Prologue

Like so many other people everywhere, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of the Covid vaccine. I have never wanted to get jabbed this badly! After receiving my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine in April, I eagerly awaited the point at which the United States would attain herd immunity and life could get back to some semblance of normalcy. We all know what happened next. Despite a roaring start, a combination of factors - vaccine hesitancy, politicization of science and masking, conspiracy theories, deliberate misinformation, etc. - meant that vaccination uptake slowed to a crawl. I felt so frustrated and defeated when I came to realize that the US would not reach herd immunity in the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile at work, my plan to take close to a month off in October-November was upended when my program’s go live date was rescheduled. Suddenly, I found myself with a balance of vacation days that I had to clear before the end of the year, and no plan to clear them. Last year, I carried over the maximum number of vacation days I could into 2021, and I reluctantly spent the balance of my vacation days on Oʻahu. The thought of doing the same again this year filled me with dread. The island fever was real. I desperately needed to get off this island.

After considering all the factors listed above, I came to the conclusion that, since we're not going to reach herd immunity, I should figure out how I am going to live with Covid, and decide what my risk tolerance would be... which leads me to my decision to resume travel. I decided that it would be good for my mental health to start traveling again, but I would, of course, take the appropriate precautions. I resolved to only travel to places with high vaccination rates. Domestically, this pretty much ruled out most of the Red States (i.e., the states that voted for Trump). A quick scan of car rental rates ($250 per day on average!!!) further led me to rule out any place where I needed to drive. So, that left me with cities in Blue States with good public transport. Given that American cities are designed around the automobile, my list of options was depressingly short - New York, Washington DC, Boston, maybe San Francisco or Chicago. We settled on New York.

We planned to spend only 2.5 days at our destination because we weren't comfortable leaving our elderly cat alone for too long. Looking at hotel prices, I found a surprisingly reasonable rate at the Holiday Inn near Wall Street. The hotels that cater to business travelers must really be hurting with business travel not trending upwards anytime soon. Since we were staying in Lower Manhattan, we decided to focus our activities in that area. For the entirety of our trip, we never ventured north of 31st St except in transit to and from LaGuardia Airport.

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