According to travel experts, early spring is the ideal time to start planning their summer vacations. Some of the most anxious among us (ok, me) could even boost the previous dam, as at the end of February or early March, even if it is only to provide a lighthouse of hope during the most gloomy months of the year.
The Lord knows that we could all use a lighthouse of hope at this time. I simply fear that summer holidays are no longer. President Trump and the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, seem determined to make next holiday plans the most difficult, expensive and potentially dangerous as possible.
In a search to purge the federal government of what the two men said they considered an wasteful expense, Trump appointed the newly created government's efficiency department of the government. Since then, the businessman behind X, Tesla and Space X has shot approximately 300,000 people, undressing and effectively eliminating entire departments and agencies. If these endings are (many are under judicial review), they would constitute the largest jobs cut in the history of the United States.
And, although this may not be the main point of concern, the end of summer holidays as we know it.
Considering a trip to a national park? Note that the dismissal of more than 1,000 employees of national parks will inevitably lead to difficulty accessing some of the most beloved and iconic parts of this country: the lines in the Grand Canyon and the headache of the camp reserve in Yosemite will surely worse.
The Trump administration recently returned the dismissal of thousands of seasonal workers in the parks after a wave of protests on the perspective of dirty (or closed) bathrooms, overflowing garbage containers (which would draw bears and other wild lives), trails without qualms and lack of emergency services.
Even so, the loss of so many full -time employees does not fill one with confidence. I love national parks, but I am not about to venture in what can still be quite dangerous land without the reassuring presence of connoisseurs and highly qualified rangers. Not to mention my feelings about merodeter bears.
The national parks, of course, are not the only potential travel destination. But the trips themselves have received several great hits since Trump took office last month.
Following several recent accidents of airplanes and with massive shots in the Federal Aviation Administration, the general confidence in air trips has decreased. The new tariffs on aluminum and steel threaten to increase the prices of already high tickets, and the cuts in the transportation of transportation promise to increase the duration of the security lines (while decreasing real security).
Ah, and after years of delay, the enhancement requirement that Trump was registered during his first administration will enter into force on May 7. Those who do not have a driver's license issued by the State or an identification card that meets federal standards will have to take their passport while traveling within the United States or risk not being able to fly. So get ready for those challenges too.
Musk has made it very clear that its definition of “efficiency” is the “cost reduction”, instead of making the life of average citizens move faster and without problems. Your time can be money, but yours can be wasted at waiting hours in line.
If you are thinking that you can avoid the entire disaster with a road trip, well, it is predicted that tariffs in Canada and Mexico will increase gasoline prices (already precipitously high in California) and Musk and their henchmen have not saved the National Traffic Safety Administration on roads from their mass reductions. Nor railroads and other traffic security agencies.
It seems that security is not efficient. (Outside the subject, but consider that this is an important reminder that if you are pregnant and travel, keep in mind that in many states hospitals are doing attention to women in crisis due to new anti -abortion laws).
Meanwhile, hotels and restaurants face the shortage of personnel caused by new Trump immigration policies, and we know what that means: more close closures and prices. Airbnb, already full of criticism of its draconian rules, hidden rates and effect on local real estate markets, now faces a boycott, even for the hosts that leave the site in protest of the role of their co -founder in the Doge de Musk.
In other words, traveling almost anywhere in the United States will undoubtedly become more expensive and much less efficient than it is. Your tax dollars at work!
International trips have also become instantly more discouraging, and not only due to airline security problems, fuel prices, growing anxiety among green card holders or the fact that many transgender Americans have seen their gender designations changed to those assigned to birth.
The Americans abroad have often faced a certain amount of snobbery, we can be listed, monolingual and too much in love with flip flops, but with a president and vice president who have already antagonized most of continental Europe, Greenland, Panama, Mexico, India and Canada (Canada!), The advice can be a bit more manifest. Especially in places (including Spain, Italy and Greece) that are already plagued by and openly protesting, abroalism.
Musk, of course, has been seen from time to time celebrating on a yacht in Greece, but is registered saying that he does not think about the holidays (or a 40 -hour work week). Without a doubt, the possibility that millions of Americans are based on where they can afford to go safely for a summer vacation that does not belong to all. But Trump has hotels, for the sake of heaven. During his first 28 days in office, he spent 12 nights at his home in Mar-A-Lago, and several of those days golf.
Americans work harder, more hours, with fewer daily breaks, than any other rich country, including Japan. Our full -time employees are eligible to, on average, half of the days of paid vacation than their European counterparts and, according to the PEW Research Center, 46% of them do not use all the PTO in a certain year.
Therefore, it is not “efficient” to endanger, or make more difficult and expensive, the relatively few and short summer vacations that Americans take. It is ruthless. And frankly not American.
