Everyone was right. Studying abroad will change your life forever.

It’s been two months since I got back from my semester abroad in Italy, and I think about it every day. Being on your own in a new country, with a new language and customs, is incredibly developmental. The things I took away from this experience cannot be matched, and I’ll take you through a bit of my experience.

I went to the Syracuse University satellite campus in Florence. My apartment was located on Via degli Artisti, and luckily, it was a two-minute walk to campus.

I will say that adjusting to living abroad and being so far from home was challenging. I missed my family and my friends who were at Syracuse in New York, but it created a way to be fully independent and make this experience what I wanted.

Living in Florence was an experience like no other. The history, the architecture and the FOOD were unreal. Cafes and ristorantes at every corner, a sandwich shop every fifty feet; the opportunities to eat were endless. The amount of gelato I ate was insane, and I would do anything to get a cup from La Sorbettiera.

The opportunity to explore a new city completely on your own should be everyone’s life goal. Being able to choose where I wanted to travel to each weekend and what I wanted to do gave me a new perspective on how I want to live my life, and prioritizing the things I want for myself.

I went to 10 countries over the course of the semester, all weekend trips. Planning these trips really brought out my Type A, crazy organization personality, but thank god, because all the trips were successful and went smoothly. I heard horror stories of fake accommodations, missed flights, or taxi scams, but we were successfully able to avoid all that and travel easily.

Planning trips takes a lot of responsibility, as you need to ensure transportation, accommodation, and the itinerary align with everyone traveling and are cost-effective. Ideally, I’d be traveling with nice airlines, staying in good hotels, and going out for higher-end meals. But we’re traveling with student funds, which is a veryyyy scary and small number.

To break down planning travel, you need to start by listing where and how badly you want to go there. For me, I prioritized Marrakesh, Morocco and Munich for Oktoberfest. These two trips were my main goals for my time abroad, and I was prepared to spend more money on them to make them memorable. It’s possible these won’t align with the group you’re traveling with, so you may have to make some choices as a group to satisfy everyone. This could mean taking a solo trip or cutting a trip out. Luckily, the girls I was traveling with all wanted to go to these places, so it made it a lot easier.

For Oktoberfest, there are only three possible weekends to go, so we picked the cheapest weekend, because flights and hotels in Munich were in high demand. We actually booked our Airbnb in June to guarantee we would have a place to stay. If you’re traveling somewhere on a weekend when there’s a popular event, like Oktoberfest in Munich or St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin, I strongly recommend booking these trips ahead of time, even 5-6 months in advance. The raised costs add up fast, especially when paying for travel, a place to stay, and extra costs like food, drinks and mementos. We stayed with Bob W, an apartment chain that worked very well for our stay in Munich. While this site would be too expensive for other trips, it was in a good price range compared to other places in Munich during Oktoberfest, and it was amazing quality.

Hot air balloon ride over the Agafay Desert!

We went to Morocco, specifically Marrakesh, for the first half of our fall break. Now this trip is a blog post in itself, but for a brief overview of what to look for, I recommend staying in an Airbnb. But! You MUST check the reviews and credibility of the property owner. We stayed in a riad in la Kabash, which is a traditional Moroccan home. Morocco has a completely different lifestyle, and it is a wild culture shock traveling there. There is so much beauty in Marrakesh and the country as a whole, but it’s important to prioritize safety and be aware of where you are staying.

I know this is a very basic overview on long-term traveling and what to expect, but check out my next blog, which will go more in-depth on how to travel on a budget, with some tips & tricks to save $$$$.

A Semester Somewhere

Abroad & Thriving…On a Budget