In this brief post, the last of the quarantine series (for a while), and a contrast to the very long guest post by my husband about Mandatory Hotel Quarantine in Sydney, Australia, I share how home quarantine is so much better for mental health than Hotel Quarantine.

Last month we arrived back in Seoul after visiting our relatives and friends in Australia. I would like to point out that visiting family is not a holiday. It was a reunion after more than a year of being apart. It is an important experience for the family unit. It was not tourism. We are citizens of Australia, it is our home, our place of birth. We belong.

Of course we had to quarantine in a Sydney hotel first for two weeks. Then two weeks of seeing our family then back in Seoul with two weeks of home quarantine. A month of quarantine in total. This is travel 2021 style. My conclusion is that home quarantine is incomparably better in terms of mental health, fresh air, familiarity, a level of independence, space, choice of food, physical health and it must be cheaper to run.

It’s still a waiting game and when we were finally free to leave our apartment at 12.00 midday, we left at 12.01 and stayed out til 9.30pm. Walking the streets, having coffee, then later, a meal and enjoying the fresh air and ability to go wherever we wanted.

Yes, we were tracked on our mobile phones and we submitted a health report twice a day via an app. We had a couple of covid tests but we had to get to get ourselves to the testing centre and go straight home. Which we complied with. In my opinion this is worth it to be able to move freely in your space. We could order what we needed and have it delivered contactless to our door. We had prepared as much as we could before we left too with frozen meat, and canned and packaged goods and other supplies. We could be in separate rooms when we wanted to. I would never have breached the rules. We know how important it is to quarantine and we want to do the right thing.

I’ll say it a thousand times, quarantining at home is infinitely better than in a sealed hotel room. But of course, we will do what is necessary to see our family.