‘Sydney Airport felt like a war zone’

Our border tentatively creaked open to New Zealand, before our Kiwi cousins slammed it shut and held it firmly closed. We’ve been prohibited from departing the country, let alone visiting anywhere beyond Aotearoa. But now the first gutsy Australians are popping up in all kinds of interesting places.My Instagram feed is full of posts from Seattle. New York. London. Paris. Singapore. Nadi.But while I scroll enviously through snaps containing snowboards on perfect powder days, steaming bowls of spicy laksa, and iconic red buses crawling like caterpillars through Oxford Circus, I can’t help but wonder what it’s actually like to depart the Motherland after being firmly held for so long.

‘It’s weirdly the same and different’

Lisa Denvir had always been an avid traveller. She migrated to Australia from Ireland and used to travel about 400,000 miles every year for work. She tells Escape she seized the opportunity to venture out.“I couldn’t handle the fact that we couldn’t leave,” she admits. “It felt like everyone else was travelling, so why couldn’t we? So I booked a ticket to Dublin – I decided one day and flew out nine days later.”She chose to fly through Dubai, as it felt like the most reliable connection, and was surprised to find the flight from Sydney was chock-full, despite the fact the international terminal looked like a ghost town.

“It was weirdly the same and different,” she says. “Sydney Airport felt like a war zone, everything was closed and shuttered, but in Dubai it was normal except everyone had a mask on. There were people from everywhere, foot massages, duty free, top-end shops, low-end shops, everything. Then when I arrived in Dublin, the guy looked at my Australian passport and waved me through without checking any of my documentation. I did all this work to put it all together, but nothing was checked at all.”

Lisa’s top tips for Ireland

Hers was a low-key trip, visiting her mother and some friends, but she did splash out for a few nights at a fancy hotel. Lisa says it was tricky trying to figure out exactly what was needed – for example, the PCR test required for international travel is different to the regular ones because you need a pathology report from an authorised clinic instead of just the text message with the result. She also recommends checking your immunisation record after getting a COVID booster to ensure it’s all up-to-date.“But the main thing I would say is just to do it,” she says. “Don’t be afraid and don’t hesitate. I was prepared in case anything went wrong, I could work in hotel quarantine if I had to, but to be honest it’s not that different to pre-COVID travel except you have to wear a mask. Feel the fear and do it anyway.”

‘I couldn’t have had a better trip’

“It was fantastic, it was great, but it was surreal,” says Anne Bunde-Birouste, who recently travelled from Sydney to the United States to visit her mother. In addition to visiting family, she enjoyed a short holiday, spending a few days in a cottage by a lake in Wisconsin and going to an American football game. That was the strangest part, she says, sitting in a packed stadium with 80,000 strangers, many of whom opted not to wear masks or take the COVID precautions to which Australians have become accustomed.

The decision to book the flight and go was a big one.“I was scared to go anywhere,” she admits. “It felt huge after two years. But I’m double-vaxxed and I hadn’t seen her for two years, so figured I would mask-up and see if it worked. And it did.”

Anne’s top tips for the USA

Anne speaks to Escape shortly after having her final post-arrival COVID test. (At the time of publishing, travellers are required to have tests on the day of return, after six days, and after 12 days.) She took great care to be prepared for each step of the journey, having copies of all her documentation on her phone as well as in hard copy. She also paid extra to get her PCR tests with a two-hour turnaround time to ensure she would be able to board her flight home and has two tips for other would-be travellers.

First is that there’s never a better time to pay for an upgrade.“I flew with Qantas from Sydney to LA and then had a connecting flight to Indianapolis,” she says. “I treated myself to an upgrade with points, so I could go to the lounge, but the business lounge was closed which meant I got to go to first. I was so excited, even behind my mask the staff there could see it. They gave me the VIP treatment, with champagne and all this delicious food. Then on the plane I had this beautiful seat and my jammies and I was in heaven. I couldn’t have had a better trip.”Second is to check your masks are comfortable before your flight.“I bought N-95 masks, but I would say make sure the ones you get are comfortable. My ears don’t normally bother me, but it’s a long flight (to the US) and they killed me at the end of it.”