The New Yorker - USA (2020-09-21)

THENEWYORKER,SEPTEMBER21, 2020 17

the other day, from his home, in Evergreen,

Colorado. “The world is different than

it was. The tourism business is suffering.

But it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to

get on a plane right now, unless you re­

ally have to.”

Lately, Levy has been pushing an al­

ternative to Stateside travel: obtaining

a twelve­month worker certificate from

Bermuda. His company represents the

British territory, which is situated ap­

proximately six hundred and fifty miles

off the North Carolina coast and has a

population of more than sixty thou­

sand. Unlike most places, Bermuda

wants visitors—its economy is depen­

dent on them. “There’s practically no

COVID there,” Levy said. (Only a hun­

dred and seventy­ seven COVID cases

have been confirmed on the island; eight

are currently active.) “It’s a prime op­

portunity,” he added. “And they’ve got

really robust testing.”

More than three hundred people from

a dozen countries—including Brazil,

China, South Africa, and Bangladesh—

have applied for Bermuda’s certificate

program, which launched in August.

Certification for a twelve­month stay

costs two hundred and sixty­three dol­

lars (lodging not included). Sadie Mil­

lard, a New Yorker in her forties who

works as a partner at a Wall Street bro­

kerage firm, got a head start. She was

visiting her boyfriend, who works as a

civil engineer in Bermuda, when COVID

hit New York, in March. “I came for the

weekend, then things got crazy,” she said.

Airlines began suspending outbound

flights from the island, her firm closed

its offices, and employees began work­

ing remotely. She decided to stay. Her

partners at the firm are fine with it. Even

if there were in­person meetings to at­

tend (there are not), New York is just a

two­hour flight away.

Trading her six­hundred­square­foot

apartment for a house near a golf course

was not a tough call. “Nothing was open

in New York,” she said. “No theatre, no

concerts, no anything.” Storm season

has arrived, but Millard, who expects to

receive her worker certificate next week,

is taking her chances: “I’d rather go

through a hurricane than get COVID in

New York City.”

Back in Colorado, Levy couldn’t stop

himself from pitching a potential future

traveller on Nebraska, one of his stalled

accounts. What would this tourist do

there? “It’s really worth floating down

a river in a livestock tank with a few

buddies,” Levy said, a pastime that lo­

cals call “tanking.” He added, “But only

once it’s safe again.”

—Charles Bethea

“Oh, that’s just all the online yoga she’s been doing lately.”

• •

ropes? The campaign was intended to
slow the spread of the coronavirus in a
state that’s had more than sixty thou­
sand cases of COVID­19, while simulta­
neously whetting travellers’ appetites for
post­ pandemic trips.
Campaigns to keep people out are
not exactly new. In the seventies, an Or­
egon governor proclaimed, “For heav­
en’s sake, don’t move here.” Long before
Seattle became a mecca for Kurt Co­
bain fans, a prescient local journalist
popularized the slogan “Keep the Bas­
tards Out!” In 2018, Nebraska introduced
the catchphrase “Honestly, It’s Not for
Everyone,” which actually succeeded in
bringing more people to the Cornhusker
State—“which had been among the least
likely states for anybody to visit for a
long time,” John Ricks, Nebraska’s tour­
ism director, said recently.
Ricks, who is based in Lincoln, helped
come up with “Honestly, It’s Not for Ev­
eryone,” which was inspired by a concept
from the field of medicine. “Inoculation
is what we call it,” Ricks said. “That’s
where you feed off the negative percep­
tion.” He went on, “We’ve been fortunate
during this COVID crisis. People say, ‘Go
to open places, smaller cities, rural com­
munities, places you’ve never been.’ Well,
that’s our product!” Of course, if there
were an uptick in cases, Nebraska could
change course and tout the old percep­
tions of the state. As Ricks put it, “Noth­
ing to do, flat and boring, dusty plains.”
Jimmy Im, the Brooklyn­based founder
of the Web site TravelBinger, claims to
have visited more hotels around the world
(“six hundred and counting”) than any­
one else, and has been to some forty states
in his capacity as a travel professional.
“And I’ve been invited to many of the
rest,” he said, mentioning Nebraska. But
for now he’s staying put at home, in Wil­
liamsburg. Im offered tourism boards
some unsolicited slogans, to help them
keep vacationers away. Florida: “Gover­
nor Ron is a Douchebag.” Iowa: “Not
Enough Attractions.” California: “It’s a
Natural Disaster.” Idaho: “Neo­Nazis
and Whatnot.”
Telling tourists not to go somewhere—
facetiously, or as a matter of life and
death—is an about­face for most travel­
industry professionals. “It’s hard,” Camp­
bell Levy, a vice­president at Turner, a
public­relations company with travel­
related clients in two dozen states, said