College Students! discussion

Sorry i this is already a topic, but I'm looking into traveling to Europe next summer and thought I'd get some advice!

Where have you been in the world (I'd love to hear about places in Europe, but anywhere is fun!)

Where would you like to go in the world and why??

I haven't been anywhere! Only on the west coast (ca, or, wa, hi, ut, az, nm, wy, co, mt.) Out of those my favorites are probably San Francisco and Seattle for city life, Oregon and N. ca for camping, New mexico has a lot of cool native american history and hawaii is just a really fun spot for out of season vacationing!


Places I'd like to go: Italy, England, France, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Amsterdam, Ireland, Greece...and a million more! Mostly because the pictures of what i've seen look beautiful, looks like there are fun adventures to go on, and I'd like to see more of the history!

Ok lets see if I can remember everything. I've been to... 20 states? I think that's right. I've also traveled to Canada; in Mexico I've been to Mazatlan, Manzeneo (sp?), Alcapulco, Cabo San Lucas, and Huatulco. And I've also been to Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Colombia.

Aside from places in the U.S., I've been to:

Italy--Rome and Florence (I would say you should go to both of those places Emily..they were beautiful!)

France--Paris & Versailles

England-- London

Punta Cana

Jamaica

Bermuda

I had soo much fun on my trip to Europe. You will LOVE it Emily!

I'm really obsessed with traveling and I plan on doing it before I have kids. However, the money issue is slightly hindering me from doing so right now!

Oh, I've never been out of the country before. I've been to Alaska, but sadly flying over Canada doesn't count.
But this Spring Break I'm going on a trip with the music school to Vienna! Yay! I'm totally excited. We're going to see a bunch of stuff and go to a Vienna Philharmonic concert and just generally have a good time.

That sounds like a really cool trip Emily!

i have been to: aside from being born in St.petersburg russia

Tel aviv israel
Ashdod israel
Bat yam israel
Orlando FL
Philadephia
NYC, Queens, Long island
Athens Greece
Turkey
coming soon a cruise to the Caribbean islands

I would like to go back to israel, because it was my second home and i loved it there, despite the constant terror attacks

Gene, you will have so much fun on that cruise. Ours was a blast.

I have only been stateside, except for that cruise to 5 islands of the Carribean, and I have been to Mexico, but just some border towns. Actually headed there this weekend for another short cruise.

I hope to take a trip this summer to either Spain or London/Paris/Rome.

I have been to all the states on the East Coast, and I was in Montgomery, AL for a week in March.

Has anyone traveled through an agency before??

I'm looking into http://www.efcollegebreak.com/ It's expensive, but so is everything else! grr...I hate mot having money.

Ooo fun topic!
Let's see, I've been to Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands and on a cruise that stopped at the Grand Caymans, Hondorus and Belize. Most recently, this past year, I spent 6 months volunteering in India.
This summer theres a possibility for me to do some field work in Romania for my university (fingers crossed!)

And Emily, I've never done anything with a travel agency before, but I would recomend just getting the Lonely Planet books. They make specific ones for different countries and regions and they give you so much advice, on all sorts of things like hotels, restaurants and of couse the sights and attractions. It was honestly my Bible in India.

Tami wrote: "Gene, you will have so much fun on that cruise. Ours was a blast.

I have only been stateside, except for that cruise to 5 islands of the Carribean, and I have been to Mexico, but just some bord..."

this would actually be my second time, the first one was to greece, and turkey and that was like 10 years ago

Emily wrote: "Has anyone traveled through an agency before??

I'm looking into http://www.efcollegebreak.com/ It's expensive, but so is everything else! grr...I hate mot having money.

"


I went through EF tours. They were decent!

I've just come back from England. I was in London for a bit, it's great! Camden is fanastic! Makes me realize that Ireland does not have cities. Irelands cities are small towns compared to London.

Other than that..I've been to New York, and other parts of the UK. Theres tonnes of places I want to go to, like Palestine, Iceland, Finland, New York again...pretty much everywhere. Theres loads of places in Ireland that I want to go to as well.

I've also just visited London, I just loved it there! I live in the Netherlands, so I've pretty much seen all of it (it's not that big, so it's not really that hard). Asides from that I've been to:
France - Paris, Nice
Germany - Düsseldorf
Italy - Venice
Spain - Lloret de Mar, Barcelona
Czech Republic - Prague

I really want to go to New York and Egypt, and back to London.

I took an EF tour through Mexico in high school. If you're worried about safety it's probably a safe bet since you're with a group (usually).

I was actually thinking of taking a trip with EF College Break. They seem to be the cheapest option since your airfare is also included.

Almost all of my travel has been up and down California.
I've been to Arizona: my grandparents used to live out there and there was a lake trip with my HS best friend's family after graduation.
Nevada several times, but not since Rollercon 2006. I was 20 and my fake ID plans fell through. Bars looked the other way, casinos did not.
I went on the 'educational' east coast trip in 8th grade. We went to Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, Washington D.C and my tour bus got lost in West Virginia so I count that.

Next month I'm going to Wisconsin - I've never seen snow and I'm sooo excited. Okay, and the cheese. I will definitely be sporting a cheesehead hat thing.

In the next year or so I want to road trip up to Oregon and Washington. I would love to run around the east coast again and I will definitely be going to France before I forget all the french I learned.
I really hate the ocean and probably traveling by boat as well, but I have it in my head that I NEED to go to Alaska and that I MUST get there via an Alaskan cruise.

Justine wrote: "Almost all of my travel has been up and down California.
I've been to Arizona: my grandparents used to live out there and there was a lake trip with my HS best friend's family after graduation.
..."

Justine I'm from Wisconsin! By next month we should have plenty of snow for you to see, and the cheesehead thing is always fun lol!

Jen wrote: "I was actually thinking of taking a trip with EF College Break. They seem to be the cheapest option since your airfare is also included."

yeah that's what I've found. And I know people that have gone with them, so i feel a little better about that. What trips are you looking at?

Okay, along those lines....anyone do any volunteering abroad?? I want to wait until I've traveled a little bit more, but at some point I would love to do volunteer work in Africa!

I was able to travel with one of my professor who has side business traveling Europe with tour groups. On my trip we went to London, Windsor, Paris, Versailles, Krakow and surrouding areas, Switerland, and Liechenstien,

My prof's website is www.authenticeurope.com. Check it out, it was fairly cheap and really fun. He was a great tour guide and since he is from Europe and travels there often he knew what he was doing.

I would love to go to Italy and then go back to London and Paris. Ireland and Spain would be awesome too

I'm jealous, Jayme. I was supposed to go on tour with my choir this last summer, but because of the economy no one was able to afford it. :-P

It was quite a bit of fun, but by the end of the three weeks i was really really tired. i was ready to go home (to my diet dr. pepper and new copy of breaking dawn :)

i do, however, suggest you travel with someone you know. i went by myself, and while i had a blast, i wish i had someone to share it with.

Emily wrote: "What trips are you looking at?"

I was looking into either the Spain trip or London/Paris/Rome.

London/Paris/Rome looks amazing!! I just wish the trips were longer! I feel like that could easily be a month trip!

I've been lucky enough to have done fair bit of traveling. However, when it comes to Europe I've only done the UK and France. I went to England a few times with my parents to visit family. I also went hosteling through England and Scotland with my mum, and then again this past summer through England, Ireland, and France with a friend of mine. We got our tickets in and out of Gatwick through our university for a decent price.

It's kind of expensive but I do recommend that you go to Paris, just for a few days at least. Practice your French. My French is terrible but the little I've got did come in handy, even if I was accused of being American because "Canadians speak very good French".

London is similarly expensive, maybe even more so than Paris. Oh, and walk everywhere. Screw the tube or metro, you're there to see the city. Though it doesn't hurt to buy a book of tickets for coming home when you're exhausted. We split one in both London and Paris and it worked out perfectly.

Unless you are dying to go, avoid Ireland. It's charming, but goddamn is it expensive! A pint of Guinness costs like 5 Euro. A small Tim Hortons coffee is something like 2 or 3 Euro! We met up with a friend from Malaysia when we were over there and the exchange rate was so bad for the poor guy that he lived off Snickers bars from Lidl. We just lived off no-name crisps and the cheapest pasta we could find.

Hahaha Emma, I'm from Ireland, you're right, it is really expensive! Where in Ireland did ya go to? What did ya think of Scotland?

I studied abroad in London, and did a lot of traveling while I was there. If any of you get the chance, go to Glastonbury Abbey and the Tor. If you climb to the Tor, the view is breathtaking.

I just made plans to go to Europe for a while beginning around Christmas! I was hoping to go to London for New Years Eve but one of my travel companions refused because of the huge crowd & how expensive London is.
So far the main cities we have planned are Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Brussels, and Amsterdam. After that, who knows? Ahhh, I'm so excited!

I'm going to Paris in late January!

Yay Barbara!! Go see Notre Dame, it was my favorite site in my 7 hours I spent there. lol

Haha, it's already on the list! I'll be there for five days.

That's a nice amount of time to spend in a city, especially one with as much to do and see as Paris. Have fun!

Lucky you! Have fun! I will be envious for sure. I'll be looking at my pictures and be reminiscent while you are enjoying the real things! Be sure to let us know how the trip was!

Oh, I will! I'm so excited, I've never been to anywhere, really (although every year I send postcards pretending to have gone to Salamanca, while I've only been to the frontier.. hahaha)

I did love Ireland though, Roisu. We only did Southern Ireland: Dublin, Galway, Wexford (lol), Tipperary, and Cork. Galway was particularly gorgeous.

As for Scotland, I loved it but it felt really familiar. And I absolutely loved Orkney.

I'm supposed to be going on an EF trip as a graduation present but haven't decided on a trip yet! Definitely Europe though! gaaah! I'm excited! But I'm sad too b/c I know I won't get to see everything I want to see... I want to just travel for a year!! Also, with EF, I'm nervous about not going w/ anyone I know. What if everyone else in my group is going w/ friends and I'm all lonely? People say I worry too much. Someone put me at ease.

There are so many places I'm dying to visit: Latvia (where my grandma's from), ALL of UK - England, Scotland, Ireland (my whole dad's side basically), Belguim (more family ancestry. haha), France, Italy, Greece, Iceland, maybe Egypt, India, China, oh gosh... I could go on forever!

As far as US goes: Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Alaska), the Dakotas, Montana, and cities like NYC, Philly, Pittsburgh, Boston, maybe LA

I've been to Canada (mostly Toronto) and quite a few places in the US. Not sure how many states.. half-ish probably

Lynn- Even if everyone in the group brings friends with them, I'll bet you'll be able to become friends with at least of a few of the people, and then you'll have a group of people to hang out with!

Lynn--that's an awesome gift! I'm sure you will meet people! Hey, a bunch of us should go with you! That way you will have friends to go with! I'm down for traveling..too bad my bank account isn't!

Emma wrote: "I did love Ireland though, Roisu. We only did Southern Ireland: Dublin, Galway, Wexford (lol), Tipperary, and Cork. Galway was particularly gorgeous.

As for Scotland, I loved it but it felt real..."

Glad you enjoyed it! And I agree, Galway is feckin' great!

My favourite places in Europe have been Barcelona and Austria. I would look into RyanAir which is a really cheap airplane company. It cost me 50 dollars Canadian to fly from the UK to Barcelona and back. The only catch is you should look at booking in advance for cheaper deals. Goodluck! And Hostelworld is also really good for booking cheao hostels. I spent 15 dollars a nigh in Barcelona! Amazing!

Also, I would recomment learning to take the tube (subway) wherever there is one available because it saves you so much money rather than taking a CAB. And if you do go to Barcelona watch out for pickpocketers because my friend had her passport and wallet stolen and had to pay 400 euros to go to Madrid and get a temporary one.

I love RyanAir. Supercheap.

Actually I'm going Contiki, not EF (I get a ton of emails from EF so that's why I got it mixed up. haha) Still trying to decide on a plan, but probably 22 days in Europe.

Anybody hear anything about Contiki? good, bad, all of it

Can we seriously get a group of people together and go on a trip?? PLEASE! I have the travel bug realllll bad and I saw this http://www.worldtravelerinternship.com/ and really want to do it! However, I saw some of the videos and they were reallyyy good. And one girl already has like 600 votes. lol. I would be more entertaining than all the people I saw. For sure.

Wow Jamie that is so cool....but I think its only for American studends and why don't you apply?

Im sure us on Goodreads would vote for you!!!

I really want to but I'm not so skilled in video editing. I'm a quick learner though. I teach myself alot of random things and could probably become decent enough for the purposes of the trip. Just have to make the application video!

Jamie do it!!! There's nothing wrong in giving it a change...it is 2010 after all :P

I think I'm going to actually! I've been tossing around ideas all night. Here are the applications that won for last year (granted they had to do other videos but this was their initial one. Hers is really good and I feel like his is good but not spectacular!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ibLx...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC1dGu...

Do it! You can definitely do better than that guy's... I got bored and stopped watching it.