I just moved to America from Australia (during Covid)

I’ve travelled internationally before, but not like this. Since the start of the Covid experience, Australian citizens have technically not been allowed to leave the country unless they fall into a specific category like being an important government official, an athlete, a celebrity or if they can prove they’ll be out of the country for three months or more. I fell into the three month pleb category. The “exemption” process itself was pretty straightforward for me as I sent through a copy of my permanent American visa as evidence. If I wasn’t going for three months or more I doubt I would have got an exemption but it’s almost certain I would have had difficulty getting back.

Some of the return flights to Australia were up to $19,000 for a one way ticket in economy, and that’s if there were any at all. Right now for example if I wanted to go home tomorrow there are no flights running from Los Angeles to my hometown of Brisbane or even to Sydney. Scary if you were just travelling right?

I should also mention that the travel exemption to leave can only be done within 2 months of your intended travel date. So in my case I actually booked the flights before this as I was confident of getting the exemption. I also wanted the best price possible and plenty of lead time should Covid restrictions get worse. I also did a bunch of research to pick the most reliable airline with the best cancellation policies as flights had been getting cancelled all the time. United Airlines seemed the most viable so we booked the whole trip with them which totalled around $1400 (one way).

The quickest and most affordable route was a 27 hour journey that went from Brisbane to Sydney to San Francisco to Los Angeles. A daunting flight considering we had four full packed checked bags and four carry on bags/personal items, but nevertheless, it had to be done.

Skipping over a bunch of monotonous events up until our departure, we got to the Brisbane domestic terminal early in the morning, well in time for our first leg to Sydney. Masks on, we checked our bags in and were pleasantly surprised at the low cost of $275 for our extra baggage (we had been expecting $1000+) and the fact we did not need to collect them until San Francisco. The airport itself looked to be about 30% of it’s normal hustle and bustle with most flyers heading to the mines within the Queensland state borders (New South Wales and Victoria were still in their respective lockdowns). Our plane was also about half full and no issues arose except my continuous need to pass gas. My apologies fellow travellers.

The Sydney domestic terminal had significantly less activity than Brisbane with only a handful of people walking around, and this is about 830am on a Monday mind you. Now here’s where things start getting weird. We caught the train to the International terminal and were the only ones on it. Eerie. We walked through the International check in areas and saw one other passenger and most of the airline desks closed. We were also the only people checking in at United Airlines, how often does that happen in one’s lifetime??

There were a few delays in the staff getting us sorted and even though I had a travel exemption, part of their process is to call the Australian Border Force and verify it. We were then personally escorted through the empty airport by a United Airlines employee through an empty security section and past a bunch of empty gates all the way to our plane. There was no line and we walked straight on board the Boeing Dreamliner that was to be our home for the next 14 hours. How many people do you think were on this flight? 100? 75? Nope, there were in total about 30 people on this significantly sized aircraft. How bizarre but how amazing! Every passenger had a whole row of seats each and as you can imagine there were no lineups for the toilets. The only real downside was that we did all have to wear masks for the duration of the flight but other than that, no problems.

The arrival into America also went smoothly despite the fact I had to go through a completely separate immigration section due to my specific visa but I was essentially just processed and allowed to enter the country. We then reached our connecting flight to Los Angeles with perfect timing and the rest of the trip was pretty much uneventful. I’m now safely in America and super excited for my next adventures in the land of the free.