By Jess Sorentino (University of Delaware)
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Vacationing with friends is an important part of college because lots of experiences occur traveling to and from the destination, as well as actually on the vacation. It’s a time to make memories with your friends, without the overhead lingering of an upcoming assignment or exam.
When it comes to vacationing with college friends and roommates, the major experience people usually consider is spring break. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with going away on a spring break excursion – as a matter of fact I would totally consider it myself – but there are other things you can do too, to get away with friends.
Let’s begin with spring break, since it’s by far everybody’s favorite. Spring break is the time when the bikinis come out, beers go down a lot smoother than usual, and houses are rented somewhere near water (to give everyone prime viewing opportunities to stare at the bikinis).
From friends I know that have gone on these Cancun-esque spring break trips, most of the memories made are those nights forgotten. Sounds fun, right? Some in-country, cheaper places people have been occupying for their breaks include Outer Banks, North Carolina, the Jersey Shore, and Ocean City, Maryland.
If you have the chance and you’re friends are game, I would attempt to plan one of these trips.
Another great way to increase bonding with friends and get away are road trips. Sometimes the problem with these trips are finding locations to travel to, and then a random little trip could turn into a mess. But there are some ways to constantly have somewhere to travel.
Go visit a friend at another university. You can take your roommates or college friends with you, too. You’ll have a free place to sleep, and a guaranteed good time because your friend knows everything there is to be known about the social life of his or her school.
For the car ride, you update your iPod to not overlap with the repeats of satellite radio so you have multiple song options. Then in the car, it’s open mic karaoke to anyone and everyone. So much fun. Sometimes duets will be created, other times accents will slip out to match the song, people start busting out dance moves…what’s not to love?
Another place you can go on a road trip is to a sporting event. I have traveled from Delaware to go to professional sporting events, but I must say traveling to see your school play one of their sports…much more fun. Especially if they win. Of course you don’t know whether or not they’ll win when you start your 7-hour drive to North Carolina for Lacrosse championships or your 6-hour drive to Massachusetts for a football game which when they end up winning they become ranked number 1 in the CAA, but still it’s the anticipation that makes it exciting.
Scrambling to find somewhere to sleep, talking to the players before they get back on the bus to head back to your school and navigating through a random city with your friends before and after the game also makes the experience. You never know, you may discover a quaint little town called Northampton where the Ninja Turtles were first published.
Who knows? Pack a small bag, gather some friends, and give it a shot. Weekend, week long, doesn’t matter…traveling is fun, and right now we’re still young enough to drop everything and GO.
