Part 2: Spending 3 Months in Asia during the Coronavirus Outbreak

Welcome to Part 2 of our blog series on traveling during the COVID-19 outbreak. If you missed out on Part 1 — click here to catch up!

At this point in our travels, we had been on on the move for over a year. In our minds, we had “saved the best for last” as we waited until the end of our trip to explore all that this diverse continent of Asia had to offer!

But, COVID-19 had other plans.

As we discussed in Part 1 of this series, we had to cancel our trip to Hong Kong and Beijing for 9 days in mid-February. But, we still had travel plans in South Korea, Japan, and Hawaii for the end of February and March that we hoped we could keep! 

So that left us with 9 days to spend somewhere else that wasn’t on our original itinerary!

But not much time to decide where to go…

So let’s pick up where we left off!

February 8th: Our original flight to Hong Kong was just hours away. But that flight was cancelled, and we had to make alternate plans — and quickly! 

We had a lot of fear that we could potentially choose to visit a country where the virus would spread, and that we could get stuck there if more travel bans were enacted. 

We spent a lot of time deciding where to go. It was a tough decision because once we were in southeast Asia, we wanted to see everywhere we possibly could! In the week leading up to our original flight, we spent all of our free time looking up different countries and how we would spend those 9 days. 

Did we want to go to Malaysia to visit the modern capital city of Kuala Lumpur and the beautiful coastlines full of amazing beaches and coral reefs? Or what about Laos — a country that had gone completely under our radar while planning our trip, but a place we constantly heard from other travelers was their absolute favorite place they’ve ever been? Or how about the Philippines, a country made up of thousands of islands with endless beaches and dive sites to use our new scuba certification?

One thing we made sure to do was research how each country was handling the spread of COVID-19.

And ultimately, we chose. . . 

The Philippines!!!

We booked our flight the night before we flew out, which was something we had never done before. It felt kind of crazy flying by the seat of our pants, but that was the nature of the situation now that our plans were changing so rapidly.

Philippines: February 10-18, 2020

The Philippines was absolutely the right choice for us. We had no regrets and ultimately felt that a week was just not enough time! 

We chose the Philippines because we found in our quick research that they had been the first country after the U.S. to ban any travelers from China from entering the country. We figured this meant it had a really good chance of remaining safe for its people and for its visitors, aka us! 

After the stress of the weeks leading up to it, with the new travel ban and our changing plans, the carefree island lifestyle really brought us back down to earth and reminded us again what we set out to do: see the beauty of this world while experiencing new cultures and staying present in every new moment. 

We went scuba diving multiple times, drove a scooter around small islands, went hiking through a canyon, and jumped off a rope swing under a waterfall. We even ditched our masks and got to enjoy the fresh air here and there. It was a such a relief to experience carefree travel once again. But unfortunately, the virus was still at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

On arrival in the Philippines, we could tell immediately that they were taking the situation extremely seriously. 

Any time we took any form of transportation, our temperature was taken before and after. This included getting off the plane for our layover, getting on and off the next plane to our destination, and getting on and off ferries between islands. 

As the Philippines are a group of thousands of islands, these are both fairly common modes of travel. 

We were also required to fill out a full description of where we had been over the past 14 days: every. single. time.

Of course, we had recently been in multiple other countries. So naturally, we were flagged each time and usually had to get our temperature taken multiple times and were asked many questions about how we were feeling. This was honestly a really great system, as they were taking steps to make sure anyone who came on to each new island was safe to be there. 

This was the first destination where we really “felt” the effect that the virus was having on tourism. Since the travel ban had been enacted so recently, we hadn’t experienced a country without Chinese travelers up until this point.

We were booking places to stay and tours to do on the spot and having no problem at all with anything being overbooked. We honestly didn’t think much of it, until our scuba guide Allen brought it up to us on our first scuba diving trip of the week.

Allen seemed worried and relayed that things had been really slow lately because it was usually a super popular time of year for Chinese tourists to visit the Philippines. Now that they could not visit, all restaurants and other common tourism activities on the islands were being hit hard. This made us feel so terrible because we saw first hand that many of these people rely on tourism for their income.

This is something we’ve held onto as tourism has continued to decline in every country around the world, as the virus has continued to spread. It is truly a sad reality that this industry will likely continue to struggle for months and potentially even years to come in many countries. 

 South Korea: [originally planned from] February 18-27, 2020

When we boarded our flight from the Philippines to Seoul, Korea, our entire plane looked like a scene straight from the news or even out of a movie.

Every single person was wearing a mask and trying to keep as much space as possible between themselves and the next person.

Luckily, we had masks as well and were able to blend right in with the crowd. We learned that you really don’t want to be that one person or couple not wearing masks — it appears ignorant and narcissistic. The feeling is as if you think you are better than everyone else and won’t get sick — therefore don’t need to wear a mask. So, it is much better to show respect to those around you by wearing a mask to protect yourself and everyone else. 

When we arrived in Seoul, it really seemed like life as usual. The hustle and bustle of the big city was in full effect with people commuting to and from work. Young 20 and 30-something year olds were seen hitting the bars in the evenings and, as always, everyone was very nicely dressed.

Besides the masks on legit every single person, you would not have known the world was within a few days of the next progression of the COVID-19 spread since the virus first broke out in Wuhan.

Korea is a wonderful country and we immediately fell in love with it.

We were slated to be in Seoul for 9 full days. This was our first time in 2 months that we were back in a developed country and it was an unbelievable feeling to finally drink tap water again instead of wasting insane amounts of plastic on buying water bottles.

We really enjoyed exploring so many different sections of this massive city. However, the very day we landed in Korea, there was breaking news. There was a new outbreak of the virus in the city of Daegu in southern South Korea within a religious group.

The same day, news also came of the spreading of the virus in northern Italy. This was the first time we really and truly encountered the thought that it was possible that we could in fact contract the virus from anyone around us without knowing it.

We continued to take extra care and were cautious with every move we made. We found new face masks by a stroke of luck and stocked up again with a few more each.

Our plans had originally been to be in South Korea for 9 days; however, as each day went on, we could feel the panic and fear starting to build back in the United States. Family, friends, and even some people we didn’t know, were continuously reaching out to ask if it was safe and when we were getting out.

As cases were building in the south of the country, we felt our window to leave Korea shrinking. On the evening of our 5th day, another news segment dropped that the virus had spread to over 500 people in Daegu.

The next few hours felt like an eternity as we were battling whether or not to leave as soon as possible. On one hand, we only had a few more days left and already had a room booked for the entire time, as well as flights booked to leave. But on the other hand, we had a gut feeling that we just had to get out. 

Prior to our arrival on February 18, there were less than 30 cases. But the number of people affected had skyrocketed to over 500 in just a few days.

This caused some panic for us. We were not only concerned that the virus could be spreading around all of South Korea, including Seoul where we had been staying, but we were also worried that the borders of South Korea may be closed to other countries soon.

We immediately started looking up flights to see what our options were for getting out as soon as we could. It was late on a Sunday night when this was all happening, and we chose a flight for Tuesday morning but did not book it immediately. We ultimately decided to see how things went on Monday. 

Of course, as our gut feeling warned us, COVID-19 cases were up to over 800 by the following night, so we grudgingly agreed to book the Tuesday morning flight we had considered the night before.

We feared that our next destination, our last and most anticipated country, Japan, would soon stop accepting flights from Korea. So with two nights remaining on our Airbnb reservation and much to still see, we decided to cut our trip short. We canceled our original flight for Thursday and rebooked it for the next day flying into Tokyo.

The following day, when we arrived at the Seoul Incheon airport, it was almost completely empty. 

We continued to worry that a last second travel ban could be enacted and that our flight could be possibly cancelled.

We were finally able to relax once we were on the plane, in our seats, and actually on the runway taking off.

The entire “evacuation” and experience was very overwhelming and tiring, especially those final few days.

It was such a strange and eerie feeling, knowing that something really grave was happening in the world and that it was really changing everyday life for many, many people.

If you want to hear about our travels in Japan and the rest of our journey, check out Part 3 for the final blog of this series! 

Extra Time Abroad is a lifestyle blog focusing on three areas: finance, sustainability, and travel. The blog is managed by husband/wife duo JJ & Janelle. We can be found on Instagram @ExtraTimeAbroad or at the airport!