Sars may have derailed many plans for the summer exodus, but those who have uprooted and headed abroad before recommend that others do the same.
Joyce Lau Cheuk-ling, 16, a student from St Stephen's Girls' College, Mid-Levels, spent last summer in Finland. 'Most of my friends went to the usual places like Australia, Canada, England, and the US. I wanted to go somewhere more interesting and exotic,' she said. She later visited Sweden and Estonia. 'Both are like places in fairy tales. I was impressed by the castles, the old stone roads and grand churches.'
Joyce stayed with a local family in a town called Kerava, home to the Kerava Garlic Festival, where she gave presentations about Hong Kong in local schools.
She learnt some basic Finnish and improved her English, and saw how other schools worked. She noted Finnish students enjoyed more freedom than their Hong Kong counterparts.
She travelled with AFS Intercultural Exchanges. Although AFS is not operating tours this year because of Sars, others options are available. Patty Tse Tsz-yu, 15, a student at St Clare's School, Mount Davis Road, spent last July in Hemet, a small town of 60,000 outside Los Angeles, with EF Education, another study tour operator. 'My English improved a lot because every night after dinner I chatted with my host family,' she said. EF Education, which runs programmes in more than 50 countries, has been relatively unaffected by Sars.
'We've been sending students abroad throughout the Sars problem,' said EF's Florence Chow Ching-yee. 'We manage our own camps and we've had no problems with quarantine or cancellations.'