Let’s look at travel under MAGA. I’m somewhat interested in a cruise to Antartica, and this cruise goes to some of the same places, so I’ve been following the hantavirus outbreak on this small ship. It’s pretty clear that it came from the passengers encountering some rodent shit, probably on an excursion. But the US citizens on the ship shouldn’t expect any help from the government:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed it is sending a team to Spain’s Canary Islands, where the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius is expected to arrive on Sunday, and US passengers will be evacuated to an airbase in Nebraska. However, experts say the US is unprepared for such a disease threat.
The CDCs limited role in responding to the hantavirus outbreak is raising questions, including whether it now has a diminished role in responding to health scares. Most of the response has been led by the World Health Organization (WHO), of which the US is no longer a member.
[…]
At the CDC’s first briefing, held on Saturday by telephone only for invited reporters, according to the Associated Press, officials pledged to be transparent in updating the public but said the media could not cite the speakers by name under guidelines issued by aides to the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.
[…]
But experts and former government health officials say the response by the CDC has been feeble compared with how it dealt with similar outbreaks in the past.
“The CDC is not even a player,” said Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University, told the AP. “I’ve never seen that before.”
This was a tiny (150 passenger) ship and it doesn’t appear that the hantavirus has been transmitted from passenger to passenger, or mutated in any way. Though none of them have died, 115 passengers on a cruise ship with over 3,100 passengers became ill with norovirus last month, and it’s likely that other ships will have outbreaks. Since the raccoon-penis harvester in charge of HHS has laid off all of the full-time cruise ship inspectors in the CDC, there will be more diarrhea cruises in the future.
Moving on to international travel, boy we’re popular:
A Mexico City nightclub has gone viral for charging Americans a nearly $300 cover charge, while citizens from any other country pay just $20 for access, and Mexicans and other Latin Americans pay only $14.
International tourism is a huge part of the Mexican economy. This is one club in a “cool” neighborhood (Roma Norte) probably trying to get a little PR. So, I don’t want to over react and say we won’t be welcome in Mexico. Still, as the US turns the screws on Mexico, it’s more and more likely that having a US passport (with a picture of Donald Trump on it) is less and less of a good thing. And if this is happening in Mexico, take it times 10 for Europe.
So if you don’t want to get the shits on a cruise, and you don’t want to travel to countries where people treat you like you just stepped in something stinky, there’s always our big old country to explore. Except this:
We are seeing the national average for gasoline and diesel prices drift lower so far this weekend but we WILL jolt higher on Monday. This is the calm before the storm.
— Patrick De Haan (@gasbuddyguy.bsky.social) 2026-05-09T19:19:26.021Z
That’s a post from the head of petroleum analysis at Gas Buddy.
Having camped at a lot of national and state part campgrounds, US RVers definitely like their big rigs pulled around by 10 MPG trucks, some of which run on $6/gallon diesel.
Of course, you could always take a plane, if your flight isn’t canceled due to rising jet fuel prices.
I guess the way this shakes out is a lot more Trump staycations this Summer.
