I Traveled to 25 Different Countries While Studying Abroad, And Here is Why You Should Too!

Before I embarked on study abroad, people told me that you would find yourself, that you would learn about who you are in so many ways. And when I heard this, I was confused. What does it mean to find yourself? What would I learn about myself? That sounds like an irritating cliche. With my three semesters abroad concluded, I will say this: I at least learned that I am very, very adventurous.

And now here I am, my Global Bachelor's Program semesters over, and I wound up visiting 25 different countries. I had never been abroad before in my life, so as soon as I knew I was going with the GBP, I started planning away different trips. Before the semester started, my friends and I in the GBP had already been to Istanbul, Athens, Dubrovnik, Naples and Rome. And once we landed, we found $30 flights to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. We made a weekend trip that was so inexpensive, we could not justify passing up the opportunity. I never knew when I would get to see Vilnius again and I had heard it was a beautiful city well off of the beaten path.

I credit my trip to Vilnius as the catalyst for my travel extravaganza. It was so easy and inexpensive to get there, and more importantly, we were blown away by Lithuania. A place that was never on our radars to visit ended up being an amazing travel destination. Vilnius was gorgeous, it had a massive old town with over 40 churches across different Christian denominations. The food was remarkable, the highlight being the beaver stew served with mead and a pine cone dessert. Yes, you read that correctly, beaver and a dessert pine cone.

Lithuania horrified us too. Nearly 95% of Jews living in Lithuania died during the holocaust. We saw Paneriai, a Lithuanian example of Babi Yar, where the Nazis shot 100,000 people into four massive pits. We saw KGB offices where people were tortured in cages of ice. My friend's paternal line came from the Jewish ghetto of Kaunas. When we visited, we saw Jewish cemeteries wiped away, all of the hundreds of headstones vanished. We stood at the place where once stood a Jewish school, where the Nazis locked the rabbis and students in as they burnt it to the ground. Today, there was no evidence this happened, it was just a neighborhood seemingly as normal as any other. In the entire ghetto there was just one plaque to signify the horrors that happened there. I could not tell what horrified me more, that those things had once occurred there, or that everyone forgot they happened.

Lithuania amazed us, we loved it, and yet it horrified us. More importantly, we learned so much while we were there. Learning that I would never have experienced if I decided not to go on either my study abroad or on a rapid weekend trip across Europe. But after this experience, I dedicated nearly every weekend that semester to a trip somewhere. Whether I got on a train to Dublin, or a flight to Bratislava, I took every opportunity to see someplace new, to learn and experience something that would change me and shape my perspective.

In one of these weekends, I visited a cousin of mine in Germany. When my great grandmother left the country, she stayed in touch with her sister constantly. And when my great grandmother died, my great aunt stayed in touch with the family. Then my cousin kept the contact. All of this meant I was connected with my cousin in Germany and I was able to visit her. Our one family, split by an ocean, yet never truly divided from each other. She happened to live in what in my view is Germany's most beautiful city: Freiburg. One of the few cities in Germany to not have been heavily bombed in WWII, it is a testament to the more beautiful side of Germany's troubled and marred history. I absolutely adored this city, and I equally adored getting to see my cousin who took me into her home as family would. On that weekend, I crossed the Rhine into Strasbourg, France, for a day. A place that was once so heavily fought for, now so easily visited, and home to the family of nations of the EU.

I cannot fit into this blog post all of the amazing stories and journeys I went on just in that semester. In December, I had to say goodbye to Belfast, and although I spent so much time exploring the breadth of Europe, I felt a deep connection to that place as well. I took an amazing class with Dr. Olwen Purdue on the Victorian history of Belfast. I refer to her as the Mary Beard of Belfast, she is an expert on the city's history and she introduced me to that place in such a remarkable way. Everybody involved in running our program exuded such a love for the city, one that also has a beautiful and absolutely horrific history, a place where I learned so much and experienced so many things. I loved its architecture, its quaint little pubs, its locals that were some of the nicest people of any place I have been to. Although I did not by any means spend every day of my semester there, I experienced so much there and I was truly sad to bid it farewell.

My second semester was in Morocco, a place that is perhaps as different from Northern Ireland as humanly possible. My objective here was to study French, which I did everyday with my host family. They were by far the highlight of my time there. I was treated like a fellow son and brother by the Laraichi family. Their home was gorgeously lined with Moroccan tilework that dazzles the eye like a caleidoscope, and without fail, every meal was extraordinary.

And yet, my love for this family and my love for Morocco did not stop me from jet-setting all over the place that fall. Nor did the jet-setting take away from my time with them. But I explored so many amazing places that fall. With $15 flights to Sevilla, I took plenty of time to visit Andalusia, a part of the world I regard as a true paradise. I explored centuries of culture and cultural fusion between Catholic Spain and Islamic Moors. Gorgeous Islamic geometric designs were found right alongside the awe inspiring Catholic cathedrals. Because I was in Morocco, I could see so many resemblances between the cultures, particularly in the architecture. The greatest site of all in Andalusia is the Alhambra of Granada. This ancient palace is a gem of Arabic design that everybody spending time in Morocco must make the trip across the Strait of Gibraltar to see.

That autumn, I spent my weeklong midterm break in Mallorca and Florence. On a cold winter's day, Mallorca is the kind of place that will capture one's imagination with its white sand beaches and beautiful caves. The city of Palma de Mallorca dates back to the Romans and encompasses centuries of history across Arabic and European civilizations. From Mallorca, we went to Florence, which in late October offered far more miserable weather, yet as the birthplace of the Renaissance, made up for the rain with cultural splendor.

Although I dashed around Europe that fall, my program showed me so much of Morocco that I felt I struck the perfect balance. I saw the Blue City of Chefchaouen, the Red City of Marrakech, the White City of Casablanca and the greatest stop of all, the Sahara desert. I saw the greatest night sky of my life there, laying in the dunes with one of my great friends from that semester, staring into the heavens. I also saw the greatest sunrise of my life there. Once the sun rises, one can see for dozens of miles in any direction. Enormous dunes in the distance create a sense of infinity, boundlessness, the Sahara is magical and I cannot wait for the next time I get to go.

Once again, I had a bitter farewell to such an extraordinary place. Yes I had spent so much time flying to other parts of Europe, yet I loved Morocco and my family there, my time felt so short lived there yet I felt as though I spent a lifetime there too.

My final semester was this spring, in Paris. I have been to so many places by now, so it is difficult to say I have a favorite place. Nevertheless, there are few places I love and have such a deep connection to as Paris. I am really surprised by how this city swept me off my feet, I heavily deliberated my choice for the third semester and I was concerned I would regret staying in Paris. But instead I fell in love with it, it is a captivating city that is so special. People say it is dirty and dangerous and overcrowded and that its people are rude, and that description is so far away from my experience there. I saw a gilded city with such pleasant people, an enormous collection of extraordinary artwork and a storied and romantic history of kings and revolutions and artists and triumph.

Paris is such an amazing destination for so many people, I have often been asked how I could bear leaving it to visit other places. But I am a traveler, I love exploring and my past journeys dazzled my imagination to jet set to more places. So during my week off I visited Georgia and Armenia in what may have been my greatest ever trip. While travel to places like Paris and Italy and Spain are all amazing, there is something about traveling to a place you know little about that makes the journey that much more remarkable. Georgia's culture was so unique and new to us. The food was not like anything we had before and it was so delicious. Its history is defined by centuries of struggle against Russian, Ottoman and Persian conquest that forms an inspiring national story. For me to be there, cornered by Iran, Turkey and Russia, I felt so far away from home, in a brilliant explorer adventurer sense that I yearn to feel again. I loved everything about Georgia and I implore you to travel there too.

Just before my semester ended, I took an eight day rail journey from Paris to Zagreb. I stopped to visit another cousin in Germany, this time right in the village my great grandmother had lived in. She showed me pictures of my grandmother as a newborn baby, photos my great grandmother had sent to her family back in Germany. I saw the church generations of my family would have been born in, received communion in, married in and had funerals in. I saw Ludwig II's Neuschwanstein Castle, his dream palace and temple to the classics. I saw the alps and the Spring Fest in Munich, a less touristy spring version of Oktoberfest. When passing from Salzburg to Ljubljana, the rail carriage window was fully opened to a cloudless spring afternoon in the Julian alps. The alpine air rushed into my carriage as we passed tiny villages and rivers snaking through the mountains.

I will admit, each time I would leave Paris for one of my journeys, I had a bit of a knot in my throat. I love Paris and I will always hunger for more of it, yet the journeys I took from there blew me away just as much. I don't know when I will be able to visit Slovenia or North Macedonia or Georgia or Albania again. These places have taken full hold of my dreams and have invigorated my sense of adventure and travel. Although in each semester I traveled so much away from where I was staying, the memories I made away were incredible, and all the while I still loved the place I had stayed in.

I was all over the place in my three semesters abroad. I never left a stone unturned, I never abandoned an opportunity to see something new. My base for each semester was amazing and I experienced so much in where I was studying. Yet the journeys I took from those places were worth every single penny. Sometimes it was hectic being away nearly every weekend of the semester, but all the time it was awe inspiring and left me without a single regret.