Last month, I started a quick guide on traveling in your twenties. Without getting too repetitive in this post, there are a number of reasons that many young adults in their early twenties believe that they cannot travel. Typically, it’s a matter of believing that they don’t have the time to travel, that they don’t have the money to travel, that they have too many other things going on to travel, or a combination of any or all of the above.
However, this simply isn’t true. If you’re one of the people who falls into the group in the above paragraph, you’re more than likely mistaken. The fact that you don’t have the time or money to travel isn’t actually the case, it’s more than likely the fact that you’ve convinced yourself that you lack those two instrumental tools in taking a trip abroad.
Last post on LionelBarzon.net covered the first misbelief of traveling in your twenties–not having the time.
I Have Too Much Going on Around Me
Part two of this three-part miniseries will touch on the second common rationale for declining travel expenditures in your early twenties–almost always by college students.
Closely related to not having adequate time, many, many people claim that with everything else that comes with college–classes, homework, large assignments, clubs and everything else, there is simply too much going on to be able to set aside valuable work-time for a vacation.
For full-time students, this is an understandable complaint. With five (or more) classes constantly on your agenda and the accompanying work that comes with them, having too much going on elsewhere is an all-too-common belief.
But fear not, college students, as there is hope on the horizon for anyone hoping to travel while simultaneously not flunking all of your classes.
Plan
Almost unequivocally, planning is the most important part of successfully allowing yourself to enjoy time spent traveling, even while balancing a school schedule.
First things first: at the beginning of the semester, head to the school store and purchase a planner. Whether it’s a desk calender or pocket planner, these are incredibly important to properly planning out a semester. When you’ve received all of the syllabuses (or syllabi) from your classes, take an evening to write the due dates of all of your assignments (or at the very least all of the major ones) onto the calendar. Now, not only are you able to plan out your schedule for the semester, you’re able to see the timeframes during which would best allow for travel.
By mapping out your schedule, you’ll see which days you can take off work (if you’re also holding down a job) and perhaps even a day or two off of class (with your professors’ knowledge) to enjoy some time away.
Work Ahead
Part of working ahead involves proper planning. If you’ve got a particularly big project coming up in the next week or two and a trip planned for the same stretch of time, get some work done ahead of time. It may go against everything in your college state-of-mind, but if you need to spend a weekend or two in the library rather than at a friend’s house, do it.
Getting work done ahead of time, even if it means sacrificing a weekend or two in the process, is pivotal in allowing yourself to travel and explore later in the semester.
Bring What You Need
Working on a vacation is what we’re trying to avoid at all costs, but sometimes the inevitable is the inevitable. If you need to get work done, whether it’s a simple online assignment or putting the finishing touches on a large project you couldn’t avoid, bring your laptop and a textbook or two and get to work for a few hours before bed at night.
