CBS News
Europe was the hottest place to be during this summer. The New York Times reports that Europe was the most visited summer destination by Americans, and also the warmest.
With ambulances and helicopters having to rescue tourists affected by the sun, it’s interesting that people still followed through with their plans. Reaching 118 degrees Fahrenheit, with deadly wildfires across the continent, Europe was literally burning. Yet here some people were, following the TikTok trend and going to Europe. It is a quite peculiar occurrence. Even more curious is that according to Mastercard, tourists spent 154% more on this vacation than previous ones prior to the pandemic. It’s clear we really went all out this summer.
It seems like the pandemic finally made people realize that instead of waiting until retirement, they could travel now. With the uncertainty COVID-19 caused, more and more people put themselves out there to try something new.
I was one of those people. A lifelong dream of my family’s was to visit Greece, so this summer we packed our bags and hopped on a plane. It was just as imagined and was the perfect vacation, however, the heat and tourist concentration were too much to handle.
I wasn’t alone in my travels, as Europe was a popular destination for Léman students this summer. In an online poll to the Léman Upper School, 25 students shared that they had visited Europe this year. They all had different reasons to travel; mainly to visit family or to fulfill a lifelong dream. No matter why they traveled, they seemed to generally agree that it was abnormally warm and packed with tourists. Notably,
Lucas Paulino, a 10th grader, wrote that “(The) temperature in Seville, Spain reached up to 110 degrees this summer! Even locals called it out of the ordinary.”
After three years stuck with restricted travel, it seems that people, even within our Léman community, are travel-crazy and Europe was the place to be. Where will next summer's trends take us, how warm will it be and are our pandemic savings enough to pay for our next trip?