A lot of things have changed this year; there are no more in-person concerts, no more large gatherings, we have to wear face masks everywhere, and we cannot travel as freely as we did last year. In a previous article, I wrote about not being able to fly home and see my family this summer. But just last week I was lucky enough to travel home to West Africa. Needless to say, the experience was very different from previous travel experiences I’ve had.
Obviously, the first thing I had to do was take a covid test. I took the test 5 days before I was leaving, and depending on where you go you’re required to take the test closer to your departure date. To be honest, I was very scared about taking the test, and all the videos I saw online did not reassure me, but it was not as bad as I thought it would be. It was just uncomfortable, but not really that painful. Also depending on where you’re going you sometimes have to file a travel request before travelling, which I did and I had to pay $4. I was very surprised and kind of annoyed that I had to pay considering no one even checked whether I had the travel request or not.
When you get to the airport, you obviously have to wear a mask the whole time and when you’re checking in, they ask you for your Covid test results and the reasons for your travel. I would say that that was the only thing that was really different than normal.
The company I was flying with specifically asked for its passengers to have surgical masks, however, I arrived at the airport with my reusable fabric mask. I was asked 3 times whether I had a surgical mask or not, which I did, but was waiting to board the plane before wearing it. My trip consisted of two flights and a 2h layover in Paris, France. My first flight was extremely empty and I had a whole row of seats to myself. Most rows had two people in them with the middle seat empty, except if it was a family. My second flight, however, was really full with all three seats in my row being occupied. There was a stranger next to me the whole flight and I didn’t really feel safe because of that. I don’t know if that’s the case for everybody, but before boarding my second flight they asked me once again for my covid test results. The way the flight attendant looked at my result made me very anxious because it looked like there was something wrong.
Overall, this experience was not as strange as I thought it would be. Obviously, it was surprising to see the plane almost empty when the last two flights I took with the same company and going to the same destination were so full. Also, most of the stores in the Toronto airport and Paris airport were closed (France is in lockdown at the moment) so that was pretty strange as well. I would say don’t travel if you don’t need to; the first reason is to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and the second one is that travelling right now can be very stressful with all the restrictions and new rules.