It was September of 2019 when I left the United States to study abroad in the Netherlands.
I took a plane from Boston Logan Airport to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, with excitement and fear. Before that, I had traveled out of the country about two times. And even then, I had my family with me. This time, I was going with mostly strangers from my school.
I had one large suitcase, a carryon bag, and a backpack.
These are what I would be living out of for the next three months of my life. I had to pack my life’s entirety into these three bags of which I had to successfully navigate throughout an airport using all the arm strength I could muster. Being a smaller, shorter girl, this was quite an ordeal. But I made due.
Don’t get me wrong–I knew for a fact that I’d be getting sick on this trip, as most would.
I’ve always had a history of being the first one sick when traveling with my family. I didn’t see why it would be any different in this case. I’ve always had a weak immune system. But, at that time–unlike now–this was not my top worry.
My top worries included: losing my passport (didn’t happen), getting on the wrong train (did happen), getting lost (definitely happened), getting bed bugs (thankfully, didn’t happen), and running into the wrong types of strangers (happened almost everywhere). Little did I know, most of these things would suck for sure, but also help become a grade-A traveler.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that I would nearly escape what would have been the biggest worry of them all: COVID-19. A month after returning home, things overseas started to get worse. And the people who were studying abroad after my group were forced to return home due to the outbreak.
Though I was lucky to have escaped that fear and trouble, I was sad for the students that got the short end of the stick. It was unfair that I could have such a great experience traveling while these students were forced to return home before it was too late.
Quickly, my perspective on safe traveling changed. All of us had gone from riding public transport in a different country each weekend to being afraid of taking the bus or plane home from college.
Would we ever be able to travel again without this fear?
I can admit that the idea of travel right now does not sound appealing at the very least. But, hopefully, after a while, this will change. And those trips cut short, or postponed, will hopefully be rescheduled.