to the golf course takes me past several hotels. FTR, the route is Butterfield Rd in DuPage Cty, west of Chicago, through Elmhurst, Oak Brook Terrace, Villa Park, and Lombard. The hotels range from Holiday Inn Express to tonier extended stays. My impression has long been that folk who stayed there were either attending shows at a dinner theater (Drury Lane), shopping at 2 local malls (Oak Brook or Yorktown), or business travelers for the many office buildings in the area. I’d imagined mall traffic and business travel were WAY down. The area is some distance from OHare, and a ways from the Loop and many other primary tourist attractions.
My daughter is staying in one tonight. She’s moving two states away, and stopping halfway for the night.
I’m staying in one next week. We decided to go on a vacation to the San Juan Islands (Washington state).
I’m also in the Chicago suburbs and have noticed fairly full parking lots. Not packed but not ghost towns, either.
Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a lot of Chicago area people staying in local hotels since the storm earlier this week left a half million people without power and, even now, there’s about 100,000 still waiting for power to be restored.
Yeah - those were some storms. We were only out for 4 hrs or so, my dtr for 2 days. I guess we were lucky.
But the most recent I drove that stretch was last Sun.
I just came from Mackinac Island this Monday and Tuesday. Lots of people there in the hotels for a weekday but nothing like a normal summer where it would be packed. It was actually kind of nice with it not being crowded and people wore their mask indoors and were obeying social distancing outside.
I stayed in a hotel overnight earlier in the week. I was doing early morning engineering work at an office way too far from home to travel on the day. It was an odd experience - no hotel services - restaurant closed, bar closed, all removable items were removed from the room, no mini-bar. Breakfast in a paper bag.
I took anti-bac wipes and cleaned every surface I was likely to touch. Though I forgot to do the same with the hire car. I can feel the CV bugs slowly eating away at me.
I stayed over last weekend in a hotel in San Luis Obispo, CA. Lot was full both nights. I had to request a coffee maker be sent up, because they take them away for disinfecting after someone stays. The room actually had a sticker sealing the door when I first went in, ‘sanitized for your protection’.
Technically, I think touristic travel may still be banned most counties of my state. I think it’s business travelers, other travelers and some people on vacation who decided to risk it.
We recently used a beach house owned by a friend. We had it for only a couple of days, so, to maximize our time, we drove out the night before and stayed one night at an old motor lodge place. All individual cabins. We had no actual contact with anyone, and just spoke to the desk clerk on check-in.
I consider myself to be pretty cautious. I also have two 7-year-olds. We have to find ways to get out and about in the world. We take some risks from time to time, because we think a year or more (ultimately) of being cooped up in our house is going to have big effects, which we are trying to moderate. We try to limit the risks, and strike a balance.
ETA: I hit the wrong reply button. This was not addressed to any particular poster.
Some people staying in hotels includes doctors and nurses (and other medical staff) who are traveling for work. Some are medical staff who are isolating themselves so their families are safe. Others are people who tested positive and want to isolate themselves from family.
I work at a hotel in Australia, and our answer is…very damn few. We’ve no one staying until the 26th, and I suspect he’ll be cancelling/changing his booking, as he’s from one of the Stage IV lockdown areas (Melbourne area). Theoretically, someone from somewhere else in regional Victoria can stay with us, but there’s hardly any travel going on now. Not just because of COVID; it’s late winter down here, and the weather is gray, dank, and chilly. Not exactly holiday time. And every other state has travel restrictions to/from Victoria.
We did have a few weeks last month when the restrictions weren’t quite as stringent; even then, we’d only have a few room-nights a week inhouse.
As I was driving home yesterday, I was kind of shocked when I went by a hotel and saw quite a few people going into the building. The parking lot was full and people were carrying in coolers, pillows, etc. There is another hotel about a block up the road from there. I looked at the lot and it was full too.
My sister and BIL moved to Arizona last fall and lived in their camper until purchasing a home in June. They had all of their belongings in storage here. They came into town a few weeks ago to take a load of stuff home and stayed all week in a hotel. She said they had no maid service the whole time they were there. The rooms are only cleaned after guests leave. She said they had to go to the front desk when they needed towels. My BIL asked to borrow a vacuum halfway through their stay so he could vacuum their room.
As mentioned above, some hotel/motel residents are medical workers choosing to self-isolate from family due to the pandemic; I recall reading about hotel chains donating rooms in those circumstances. (I’ve also seen accounts of private citizens donating the use of their RVs/campers for medical workers.) And at least around here (Tri-State NY/NJ/CT), some medical workers are staying in hotels just to cut down the commute times before/after their insanely-long work shifts; if you’re working 18-hour days, every minute spent sleeping rather than commuting helps.
And for the past 10 days or so, there have been a bunch of out-of-state utility workers around here dealing with downed electric wires and/or trees, after Isaias came through; they have to sleep somewhere. I’d bet there are bunch in the Iowa/Illinois area these days too, after the derecho a few days back.
There are no travel restrictions in California, and hotels on the coast are pretty full. At the places I stayed on a trip down to San Diego, they touted their new cleaning protocols (no daily maid service, etc), some had stickers on the doors of freshly-cleaned rooms for new guests. They had signs posted at check in stating mandatory mask and social distance requirements for guests in public areas. The “continental breakfasts” are now pre-packed to-go bags or a limited selection of packaged items and coffee served by hotel employees on a per-guest basis.
My feeling is that if one observes the local restrictions and guidelines, avoids crowds, etc, traveling within the state and staying in a hotel is no riskier than going to a gas station or getting groceries at home.
We just spent 2 nights in one in Galena, Il…No services, no restaurant, no breakfast, no housekeeping. The pool was open as was the rest of the town for the most part. Was a relaxing couple of days.
I bet there are people staying there as part of driving vacations or road trips to visit family - seems safer than flying, guess.
Curious, what’s the “Australian” definition of “chilly” ?
There might not be any mandatory restrictions, but the state is definitely asking people not to travel for vacations:
You can travel for urgent matters or if such travel is essential to your permitted work. Even though businesses around the state are opening up, avoid travelling long distances for vacations or pleasure as much as possible.
Wow, that state-wide stay at home order is news to me…the wording is definitely unambiguous, but an ongoing stay at home mandate has not been publicized, followed or enforced. (Father down the page it does say “avoid travelling long distances for vacations or pleasure as much as possible.”-- a bit of a loophole, I’d say) Heck, even the official Visit California website says,
"Travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic still allow travel in California, and many tourist destinations have reopened.
Travelers should practice proper physical distancing and sanitation practices, wear face coverings, and follow all public health rules in the counties visited."
There are a couple of counties that haven’t opened their hotels, but I’m getting emails from places I’ve stayed in other localities begging me to come back.
I’m getting emails from Vegas hotels saying they’re ready for me when I’m ready. I’m not the most extreme quarantiner, but even I’m not ready for Vegas yet.
I don’t even live in CA, and I know about it. It was pretty big news when it happened. There were local/county ones first, then the statewide one.