Before studying abroad I had always considered traveling outside of the country as something that was a once-in-a-while thing that I was extremely lucky to do. I was also under the impression that trips had to be planned months in advance. While traveling and studying abroad is something that I am extremely lucky to do, studying abroad has made it so much easier for me to travel, plan, and make trips happen in a couple weeks or even days.

I am super lucky to come from a family that values travel and have grown up traveling with them to several countries. However, usually these trips took months and months to set in stone and plan. While I acknowledge that planning for a trip for a 5 person family is much harder than for yourself, I never considered that I would be planning trips to places like Greece in just a couple days. This is definitely one of the luxuries that I have as a student in Europe, which is a super easy place to travel around since it is so small and the EU makes it super easy for me to travel between countries. I also have the luxury of much cheaper travel due to being in and traveling within Europe.  

As someone who lives in America and has always heard about the expenses and time it takes to travel to new countries, it was a huge shock that I am so easily able to take a weekend trip to another country, and traveling every weekend is something that I never imagined I would ever be doing, especially at age 21 as a junior in college. Not only is doing all this travel and planning super fun, it is also helping me get so much better at using public transportation, booking hotels and flights, and adapting to changes and plans. It has definitely given me the skill of quick planning for sure.

I am fully savouring these moments and appreciating just how awesome study abroad is. I am so lucky to be able to have this opportunity to travel so many places and gain so much worldly knowledge from doing so. Never in my life would I expect to be doing all this, but I would truly not change a thing. My advice is travel as much as you can and don’t think twice! If you think too much, plans may not happen and you only study abroad once!

Sara Fewell