Savannah (United States) (AFP)

"As if the virus had never arrived here": tired of the restrictive measures imposed in their states, more and more Americans will change their air in those which have already reopened, such as Georgia and South Carolina, privileged destinations of this new deconfinement tourism.

Ghosts are no longer the only ones wandering at night in the tree-lined squares of Savannah, known - and promoted - as one of the most haunted cities in the United States.

Since the Republican governor of Georgia made his state, at the end of April, one of the first in the country to break free from its confinement, night guided tours have resumed in the tourist pearl of the American "Deep South".

The trolleybuses, with a reduced occupancy rate, once again mistreat their suspensions on the bumpy cobblestones of the historic center, and the souvenir and praline candy shops found their customers on the quays of the Savannah river which gave its name to the city , former slave port.

- Looks askew -

Arthur Parker, a 56-year-old New Yorker, had long dreamed of strolling there as a family in the shade of majestic oak trees draped in Spanish moss. The pandemic gave him good reason to swallow the 12-hour drive south.

"It's so depressing New York right now. Everything is closed, the streets are deserted, people are afraid. We needed to change our minds," he said, sitting on the terrace of a cafe. . "People look at us a little crooked when we say that we come from New York (the hardest hit city in the country). So we try to hide it, but our accent from Brooklyn betrays us".

After losing a lot of money in March and April, two of the best months of the year for the Savannah tourism industry, Jonathan Morgan has seen customers gradually return to his three B & B's in recent weeks.

"We generally have two types of tourists: those who come by plane and those who come by car," he explains. "It's mostly regional tourism lately, people who drive so far during the day. And a whole generation too young to really fear something from the Covid-19".

This is the case of Kaycee, a Texan student who for want of being able to go to Paris to celebrate the end of her university year fell back on Savannah and one of Jonathan's establishments, in a beautiful Victorian house decorated in the French on the theme of the Citroën 2CV.

"It almost feels like in Paris, it just lacks the Eiffel Tower", consoles the young woman, "not at all worried" about the risks of contagion. "I would not travel if that were the case."

- Party of deconfinement -

A two-hour drive away, tourists seem to be less numerous in the old town of Charleston, South Carolina, which reopened a little later than neighboring Georgia.

With the rise in temperatures, many preferred the beach, like Anne Miller, in her twenties, who came from Ohio with a dozen friends for a crazy weekend at Folly Beach.

"We were tired of waiting for the return to normality, to freedom. We therefore rented a large house by the sea for a celebration of deconfinement," she says, her shoulders reddened by the sun.

In the crowded restaurant-bars of the seaside resort near Charleston, customers, almost all without masks, do not even pretend to want to respect barrier gestures in front of their plates of shrimp, the specialty of the corner.

We shake hands, we kiss, we jostle ...

"It's as if the virus had never arrived here!" Appreciates Anne, happy to be able to spend the money saved here for two months of confinement without going out or shopping. "It's good for the local economy."

© 2020 AFP