Accustomed to ambitious journeys and above all a follower of slow travel, Marie-Frédérique Blackburn, 33, seized the opportunity to go overseas as soon as she presented herself. Paris, a friend's birthday, a reunion with the family: he didn't need more to pack his bags and fly to France.

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She, who was returning from a very long trip to Asia and Australia when the pandemic broke out, was far from suspecting that we would be grounded for years: “I who have always tended to leave according to my desires , at least once a year, I was completely destabilized at not having this freedom to travel anymore, but even more shaken at not knowing when it would be possible to do so. A feeling never experienced before”, recalls Marie-Frédérique.

This is how in the fall of 2020, when the ban on non-essential travel was first lifted, Marie-Frédérique and her lover tried to fly to Copenhagen, Denmark. Alas, shortly after buying their tickets, Europe is rumored to be closing its borders. A news that is quickly confirmed, aborting this attempt to cross abroad.

“How disappointed I was! Months isolated at home, I was really looking forward to this moment. So much so that when we were informed of a possible confinement, I told myself that it was not serious, that at worst, we would be caught in Copenhagen. I had come to that!” she says, laughing.

All in all, it was perhaps better that way, because for a true epicurean like Marie-Frédérique, the health regulations of the time would have deprived her of what she loves about travel: meeting local people, living like them, meet other globetrotters, exchange, socialize, taste local specialties, experiment, get out of your comfort zone, etc.

A missed date with which she urgently reconnected in the City of Light in mid-May 2022.

“Almost three years without having gone on an adventure, I had butterflies in my stomach at the thought of taking the plane. Vaccinated, with our declaration-forms completed and respecting the health rules, we were finally free to travel, she specifies. And contrary to my habits, I did not want to look at the budget in Paris. It's been so long, I started spending! My little victory over the last few years,” adds Marie-Frédérique.

Obviously, this trip is only a taste of the many other journeys that will follow, a kind of race around the world that she intends to resume in order to make up for lost time.