Tag: college

Weekend Trips- everything I wish I knew…

Published on by AdriLeave a comment

(TRAINS, PLANES, & PLANNING)

When I was a sophomore (and even a freshman) I was already eagerly looking forward to studying abroad. I was always looking at the experiences of people who were studying abroad at that time. Whether it was through TikTok or instagram I started to form my bucket list, travel places, and expectations.

Before studying abroad I knew I wanted to take advantage of my time abroad, and travel every weekend, taking cheap flights and train rides. Exploring, staying in hostels and traveling with friends. Experiencing the (often overly) romanticized budget travel experience. But the truth is that budget traveling is not always so budget anymore. I feel like people on social media are always talking about all the inexpensive travels in Europe, but because of this mass popularity, when I got to Europe, the prices of hostels and flights had definitely gone up.

If you look at ALL your potential options, and book in advance, it is still possible to score those $35-$75 flight deals. But, here’s why I don’t entirely recommend that.

The summer before studying abroad, I spent countless hours mapping out my travels on trains, using Eurail, and trying to roughly plan everything. I knew tourism would still be in PEAK during the end of august-november, so I wanted to make sure I’d be able to travel where I wanted before things got booked. But no one really plans and books all that before getting to their study abroad destination, and realistically I was not going to.

However, I will say some things do book up, especially popular hostels or cheap airbnbs in popular locations. And restaurants too (elsewhere and in your host city too) ! Basically most things that blow up on TikTok.

When I actually got to Florence, most of my travel plans unraveled a little bit. Everyone had different modes of transportation they wanted to take (train, planes, bus, etc) and more importantly, different budgets and interests. Sometimes finding a good group to travel with, or even a friend or two can take some trial and error. Some best friends travel together, and decide to not do that again. But for others it works out (like when my best friend visited me from the US). You just have to put everything on the table and at least try to roughly plan out all your trips!

The key for weekend trips is to find people with similar interests and travel styles as you. For example, will we want to walk everywhere, take taxis, do a guided tour? Will we be going out to eat every night? Or budgeting? Shopping or sightseeing? Etc etc… communication is key to having a stress free, enjoyable time for everyone. Without worrying about accommodating everyone’s expectations.

Here’s why I reccomend going one weekend at a time, and booking one trip at a time:

You may want time off (traveling can get really tiring!)

You can mix up your experiences. It best to mix budget and not-so-budget weekends.

Weather may create a change of plans (be flexible)! When I was in Italy, Austria and other countries flooded. This greatly damaged/stopped modes of transportation, especially trains, for many many weeks!) If I had trains or trips booked, I would have been out of luck.

Booking trips one at a time can help keep your bookings, expenses, and plans straight. Ensuring that everything is booked correctly, dates, times and also making sure you stay in budget.

Now, if you know you are traveling by train, with the Eurail Pass especially, and you know your route in advance. I do recommend to book your seat reservation/plan it as soon as you can!

The high speed train routes between major/popular cities often book up fast. For example Amsterdam to any major city/paris/london/etc… and all high speed trains require you to have a seat reservation with the eurail pass. These little costs can add up. I could do a whole blog post on pros/cons, and other things I wish I knew about Eurail, pass vs other options (I may do for those interested).

Lastly, it is easy to compare experiences to others. But everyone’s situation and program abroad is different. You could be somewhere with little to no DU students, or walk down the street everyday and see at least 3 people you know. The world is a small place! While traveling, I saw some people from DU in the most random, “what are the odds” places. For example, one girl in 1 of 3 customs lines at the London airport. Or another time in a hostel in Amsterdam. That is always a fun aspect of travel and solo traveling. You’re never truly alone.

Something that surprised me, or I wish I knew, is how many people choose to study abroad with their entire friend group/ or best friends. I on the other hand, set out on study abroad to try to meet entirely new people, from different schools/countries. I also went random with my housing. Which ended up coming with its pros and cons. But anyways, sometimes it can take a while to find your people abroad, but it shouldn’t intimidate you from wanting to branch out, and make new friends!

Traveling while abroad is doable (even on a limited budget). But it doesn’t always need to be a big ordeal. It can be something short, yet impactful. Such as a day trip, or a couple hour long trip to another city in your host country. Just get out there, find what’s best for you, but also and don’t be afraid to branch out, and explore on your own either!

You don’t have to dig for the good stuff

Published on by rhiannalewisLeave a comment

Watching my classmates from DU post pictures from airplane windows on their way back to the United States this past weekend has been bittersweet. On the one hand, I’m jealous. I’d give almost anything to not be glued to this computer cubicle in the ACG library working on final papers. But on the other hand, it’s starting to land that in less than a week, my study abroad experience will be over. Not to worry, though! I’ve got some final-but-not-final thoughts from this semester that I think are worth sharing.

The program I am here with, ISA by WorldStrides, offered us the chance to complete “micro-credentials” while studying abroad. You can work on up to two of these extra courses during your time abroad to earn badges and real-world experience to add to your resumes (and experience of being human) along with your classes. I decided to do the “Choose Earth” micro-credential while here in Athens because I was taking two sustainability courses this semester towards my minor! For our final ‘assignment’, we had to complete some sort of environmental challenge.

During the second half of our program here, I began to recycle my apartment’s bottles, cans, cardboard, and plastic containers. I know that at first, it might seem silly to prioritize recycling plastic bottles so much in the grand scheme of things, but my apartment this semester has been me…and eleven other people. I have only lived with one other person the rest of my life, whether that be in my home or my college dorm, and I was not aware of how much waste 12 people can create in a day. Twelve people can make a lot of waste in a week, especially when those people all come from different homes and do not all believe in consuming things at the same speed. Because of this, I decided to make a serious effort to get our apartment to start recycling.

As easy as this task sounds, it became incredibly clear that it was going to be difficult to complete it for two reasons: my unnecessary stake in it and my roommate’s lack of it. If you’re one of my roommates reading this, Hi! I love living with you and keep reading so you don’t hate me! I made this recycling effort so intense for myself that I felt like I was somehow failing the challenge even though I was in charge of creating the rules. There were days when I was cleaning up in the kitchen when I was digging through the garbage just to make sure we had recycled everything we could. I think this was prompted by the fact that I was also taking two environmental justice + climate change classes this semester, so I constantly felt like global warming was completely my fault as an individual and that I singlehandedly needed to stop it. (Spoiler alert: that’s not how being an environmental steward works.) My roommates also didn’t all remember to do it and some of them don’t recycle at home, so they aren’t used to it. It was a lot of give and take, but slowly we started to recycle.

The biggest thing I learned from creating this challenge was that it’s okay if things don’t go perfectly as long as they are ‘going.’ I felt like this in many other aspects of my life abroad, too. I didn’t think I was taking advantage of traveling in Europe enough while I was here, but I’m bringing home souvenirs from four countries I had never been to before this fall. I was worried my friends from DU who were abroad elsewhere had forgotten about me since we didn’t talk much this semester, and then we had an impromptu FaceTime call last week discussing our excitement to be back in Denver soon. Instead of looking at the big picture, I was getting stuck in the minute details of my life, which was obscuring all the good parts.

It’s easy to get stuck in things like this when we’re passionate about something, especially when we’re in a new country, with new people, and trying to find our footing. This is a reminder to anyone, especially as the calendar year comes to an end, that it’s more important to just do something if it’s that or nothing. Being abroad has taught me that changes won’t always happen seamlessly, but there’s no need to go digging in the trashcan to try and speed up the process.