Dozens of locals have found their way home from abroad during the pandemic.

For the last few years Patricia Hamilton has spent a month each year vacationing in Álamos, Mexico. This year was a special occasion: her friend Joan Winderman’s 90th birthday. When Hamilton left in early March, she didn’t know she would be in Mexico for an extra nine days because of the pandemic.

Travel south went smoothly and on March 9, she spent the day celebrating her friend. “The whole town was there,” Hamilton says. “It was a big bash.”

About a week later, as the virus spread more widely throughout the U.S., she wondered if she should come home to Pacific Grove early. But she waited until her scheduled departure date of March 25. Her taxi was scheduled, her belongings were packed, and she opened the Volaris airline app and saw that her flight to Tijuana was canceled. She decided to stay for an extra week and on April 1, made her way to the airport – only to learn at the ticketing gate her new flight was canceled. She got rebooked on a plane the next day – and again, the app said the flight was canceled. “That’s when I broke down,” she says.

Hamilton is not the only American who’s struggled to return home from abroad to shelter in place. The U.S. State Department reports having helped bring home 63,000 American travelers since late January.

On March 31, the State Department issued a do-not-travel warning due to Covid-19, asking all U.S. citizens to avoid international travel.

The staff of U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, is working to bring constituents home. As of April 20, they’d assisted with the repatriation of 38 people from 16 different countries, prioritizing those with medical conditions.

One challenge is that airline travel is unpredictable and travel regulations and restrictions vary.

“Each country is different,” Congressman Panetta says, “Each government has placed their own restrictions on travel into and out of their respective countries, and some airports shut down overnight.”

Hamilton made it home, thanks to help from a hotel manager who told her to go back to the airport in Obregón. There, her temperature was taken and she boarded the flight, and when she returned home to P.G., she self-quarantined for 14 days.

“I almost slept for two days when I got back,” she says. “It was a roller-coaster ride.”