Briar Woods High School students spent their spring break, from April 14 to 18, traveling to destinations ranging from local beaches to international locations. 

This week allowed students to have a full nine days off including two weekends. This extended vacation gave many families the opportunity to travel to destinations both nationally and abroad. 

For many, tropical, beach destinations like Florida were very popular. A blog called The CN Traveler also recommends non-tropical, but equally fun locations like Atlanta, Cape Cod, Grand Canyon National Park, Williamsburg, and even our own 45-minute-away capital of the nation, Washington DC. 

No matter the weather, everyone took advantage of the break, attempting to get out of the state. Whether they ended up traveling locally, such as places like Ocean City or Washington D.C.,  or to farther destinations like Italy, France, or even the Bahamas, students at Briar Woods still had fun. 

Tia Jean-Baptiste, a student at Briar Woods who vacationed at Ocean City, noted, “While it wasn’t the warmest, it was still pretty fun to be on vacation for so long– and especially at the beach.” 

It wasn’t just students that were positively impacted by the sudden boom in vacationing, business owners were as well. Layla Tuo, a nail tech at a local nail salon called Bella Beach in Ashburn, described the interest many had in getting their nails done during this specific time.

“People were coming from all over that area, even from Brambleton and it wasn’t just the students, it was the moms too.”

This time to get away for a little bit before students have 8 weeks of nonstop working hard until summer break has everyone wanting to make the most out of it, indulging in things from getting one’s nails done, to planning back-to-back tours, to going scuba diving. Because of this, businesses who provide these services end up receiving a lot more interest in their line of work during this period of time.

“It was crazy. We had no appointment slots left because everyone was all booked up,” explained Tuo.

With a variety of destinations to choose from, spring break is definitely something that doesn’t have many drawbacks. While it improves the mental health of students, allows a healthy break after a quarter of hard work, and gets them excited for summer, it even helps local businesses make profit which in turn makes all the buyers incredibly happy. If we know anything for sure, it’s that the tradition of spring break vacations will remain for a very long time.