Latest update: April 10, 2023
Well, it’s been a year since we updated this, which I think says something. COVID, thankfully, is no longer top of mind. But it’s still in our minds somewhere and we still have to be conscious of it. We are no longer taking significant prevention measures on our tours. For example, although we generally prefer to eat outside because it’s nice to do that, we are no longer making big efforts to do so when it’s not handy. The guides will carry a COVID test or two as a precaution when we are in places where a there isn’t easy access to shops selling them. If somebody does test positive, we will do our best to make sure the tour carries on while attempting to prevent any infection spread. So far, this has all worked out pretty well for us.
April 11, 2022
There finally appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel! We are back to running tours more-or-less normally. We are still trying to eat meals outside whenever possible, and we are encouraging people to wear masks when we do go inside places. But we have moved on from the first couple of months of the year, when we asked everyone to take a test before joining the group and when we carried home testing kits along in case they were needed. Just this year we have run trips to Minnesota, Florida, Costa Rica, Hawaii, Texas, and Mexico, and we are looking forward to continuing this trend of lots of trips to all sorts of cool places for the foreseeable future. We are still requiring that people are vaccinated to join our trips, for the safety of all participants, tour leaders, and others tour associates. See you in the field!
December 6, 2021
I look forward to the day that I know longer have to write these updates! The world is dealing with an ever-evolving COVID-19 pandemic. Like many travelers, we are keeping a close eye on COVID rates around the world, new variants emerging, ever-changing travel requirements, and everything else required for travel in this time. Although it has been “unofficial” policy for some time, we are now officially requiring all tour participants to be fully vaccinated (at this time that means two does of Pfizer, Moderna, or AstraZeneca vaccines, or one of Johnsons & Johnson). This requirement is now part of the booking form. We may require boosters in the future as well.
September 9, 2021
First, the good news. Our US tours are, more or less, running as normal. We are taking some extra precautions, like eating meals outside whenever possible, and wearing masks in the van on some tours (and still self-driving on most Chicago and Illinois tours). But the birds don’t care about covid and most people are comfortable traveling within the United States. This year we have operated US tours to Minnesota (both winter and summer), Texas, Montana, and Arizona. We will soon be adding a few more US tours for 2022. International tours, on the other hand, are still problematic. We are starting up tours to some destinations, in particular relatively close destinations like Mexico and Costa Rica (both countries that we ran trips to over the summer). But our upcoming South Africa and Bhutan tours are postponed yet again, South Africa because of a lingering discomfort among people to travel that far, Bhutan because it is only open to tourists with a long quarantine period. We don’t know how 2022 will shake out, but for the time being we will be focusing on US tours and only operating a few international tours. That said, we are always open to private tours to any place you are comfortable traveling.
May 26, 2021
We are back up and running! Well, we never stopped, operating many local trips here in the Chicago area over the last year and planning for future trips farther afield, but travel is slowly but surely resuming. Our Texas Spring Migration trips—our first out of state group trips since February 2020, went really well. The birding was tremendous, the participants were vaccinated, and everyone had a great time. We have more domestic trips planned for June and July, and we continue to add trips to our 2022 schedule. International trips in 2021 are still a bit up in the air, but we are really hoping to operate one or two this summer to get the ball rolling. There are some restrictions with traveling abroad—for example, negative covid tests are required for most destinations, as well as for returning to the US—but these are not insurmountable as long as the country is allowing visitors. And our friends in tourism industry overseas could really use the business!
March 15, 2021
For the first time in a year, things are starting to look up for the global tourism industry and for Red Hill Birding. Slowly and cautiously, tourism is starting up again. This includes birding tours. In the late winter, we ran two small group tours of Sax-Zim Bog & Northeast Minnesota, which went very well. The birding was great and we felt safe the entire time. Those were private trips, and now we are starting to run scheduled departures as well. Our first one will be to the Upper Texas Coast in the peak of spring migration, April 15-20. We have decided to max the group at 5 to make sure that there is plenty of space for everyone in the van. We will also take other precautions like eating meals outside and/or carrying out our meals. Since our trips take place almost entirely outside, we know we can operate them in a safe way. We are also planning to to run to shorter, more local trips this spring, before returning to full swing domestic trips—and possible international trips, too—this summer. Please do contact us via our contact form if you have any questions about our protocols or if you want to plan or join a trip.
January 15, 2021
Hope has finally arrived. Although covid is still rampant in some parts of the US and some countries abroad, vaccine distribution has begun, and this brings the possibility that tourism will rise from the ashes in 2021. We made the decision in November to delay our schedule of local day trips in the Chicago area due to the ongoing pandemic, but we are now ready to start those again. Our upcoming schedule can be found here. We may add some weekend-long trips later in spring, depending on the covid situation. We are hopeful that we might be able to run domestic trips—and possibly even international trips—come summer (or, in the case of our tour schedule, the South African winter). We expect that most countries will require a vaccine certificate, or at least a negative covid test result for some time to come, but that will feel like a minor inconvenience in exchange for the privilege of traveling the world again. We wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year and look forward to seeing you in person in the not-too-distant future.
November 12, 2020
Little has changed in global tourism since the last update. Although some of our favorite countries, like Costa Rica and South Africa, have announced they are open to tourists from around the world, we don’t anticipate getting back to these countries for some time yet. In the meantime, we continue to postpone trips (our domestic and international trips are now fully postponed through January). See our Tour Schedule page for the latest 2021 schedule. We are still operating a schedule of local day trips in the Chicago area and overnight trips around Illinois. This schedule will be released next week. Stay safe out there.
August 25, 2020
As the global coronavirus landscape shows little sign of improvement, we have postponed all outside-of-Illinois trips through November. We are running a series of half-day trips around the Chicago area as well as a couple of weekend-long trips to central Illinois. There are still spaces on some of the half-day trips, but the weekend trips are full. We are considering adding a few more weekend-long trips that would be drivable from the Chicago area and will announce those if and when we do.
Looking forward, we still have no idea when our normal trips will be able to start up again. The uncertainty makes planning for future trips very difficult, but we’re doing the best we can. Keep an eye out for an East Africa trip in 2022 or 2023!
June 11, 2020
We continue to monitor the global situation surrounding COVID-19. We are slowly—very slowly—starting tours back up. For example, we are started to operate local day trips around our home base in Chicago, both private trips and, for the first time, scheduled offerings for small groups. You can find information about those trips (including safety information and the schedule) here. We are also running our upcoming Southeast Arizona trip for those who would still like to do it. Suffice it to say, it will be a small group! We are still accepting more registrants and are happy to discuss our safety precautions. Just send us an email for more information. As for longer distance trips, for example those approaching in October (South Africa) and November (Bhutan), we have not yet made a final decision and will continue watching, waiting, and hoping, like the rest of the world, to see what happens.
Additionally, as we have postponed several trips until 2021, we have re-opened registration for those trips. These trips include the Upper Texas Coast Spring Migration tour in April and the Colombian Andes tour in July.
April 13, 2020
We continue in something of a holding pattern. All of our trips are canceled through May 15, including our schedule of free field trips led on behalf of various local birding organizations and our migration workshops that we are running in conjunction with Illinois Audubon Society. As the situation improves locally here in Chicago, and, hopefully, continues to do so here and elsewhere, perhaps by the second half of May we will be able to lead some local field trips and run one or two migration workshops. Maybe we will even bring back Birds & Coffee, normally a weekly outingin the fall, back for a couple of spring outings.
Don’t forget that you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram to get a steady stream of bird photos and information related to our work. We hope to see you all soon!
March 23, 2020
We have now canceled all trips through the end of April. Participants have been contacted. We are providing full refunds to the extent possible to those who request them. Alternatively, we are providing the option to switch to the corresponding 2021 trip at the same price as the canceled trip.
These are nerve-racking times, but we are all in this together. Stay healthy, stay strong.
Josh
March 19, 2020
Like all of the travel industry, the spread of COVID-19 around the globe has been a central focus for us at Red Hill Birding in recent weeks. We are carefully monitoring the rapidly evolving situation, especially as it pertains to our tours. We have already postponed our March Costa Rica tour—luckily we have been able to rearrange it for December.
The safety of our participants, guides, and collaborators is paramount at this time. We have scheduled trips coming up to Texas, around Illinois, and to Colombia. We are considering each trip on a case-by-case basis and have been in touch with the participants. If you have concerns or questions, you can reach us through our Contact Us page or at the email address on the bottom of this page.
As a small company, I feel fortunate that both Nicholas and I already work from home, so in that way there will be little disruption of our normal routine. Additionally, this spring and early summer season is not a super-busy time for us this year in terms of tours. My heart goes out to our vendors around the world, especially those for whom this time of year is their peak season.
Please stay safe, healthy, and think about all those birds you will see when we get through this.
Sincerely,
Josh
Banner photo: We’re all navigating murky waters at the moment. White-backed Duck, South Africa. Photo by Josh Engel.
