With most international travel still on hold unless deemed essential, many of us will be traveling closer to our backyards this summer. If you’re in the Mid-Atlantic area, one place you must check out in Charlottesville, Virginia. This idyllic small town nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains has so much to offer and see, so pack your hiking bag, your most relaxing essential oil blends for the car ride, and your taste for fine craft brews and local wines; and let’s plan a tranquil trip!
Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello
Charlottesville is known for its beautiful scenery and Thomas Jefferson. So take in both of those with a guided tour of Monticello. You get an intimate view into the life of one of America’s most important founding fathers. Not to mention learning more about his many famous friends and other fellow presidents. Spring and Summer are by far the best times to visit Monticello to get a look at the property’s awe-inspiring grounds and gardens. Jefferson imported many species of trees and flowers to the area, and they are even available for purchase to bring home to your yard.
Michie Tavern
Michie Tavern is just half a mile down the road from Monticello and has been since 1784. Lunch is served daily at the tavern from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm. Servers are dressed in period attire, making it the perfect footnote to your experience at Monticello. There’s also a grouping of four unique shops on the grounds that are perfect for finding that specific Virginia souvenir for you or a loved one.
Local Breweries & Wineries
Charlottesville, Virginia is home to dozens of craft breweries and wineries. They’re stapled hangouts for locals, and at most, you can always catch live music as well. The sun setting across the Blue Ridge Mountains as you enjoy expertly crafted beer is about as relaxing as you can get. Some notable wineries in the area are Pippin Hill Farm Vineyard, Well Hung Vineyards, Blenheim Vineyards, Barboursville Vineyards, and Jefferson Vineyards. If breweries are more your speed, you have to check out Three Notch’d, Champion, Rockfish, or Starr Hill. Starr Hill is right off the historic Downtown Mall and a must-visit.
The Downtown Mall
Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall is one of the longest pedestrian malls in the United States at around eight blocks! In the summer, at the end of the mall by the amphitheater, it hosts Fridays After Five – a weekly concert series – and many locals can tell you all about watching The Dave Matthews Band perform there. The mall features over 120 shops and 30 restaurants, most of which feature outdoor cafes. You’re sure to find something for everyone down there! There’s also the newly renovated Paramount Theater and the historic Jefferson Theater. The charming brick walkway that extends the mall’s length is full of local vendors year-round and in the warmer months, all types of local artisans and performers. There’s convenient access to the Trolley, which can take you effortlessly to the grounds of the University of Virginia.
University of Virginia
When Thomas Jefferson was seeking to reinvent higher education, he conceived of the University of Virginia. A school where students and teachers could learn from one another. The result was the Academical Village. When you visit the UVA grounds, you will see the famous “Lawn” where students and teachers lived in single rooms. The end of the lawn culminates in an architectural masterpiece – The Rotunda – a renowned library. You can take in more breathtaking views of the Blue Ridge Mountains suggestive of the yet discovered intellectual frontiers at the foot of the lawn. The grouping of shops and restaurants on the edge of the UVA grounds is known as The Corner, and you must explore the side streets, which are home to unique used bookstores and more cafes.
Antiquing at its Finest
Charlottesville is also home to many antique stores that can fit any budget. You can spend an entire weekend alone going to all of the antique stores in and around town. From luxury heirlooms to quirky vintage pieces, you can find them in Charlottesville. Some must-visits would be Oyster House Antiques, Patina Antiques, A & W, and of course Circa.
One last thing about Charlottesville (and one of the best) is its proximity to several other destinations. So if you’re planning a road trip, it’s an hour away from historic Richmond, Virginia, two hours from Washington D.C., and only three hours away from Virginia Beach. It should be a destination that you book this summer if you’re traveling closer to home.
Photo Credit: All images used via Flickr’s Creative Commons Licensing. Monticello by Brent Wiese
Empty street in Brooklyn
On 10 March, a friend of mine arrived in New York; she was visiting from Europe. When she boarded her flight in Spain, she didn’t expect to be scrambling to get on a flight back to Europe just ten days later – cutting her 3-week U.S. trip considerably short. But when she arrived, New York City was still “open”. We were able to do some sightseeing, we had dinner at TimeOut Market, we climbed 
And within days, everything in New York City changed. In less than a week, the entire city had transformed: TimeOut Market closed two days after we ate there, the High Line closed, all the museums closed. Schools and universities closed. On 15 March it was announced that all restaurants would be closing on 17 March (with the option to stay open for take-out and delivery).
When I walked through my neighborhood the day after restaurants and bars closed, it already felt considerably emptier. New Yorkers were bracing themselves for a “shelter in place” order, which basically meant a complete lockdown of NYC. Most of the shops were already closed. Back then, New York City had “only” around 800 Coronavirus cases, and a handful deaths. A week later, New York City had 15,000 Coronavirus cases.
While walking through this strange new world, I keep hearing sirens. They come and go, but they are recurring. A constant reminder of the fact that I am not walking through the movie set of a post-apocalyptic thriller, but that this is still very much New York City. A city that, sadly, has been hit harder than any other city in the world by COVID-19. Every time an ambulance passes me, I can’t help but think of the person inside the ambulance. A month after the “Shelter in place” order went into effect, New York City has just under 139,000 confirmed Coronavirus cases, and over 10,000 people have died. Over 10,000 people in my city have died from COVID-19 in less than a month – let that sink in for a moment.
It didn’t take very long for me to be personally affected by this virus: while my friend from Europe was still in town mid-March, someone close to me started feeling very ill. All the symptoms sounded like COVID-19, and she went straight to the doctor. There, they ruled out a number of flu strains, and told her that she probably has Coronavirus, but at the time, they didn’t have any tests to verify their suspicion. They told her to go home to self-quarantine for 14 days, since her symptoms weren’t severe enough for hospitalization.
I thought I had seen the worst when I witnessed a person being taken out of an ambulance outside the local hospital one day, a person that looked to be in such a bad state that at first, I didn’t even know if they were alive. But then I saw the morgue trucks. What I saw first was a flower bouquet on the ground, and a big poster thanking the healthcare workers. I wondered why they’d left the flowers there, on the side of the road, when I noticed the humming coming from a truck right behind the sign. And that’s when it hit me. This was one of these 
These images – the morgue trucks, the sick person on the stretcher, but also my sick friend who I’d see every week through the entrance glass door of her building, and whose face looked ashen, with hollow eyes – are images I cannot erase from my brain, and probably will never forget. The sound of sirens will always remind me of these dark times, and I am not the only one. “I feel their presence in my body as an ever-increasing tightness in my shoulders and neck. It is as though, around the clock, the city itself were wailing for its sick and dying.”, writes Lindsay Zoladz in her 
Going grocery shopping has turned from a routinely task into a wearying and sometimes nerve-wrecking undertaking (depending on how many people decide to shop that day, i.e. how many people I come in contact with) that requires preparation and caution. Before I leave my house, I have to make sure that I have some wipes in my bag, my mask, hand sanitizer and gloves. Then I make my way to the grocery store on the bike, no matter if it is raining or hailing – I have only used the subway once since the “shelter at home” order went into effect, and that was when I did my first big quarantine grocery haul. I wasn’t even supposed to be here in New York when the city started shutting down, so my fridge and my pantry were as deserted as the shelves in the supermarkets.
On that first grocery haul I ended up buying so many things that I wasn’t able to get them back home on a bike, which is why I took the subway for two stops. But I shouldn’t have been nervous about it: There were barely any people on the train. Every time I went out do my grocery shopping, the restrictions got tighter. First, they limited the amount of people inside the store, which is how I ended up in a line that went all the way down the block one time, thinking to myself in panic, “I am too close to too many people.” The next time I ventured outside for groceries, they had drawn lines on the sidewalk with chalk, marking the required six feet safety distance in between each person. These markers were also added inside the grocery store, so that when you get in line at the checkout, you keep your distance, as well.
Since 16 April, masks have been mandatory when entering a grocery store. A day later, on 17 April, the governor announced that “New York on Pause”, which had initially been issued until 30 April, would be extended until 15 May – for now. That means a total of nearly nine weeks of New York City on pause. And to be honest, I don’t think that New York City will ease restrictions in mid-May – at least not to the extent that life in New York City as we know it will be possible.
Last weekend I ventured into Manhattan for the first time since the lockdown started, and it was a bizarre experience. I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, which was deserted. It was a beautiful spring day, and normally, the bridge would’ve been packed with tourists. Chinatown felt like a ghost town. I only saw two restaurants that were open there, and I saw almost no people out on the street. I cycled up Broadway in SoHo, where you usually find hundreds of shoppers on any given day, but Broadway was empty. I passed only a few people who were taking their dog out for a walk or to ran some errands. Some 
Chinatown feels like a ghost town
The line outside a grocery store
Grand Central Terminal completely deserted
Silent New York is not the same. You don’t realize how much things like cafes, street kiosks, restaurants, bodegas, and street vendors contribute to the overall atmosphere of a city until they’re gone. Seeing the Broadway theaters shuttered was depressing – theaters, comedy clubs and other performance venues are such a big part of the social life in New York. Times Square without any tourists was something I never thought I’d see. Even when I walked through Times Square at 5.30am in a snowstorm a few years ago, there were more people around than now. I also never thought I’d say this: Times Square without any tourists feels kind of dull.
I’ll be the first one to admit that I curse at the crowds every time I have to pass through Times Square on the way to something, but seeing it so empty changed the entire atmosphere. The ever so bustling area felt like a sleepy square. The only two things that were the same: The glitzy billboards which were still advertising clothes companies and streaming services, and 
Instead of souvenirs, the street vendors are now selling hand sanitizer and face masks
Life in New York is never easy, even when the economy is doing great, a lot of people work harder than elsewhere to make ends meet. But now, with the city heading into a recession, piling up debt, life in New York will be even challenging, and it’ll take a long time for things to go back to normal. And what does that even mean, normal? Nobody even knows what the “post-COVID-19 normal” will look like. When will the theaters be able to re-open? When can we go to bars and restaurants again and will it be possible the same way it was pre-COVID-19? Will sports bars be ever as packed again for major sports events as they were before this pandemic? When will we be able to enjoy concerts again and watch a baseball game in Yankees Stadium? When will tourists return to New York?
All large parades scheduled for June, including New York Pride, have been canceled. It was announced that public pools wouldn’t open at all in 2020. Beaches may not open this summer either. This summer will not be like any other summer, because most of the 
The unemployment rate in NYC was at around 4.3 per cent before COVID-19: in the entire month of February, 137,391 people filed for unemployment in New York City. In the first week of the lockdown, 521,112 claims were filed. That’s more than three times the amount of claims the city usually sees in a month. Unemployment claims have now increased by 2,637%. During the financial crisis in 2008, the entire state of New York lost around 300,000 jobs. New York City alone has already lost more jobs than that. 
The Mayor of New York City is facing a projected $7.4 billion deficit in the city budget (mostly in lost tax revenue) and the economic impact of COVID-19 can be compared to the Great Depression. This deficit means that many city programs will be canceled, for example summer camp programs and the youth employment program which usually enrolls about 75,000 low-income students. 
Even when this pandemic is over, New York City will struggle to get back to its former glorious self. But instead of ending with a depressing and gloomy outlook on post-COVID-19 New York City, I want to finish this article with this beautiful video and the optimistic words of New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo:
If you end up visiting Antelope Canyon during a busy holiday and you didn’t plan ahead, some online travel agents have started listing tickets on their sites, beware as the 
