Madrid exodus after the end of the state of alarm

On the night of Sunday May 9, coinciding with the end of the state of alarm, thousands of young people flood the streets of Madrid shouting "freedom!"

Spread the beer.

It is sung.

And the party, concentrated in the heart of the main cities of the region, serves as an outpost for a much more numerically important movement.

The following weekend, first without the mobility restrictions imposed to combat the coronavirus, there are almost two million trips with origin or destination in Madrid, according to a study by Nommon based on anonymized data from mobile phone networks.

12% of Madrilenians end up sleeping on Saturday the 15th in another region.

No other Community sees more people spend the weekend away.

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"I went to Cádiz with a friend," says Marta about the first weekend without penalties.

“We needed to move, get out of Madrid.

Every year in February, we do a beach weekend, and this year obviously we haven't been able to do it until May ”, he continues.

"We took advantage of the house of a cousin of my friend, but we would have gone anywhere with sun and good weather."

Like Marta, many Madrileños wanted to go to the beach.

Confined for months within the region, the end of the restrictions was like the starting gun for a long-awaited career.

Trips to the Community of Valencia quadrupled compared to those of the weekend of April 30, when the state of alarm was in effect, but they were also 25% higher than those registered in February 2020, the last month without restrictions to mobility.

After Valencia capital, Torrevieja, Alicante, Benidorm and Gandía were the main coastal destinations for residents of Madrid.

In Andalusia, the municipalities of Malaga, Marbella and Torremolinos led the reception of locals, eager to enjoy their second homes and the sea.

But not only from the sea.

"I went to Toro from Friday to Sunday," says a second Marta about her visit to Zamora.

"There was a lot of traffic, on the way out and then on the way back, but we wanted to see the family, we hadn't seen them since Christmas."

Madrid residents made more than double the number of trips the first weekend without restrictions than the previous one, that of May 7;

and exceeded more than 4% the values ​​of a weekend in February 2020, the last full month without a pandemic.

These are the main conclusions of a study carried out by Nommon, which analyzed mobility in Spain throughout the state of alarm for the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda.

But not the only one.

The residents of the capital, those who traveled the most

The residents of the capital were the ones who traveled the most: up to 15% slept outside the municipality.

A mobilization that had already begun on Sunday the 9th, especially for those who wanted to move to the border regions.

That day alone, more than 100,000 people left the region for the ten closest provinces, according to Nommon.

"Although we know people who have come and gone even if they had been in alarm, we have respected the restrictions," says Ana, one of the 10,214 Madrilenians who traveled to Segovia.

"We were very excited to go to our house in the village and enjoy it without the feeling that we were breaking any rule," he adds.

“We wanted to see that everything was fine, to spend a day in the field.

It was very liberating. "

That Sunday, trips from Madrid were mainly to nearby provinces, such as Toledo, Guadalajara, Segovia and Ávila, but, compared to the previous Sunday, even with restrictions, almost double the number of trips to Valencia and almost triple to Alicante.

That day the exodus of the Madrilenians began.

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