How to find time for traveling in college
Wouldn’t it be lovely to see the world while studying in college? Many students ask themselves this question, but end up going nowhere because they just can’t spare the time.
Indeed, college curricula can be very demanding. With all the classwork, homework, term papers, and other academic staff, there’s hardly any time left for an evening jaunt. Add exam preparations and household chores to the list, and it may seem that students’ traveling opportunities equal to zero.
But that doesn’t have to be the case. True, college is no easy ride, but it’s still possible to find time for many activities besides studying during these four years. And that can include travel! So, if you’d like some advice on how to find to to travel while studying in college, read on.
Why college travel is cool
There are many good reasons why travel in college can be a good things. If you need some convincing, here are some of them.
- Getting fresh inspiration – It’s hard to come up with fresh new ideas when you see the same things, day after day after day. Travel exposes you to new stimuli and ideas, giving you fresh inspiration to take back to your studies.
- Practicing your language skills – It’s much easier to hone your language skills when you visit a country where they speak it. A week’s immersion in the language will boost your skills immeasurably.
- Immerse yourself in a foreign culture – Whether you’re learning the language or not, immersing yourself in a different culture is a valuable growing experience.
- Broaden your horizons – The more you see, the more you know; the more you know – the broader your perspective. Seeing new places and cultures helps shape a new, more sophisticated outlook on the world.
- Build your independence – Being away from home while living on campus is one thing, but traveling abroad is quite another. Nothing teaches you to be independent like being in a foreign place on your own.
Five tips on how to find time for traveling in college
Think this sounds great, but wonder how you can possibly find the time to reap these travel benefits? In fact, there are many ways a smart student can find time to explore the world. One of the most obvious opportunities presents itself in various college travel programs – the perfect solution for those who seek deep immersion into a foreign culture. But there are more.
1) Improve time management skills
If you don’t have enough free time, there could be an opportunity to improve your time management and find more. For example, if doing homework takes you hours every day, you could try to use websites for students that can help you do it faster. A proofreading service, for example, can save you hours that you can spend on planning your next exciting trip.
You can also find time management courses on educational platforms like Coursera or Skillshare. Completing them requires time, too – but it will most likely pay back later. But even without courses, it’s still possible to learn to be more organized. There’s no shortage of information on the subject on the internet, plus technology is always at your service with the best planning and focusing apps.
2) Travel during holidays
If you’re not sure you can combine traveling and studying efficiently, planning a holiday trip is the first obvious choice. Once the exams are over, you’re free as a bird till the next semester and can go wherever you please!
There’s also the money question, of course – but there’s also plenty of advice on how to plan a budget trip. Just make sure to start preparing in advance so that you’ll have everything sorted out by the time the holidays begin.
Talking about money, there are a lot of student discounts and special offers that can make college travel way more affordable. Make sure to check them out! However, remember that the holiday season is the hottest for the industry, so the overall cost of your trip may still turn out higher than off-season.
3) Make short weekend trips
The simplest way to find time to explore new places is to travel on weekends. You can leave on Friday evening and come back home on Sunday with fresh impressions.
But there’s a downside to short weekend trips, too. Firstly, they leave no extra hours to complete time-demanding assignments – papers, research projects, etc. But experienced students usually have bookmarks like “my paper writer” that help them easily solve the problem. As for the simpler tasks like reading or memorizing something, you can as well do them on the go.
Secondly, you cannot go far when you only have a couple of days, plus the costs for transportation are larger compared to the overall budget of the trip. But there are always some interesting places not far from home that are worth visiting.
4) Study online
If weekends and holidays are not enough, you can travel and study at the same time. How? Study online! One of the greatest perks of online degrees is flexibility: you can go anywhere where there’s an internet connection and still continue to study.
Certainly, this can only work if you’re very organized and can ensure you still visit online classes and do your homework despite there are so many temptations around. And it’s not as easy as it seems!
5) Study abroad
The most radical (yet also the most appealing) opportunity for college travel is a study abroad program. There is a huge abundance of these kind of programs due to their popularity, and though the pandemic caused a temporary decline in demand, things have been going back on track lately.
There are programs with different durations – from one semester to the whole four years. All of them offer unique opportunities to immerse in the foreign culture, learn the language, make new connections, build up confidence and independence, and, all in all, get the experience of a lifetime.
Could travel during college be for you?
Finding time for traveling in college is not only possible – it’s vital, considering all the benefits that college travel offers. So, don’t sit around brooding, don’t put off your plans to see the world till after graduation. Use one of our suggestions instead and enjoy traveling now because college years are the best time to do it.
