Jamie Biesiada
In early 2020, Tesa Totengco -- owner of New York-based Travels With Tesa -- was aware of the coronavirus and had started taking precautions in her travels. On a trip to the Philippines and Cambodia, she brought a stash of masks and hand sanitizers to be on the safe side, but no one else was wearing a mask and no sanitization procedures had been put in place.
Totengco returned home to New York at the end of February to a world that would very quickly change.
"By March, everything had shut down," she said. "New York was at the center of the epidemic. So we stayed put. We stayed in
Tesa Totengco
our apartment."
But as the number of Covid-19 cases started to ease in June, she and her husband started tentatively venturing out, with several trips to Long Island via train. Come August, when she attended the virtual Virtuoso Travel Week and spoke with a number of suppliers, Tanzania was on her mind.
It's always been a spot Totengco has wanted to visit, and it had opened to Americans, so she started planning a trip and invited two other couples to join her.
"I told my clients I can only make sure that I provide for a very safe space, in a very safe way," Totengco said. "We are in our own travel bubble, we have our own safari vehicle."
Her clients said yes.
They headed to Tanzania in October and had a wonderful time, Totengco said. They even got to see the wildebeest migration with only three other cars nearby -- an almost unheard of scenario, according to their guides.
Totengco has been on the road frequently since that trip. In fact, she extended her stay in East Africa to head to Uganda in November for a fam trip with Gifted Travel Network, her host agency. She's also taken trips to Mexico and the Caribbean.
The strategy of being on the road has clients calling, Totengco said. They appreciate her on-the-ground experience and knowledge.
She also makes it a point to travel safely. Totengco gets tested before and after traveling, and sometimes during a trip, whether it's a requirement or not. She wears a mask and practices frequent hand-washing and social distancing. She is also careful about the venues she visits and the activities she participates in, and she encourages travel bubbles with trusted traveling partners.
Totengco also gets travel insurance (she has an annual plan) and a Medjet membership in case medical evacuation is necessary. When she returns from a trip, she quarantines per local guidelines.
"I'm putting myself out there, testing the waters," she said. "It's to inspire or to encourage people to test it themselves."
Many are still hesitant to book, according to Totengco, but for those who aren't, her experiences are proving helpful. She has documented in detail how she travels safely on her blog.
She's now working on a group trip to Iceland this year and to India in 2022. A group trip for eight people to Morocco in April is already sold out.
"I'm not trying to tempt fate or fly too close to the sun," Totengco said. "But [travel] for sure can be done. People are doing it, and [I'm doing] what I feel like I need to do in order to ensure that my travel is safe."