When the state of Florida began enacting stay-at-home measures and closing beaches in mid-March, in response to the threat of COVID-19, Miami-based real estate agent and artist Nadia Bouzid was in the middle of painting a mural inside a new hotel in Cancun, Mexico.
Putting down the paintbrush, she picked up her phone and began searching airfares to return home.
“I watched a seat on the flight I wanted go from $200 to $70, to $350,” Bouzid tells CNN Travel. “I booked it and flew, but the flight was spookily empty. I was panicking, and the changing price made me wonder how much I’d be paying to return to finish my work, when all this is over.”