Will Covid mark the start of a new kind of tourism?

All hail the generation of the conscious, bamboo straw-toting traveller

This week, aeroplanes began to land at Corfu airport, in Greece. After months of not a single plane in the sky flying above the turquoise waters of the Ionian, where I have been based, spotting a plane now is cause for comment. “Oh, a plane!” we exclaim.

No-one thought global travel could ever come to a standstill in such a dramatic way but once it had, we got used to our plane-less skies.

On the island, residents didn’t migrate to the beaches to prepare for a summer season in concrete blocks of all-inclusive hotels. Instead, they took to nature. They hiked into olive groves. They breathed in the fresh air of the mountains. Even now, anticipating a quiet summer season, they tend to their vegetable plots, preparing for an economically tough winter by growing their own sustenance.

Similarly, those in other parts of the world, the Brits, the Germans, the Americans, the visitors Greece might usually see, have forcefully learned to appreciate what’s on their own turf and just beyond their windows.

Even if we do travel this year, we have to be conscious of where we choose to go, how we travel and even our own behaviour once we get there. In Corfu this week, I have seen more campervans than…