The United States has reopened to foreign travel, allowing for pleasant reunions.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The U.S. Parents cared for their children who were born when they were overseas. Couples who had been apart for a long time kissed, while grandparents embraced grandkids who had doubled in age.

The United States reopened its borders to many vaccinated overseas visitors on Monday, allowing families and friends to reconnect for the first time since the coronavirus surfaced and providing a boost to the tourism sector, which had been destroyed by the pandemic. For 20 months, the restrictions prevented millions of individuals from entering the United States.

On their trip to see his mother-in-law in California, Octavio Alvarez and his 14-year-old daughter zoomed across a pedestrian crossing in San Diego in less than 15 minutes.

“It’s a tremendous sensation,” Alvarez, 43, who lives in Ensenada, Mexico, about a two-hour drive from San Diego, said. His family used to visit California twice a month before the outbreak. Border restrictions have a “very high emotional cost,” he noted.

American citizens and permanent residents have always been permitted to enter the United States, but travel prohibitions have grounded tourists, stymied business trips, and frequently separated families. Travelers must have confirmation of immunisation and a COVID-19 test that is negative.

“I believe a lot of folks have been waiting for this day,” Eileen Bigelow, regional port director for Customs and Border Protection in Vermont, said. “They see it as a light at the end of the tunnel, a return to normalcy.”

Long embraces were exchanged at airports around the country. Nirmit Shelat embraced his girlfriend, Jolly Dave, as she came from India at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, bringing their nine-month separation to an end. She was aboard the country’s first aircraft out of the country, bound for the United States.

“I can’t even express how delighted I am,” Dave added.

Gaye Camara, who resides in France, last saw her husband in New York in January 2020, unaware that it would be another 21 months before they could hug each other again.

“I’m going to run into his arms, kiss him, touch him,” Camara, 40, said as she pushed her baggage through Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport, where the buzzing throngs matched those prior to the epidemic, except the face masks.

The reopening of the United States’ borders with Mexico and Canada, where going back and forth was a way of life prior to the pandemic, offered comfort. The shortage of Mexican tourists wreaked havoc on malls, restaurants, and stores in border communities across the United States.