Young people take off

After more than two years of the pandemic, young travelers seem determined to make up for lost time. Those who had to postpone or cancel their plans in 2020 and 2021, in particular due to the health measures imposed by the government, were eager to get back on the plane. Portraits of seven young adults who have chosen to go on an adventure.

Elise Fiola
The Press

A winning combination

“The week before leaving, I was really, really looking forward to it,” recalls Léa Quintana, 18, who left the country, accompanied by a friend, on May 12. Although she admits finding it emotional to be away from her loved ones for the next four months, she has quickly acclimated to her new way of life in England. “Finally, it was not so difficult to leave,” laughs the one who had been planning her trip since January. When The Press joined her, Léa was already preparing to join her father, who is traveling for work in Finland. The young woman, equipped with her backpack, will then leave for southern Europe for the second part of her trip.

In England, it was above all the desire to discover new cities that guided her. When she learned that one of her father’s acquaintances needed counselors at her summer camp in Italy, Léa seized the opportunity. Although the pandemic clipped her wings as she planned to study in Italy after high school, today she is embarking on a new stage that she hopes will shape her journey: “The rest of the summer, I have the impression that it is a certain emancipation. As I will be on my own, I will get to know myself even more. I tell myself that I really need this adventure. »

Good time with friends

What are your plans for the next few weeks? we ask Serena Byrnes. “That’s a big mystery,” replies the one who, at the time of the interview, had just called the airline to postpone her return flight. Her next two weeks were not yet planned, but Berlin, Amsterdam and Bordeaux were destinations that challenged her since she has friends who are settled there this summer. This is also the reason that pushed her to go on a trip. “I have many friends who went to Europe this year. I took the opportunity to go see them,” she explains. In addition to Turkey, Greece, France and Italy, she stopped in Barcelona, ​​Spain to join her family who were passing through.

The pandemic and confinement have cultivated the desire that Séréna felt to “change landscapes, meet new people, see something different, because as many [elle] love Montreal, [elle avait] need to get out”. “Basically, I’ve always liked to travel, but being locked up for so long made me want to leave even more,” she says.

Travel the globe

Vivianne Queenton returns from her first solo trip which lasted a total of eight months. “At the beginning, when I left, I had no idea of ​​my schedule. I had small ideas, but I went there freestyle. Guided by the weather and the cost of living, she crossed the Atlantic Ocean four times. Montreal-Bordeaux, Porto-Punta Cana, Lima-Milan, Faro-Montreal.

Although she had very little experience in this type of travel at the age of 18, Vivianne had known for a long time that she would take a sabbatical year between CEGEP and university to travel. The previous year, she had worked very hard to be able to afford to be away for so long.

Tourism and immersion

Félix Bouffard, 21, opted for the adventure offered by Explore: an intensive immersion experience to learn English in another region of Canada. For the luckiest of those registered, a large part of the costs of the stay are covered by the government. This is the case of Félix who landed in Western Canada. “I saw that it was a bit like an all-inclusive experience: you can experience what you’ve been missing for the past few years while learning English. You have time to visit Vancouver, the most expensive city in Canada, with some paid amenities. That’s interesting,” he says, aware that he probably wouldn’t have traveled otherwise.

Anyone who says he is not a “kilometre eater” recognizes that it is pleasant to travel and to be confronted with new cultures even when you are not changing countries.

Sun and relaxation

Live from the airport, Gabriella Viero calls us, relieved that her stress from the day before is finally over. The 23-year-old is one of hundreds of Quebecers who lined up all night outside passport offices. Relieved to have cleared security, she encouraged herself by thinking that in a few hours she would be resting by the pool, under the rays of the sun with possibly a sweet fruity drink in her hand to recover her lost hours of sleep. spent on his little camping chair. ” I can not wait ! Even more so because I waited so long,” she says.

She and her mother are flying to the Turks and Caicos Islands for 10 days. For Gabriella, it was not an option to leave during the pandemic. It is therefore this mother-daughter trip that inaugurates the return of travel.

Travel to celebrate

Philippe Granger is back from a trip that lasted just over two weeks. With a friend he made on school benches at UQAM, he traveled through the big cities of Europe (London, Paris, Barcelona) before exploring the Côte d’Azur and doing a stop at the Cannes Film Festival. Like Séréna, Philippe’s first mission was to meet friends who had gone on exchange. “Destinations were defined quickly based on where they were,” says the 22-year-old traveler.

“We had nothing in the hold, all our things were in the cabin and we went to youth hostels,” summarizes Philippe. This trip allowed them to “celebrate the end of the session and [se] recover from two and a half years in the pandemic, time spent at a distance ”, while the two friends who studied together could not see each other, he believes.

Holidays in preparation

Valérie Nguyen is preparing for her first trip with friends. She will fly to Spain in July with her two university colleagues, then join one of her childhood friends in Italy for a week. For the first part of the trip, the travelers “made an Excel file with a fixed plan, departure times and everything else”. “We organized meetings Zoom to book our Airbnbs,” she says. “I used everything I was able to learn with my first group of friends to better organize the second part of my trip,” she adds, laughing.

For the moment, Valérie does not have high expectations. She hopes that this trip will allow her “to be more independent, to have fun with friends and to be able to welcome new experiences”. “These are not necessarily destinations that I had in mind for a long time, but it is being able to enjoy holidays with friends that pushes me to leave. »