We know the idea of travel is scary in these times, and the last thing we want is for anyone to get sick on one of our trips.
Fortunately, Marfa and Big Bend are in very remote areas of the country and have seen very few cases. To date, Presidio County, where Marfa is located, has had 44 cases and zero deaths. The slightly more populous Brewster County, where Marathon, Big Bend, and Lajitas is located, has had 184 cases and 2 deaths.
We also are confident we can make the trip safely because we are a small group of 12 women, at the most, and 12 savvy, responsible women who wouldn’t put themselves or others in danger.
For more information about our Marfa Big Bend trip, click here.
How It Will Work
We think we can make our tour of Marfa and Big Bend work with the following precautions.
- Trip is limited to those who can drive to either Marfa or to Austin, where we will be renting a van to take a group to Marfa. Anyone who is flying in to either Austin area or Marfa area has to quarantine for 14 days.
- Everyone who is going on the trip must have a negative COVID test within the week before departure. Test results older than October 8th will not be accepted.
- From the time you get swabbed for the COVID test until departure, you will be asked to restrict your outings and exposure.
- We will take everyone’s temperature before leaving from the Austin area, and we will also take everyone’s temperature twice a day while traveling.
- Masks will be mandatory in public areas and in our van.
- We will wipe down the seats of the van we’ll be traveling in every day and every evening. We will also assign seats in the van, so there is less chance of surface transmission.
- All travelers must purchase cancel-anytime travel insurance since so much will remain up in the air till right before we leave. It’s more expensive than regular travel insurance, but NextTribe will refund you the difference between regular travel insurance and the cancel-anytime variety. Cancel-anytime insurance requires that you purchase coverage within a certain number of days of your initial deposit on the trip. For those of you who have already put down a deposit, we will refund that deposit and ask you to make a new deposit so that you can comply with the timeline. We’ve spoken to this broker, Travel Guard, about cancel-anytime insurance and we feel confident they can help. You will be responsible for purchasing your own insurance. NextTribe cannot do it for you.
