Taking Flight — Suzey Ingold

My passport is a mess. The back cover is tacky from the many bag tags that have been stuck to its surface and peeled off, dust clinging to the old glue. There’s a collection of immigration stickers fading into the corner. The print on the front cover lost its shine some time ago and the pages themselves are littered with criss-crossing stamps documenting entry and re-entry from crossing borders.

Travel always felt as easy as breathing, something I know that I am privileged to be able to say. It comes from years of travelling with my parents as a child, with my dad’s work taking us across Europe multiple times a year and often far further afield, too. I had very little responsibility to take around those trips. As long as I made sure I had my little pillow, a crucial tool to allow me to fall asleep anywhere, my parents took care of the rest. I grew used to waking up to night’s shadow still thick outside the window and yawning my way into a taxi. To resting my head by the plane’s window as the ground disappeared behind a blanket of clouds, my mum’s hand in mine. To missing days of school to spend afternoons in museums and evenings in the back of lecture halls with a book resting on my knees.

Trying out drums in a market in South America with one of the very people I caught the travel bug from, my dad

I was barely a teenager the first time I was sent off solo, albeit on a familiar route and a familiar location to Finland, my other home. I had my own passport and boarding pass in hand, but otherwise, the absence of my parents by my side gave me no cause for concern. The world felt so open, so wide and inviting to be explored. Growing up in Europe has that affect on you – a short, inexpensive train ride or flight all that stands between you and walking on foreign soils.

As I grew older and moved out from my family home, so too did my adventures broaden, without the need to consult my mum first. She would dutifully sigh down the phone as I told her where I was off to and scribe it into the family calendar. She’d remind me to be careful, as I always am, and to let me know where I was now and again.

My last big trip before the pandemic was one I mulled over for some time. Morocco had been a dream destination of mine for years but it was expensive compared to the travel I was used to doing. It was a commitment. With snow coming down outside my window in Toronto, I took a breath and booked. I’m so glad I did. Not just for one of the most unique and wonderful travel experiences I ever had, but for the regret I would have felt, had the next spring followed without me having taken that trip.

Morocco, 2019 – my last big trip, pre-pandemic

Spurred on by the experience, in the early months of 2020 I took steps to plan for a Central and South America trip, a part of the world I have barely scraped the surface of. Mexico, Peru, and Colombia. Instead, 2020 fell into a puddle of cancelled bookings and flight credit vouchers.

Fully vaccinated, with restrictions slowly easing in some parts of the world, travel is starting to feel like an option again. Starting to. For something that once felt so easy, I now find myself hesitant as I stare at booking pages and flight plans. Even now, as I see people beginning to take holidays. Even with my own parents safely in Finland, a smooth travel experience behind them.

The last time I flew on a plane was summer 2020 when I took the chance and went to see my family. At the time, I told very few people. I didn’t publicise that I was there. It didn’t feel like I should be flying. But I had to. Now, a year since I've seen my family with at least a few more months to go, I’m so grateful for that decision. It was travel like I’ve never known it before. It was twenty-four hours of travelling that should usually take eight, of paperwork and curling up as far away from other people as possible. It was getting off the plane at the other end and telling my family not to touch me until I had showered and washed my clothes. It was a weight that I carried until the moment my quarantine period ended.

Even making that booking again feels difficult. As though the moment I do it, something will go wrong. I idly stare at the calendar for mid-September and then close the booking page. I’ll do it soon. Not yet.

I start to dream towards travel in the future – but what still feels like the far enough future. I tentatively make one booking – a concert ticket for a show in Italy next spring. It’s a step. I take a breath. I plan out a six week trip branching out from that date, including a week with my mum in Italy and then twelve solo stops across eastern Europe. Again, I toy with a flight booking for Italy and then think better of it. Let’s get home, first.

Me and a friend think further, still. 2023, Mount Kilimanjaro. 2024, Everest Base Camp. It seems so far away that it is yet just an idea on the horizon. 2023, I remind myself, is not that long away. The time will go. The day will come. But, by then, will travel be as easy as breathing again? As easy as pressing a button and throwing my belongings in a bag? A year ago, I couldn’t even remember how to pack a suitcase properly. I used to be able to pack with an hour’s notice – less, even.

I feel it starting, that tingle in the base of my feet that I need to travel again. I need new horizons and forgotten corners and to once again experience those beautifully wonderful and bizarre things that only seem to happen when you’re far from home. I have a whole wealth of these stories tucked away. Stories that, a while ago, I had thought about writing here. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like the time.

But those stories are exactly what makes me want to travel again. For the American air cadets who walk you home in Brussels or the Chilean magicians who (literally) pick you up in subway stations in Los Angeles.

I’ll start with a short train ride to Ottawa for the weekend. Then, maybe I’ll start pressing some of those buttons. Soon enough, I’m sure you’ll find me in the clouds, somewhere high above*.

*Err, on a plane, I mean. Not up Everest. I promise.