The Planning: COVID, Cats, and Cost.

I am a planner, through and through. After we decided to move to New Zealand, we wanted to take advantage of this momentous life change and do some travel before landing on the other side of the globe. The logistical challenges: well, COVID. And, we would be travelling with our two cats. Yep, cats. Both items were even a bit more complicated than I initially anticipated.

With respect to COVID, we planned on being vaccinated before departing the US. But, we still wanted to avoid countries where the virus was rampant. And, we needed to plan our travel to countries that would, well, let us in. We learned that this list would change rapidly throughout the first half of 2021.

And then there’s Abe and Lincoln (pictured above), our cats. They are making the big move with us and New Zealand is pretty strict about letting animals in, though not as strict as some other countries. There is a list of countries that the cats are allowed to have visited within the 6 months prior to arriving in New Zealand.

COVID restrictions + places NZ allows animals to have been –> we now have my Venn diagram of places we could travel. Just filter for cost and preference and off we go!

I was eager to book flights, find Airbnbs, and check out the corresponding Lonely Planets from the local library. So, in December of 2020, we made a plan for our first 90 days of travel. We’d depart end of April 2021 and head to Croatia. The plan was two months in the Mediterranean country divided between Zagreb and Split. We would then fly over the Adriatic Sea and land in Sicily for a few weeks. Flights were secured, Airbnbs were reserved, and books were checked out and perused. I also booked a solo trip through Intrepid to explore other parts of Croatia and Slovenia. We didn’t book the rest of our travels but had sketched out our plans — after Italy, we’d spend a couple of months in Portugal. We’d then head to Chile where we’d divide our stay between Santiago and a small town in the northern part of the country. From there, we’d fly to Auckland. It worked on paper, was doable financially, and was a fun mix of places. We were beyond excited!

When we made the reservations, Croatia was open to tourists and Italy was allowing in people who quarantined upon arrival. Chile was doing wonderfully with vaccinating its citizens. Then COVID got worse, variants were spreading, and vaccinations were not being distributed in Europe as quickly as had been hoped. So, I cancelled our flights and Airbnbs. And we went back to the drawing board.

After much research and discussion and research, we ended up delaying our departure to mid-May. Our first destination: Bajasur where my in-laws have a vacant house — my husband’s parents are snowbirds and thus the house remains unoccupied in the late spring through early fall. Mexico is not on the approved list of places animals can be before entering NZ so we would have to depart Mexico before the end of July to avoid the 6-month window. We decided once we got settled in Mexico, we’d plan the next leg of our journey as we had no clue what countries would be open later that summer.

Next up: a three-day drive with two cats to remote Mexico! What could go wrong…