There’s nothing I love more than an Excel spreadsheet, and I say that in the least finance-bro way possible. Rather than rows of stock prices, my sheets contain columns of color-coded assignment deadlines and chronological travel plans.
I spent my winter break prepping for my upcoming semester abroad by creating the framework for a travel spreadsheet. I immediately set up columns for flight information and started compiling a list of dream destinations. I couldn’t wait to begin strategically booking out my weekends.
But as the day of my flight to London approached and packing took priority, the idea of pre-planning trips with friends took a backseat. All of my energy went into preparing for move-in, and I kept telling myself that I’d have more than enough time to plan trips once I was settled across the ocean.
This mindset followed me all the way to London, but I quickly had a jarring realization that my time abroad was going to move much faster than I’d anticipated.
I arrived with grand aspirations to travel to as many countries as possible during my semester abroad, but I found myself in a state of panic when I opened the Excel spreadsheet I’d set up to map out my travel plans.
When I was greeted by empty cells, the planner in me couldn’t fathom the glaring truth: Aside from my return flight to Boston, I didn’t have a single trip booked.
I wondered whether I was the only one of my friends who had no idea what the next few months would look like. I was in a new country with people I barely knew—how on Earth was I supposed to make the most of my time abroad when I had no idea where to begin?
Within a week or so of arriving in London, however, I realized that my situation was far from uncommon. As I started spending more time chatting with other people in my program about the places we hoped to travel, I realized that I was part of a majority of students using their semesters abroad to stay open to new adventures.
As overwhelming as it was to have so much free time and so few fully fleshed-out plans, there was something freeing about having this new opportunity to see where the wind might take me. I decided to let my worries take a backseat and say “yes” to everything I could. That decision led me to book a trip to Stockholm with a group I’d met only weeks prior.
Our strategy for picking a location was as random as blindly throwing a dart at a map and seeing where it landed. Though admittedly more financially responsible, a group of us made the last-minute decision to book the cheapest flights from London to anywhere in Europe we could find.
With zero knowledge of the city, aside from a few quick Google searches and TikTok recommendations, we embarked on what was probably the least organized trip of my life.
It was past midnight and below freezing by the time we arrived in Stockholm, ready to embark on our trek to the hostel. Eight of us hauled our carry-ons through the eerily empty streets, without an itinerary or a single person in sight on a Thursday night. I can safely say that none of us had any idea what to expect for the weekend.
We were in for yet another surprise when we arrived at Nomad’s Cave, a place that would go down in history as my first-ever hostel.
Descending the steps into what looked like a cavernous, beige room, we quickly discovered that the hostel was very fittingly named. After a largely sleepless night in our windowless room, we found ourselves roaming the streets of Stockholm with nothing more than a rough list of major landmarks to visit.
Despite lacking any sort of itinerary—a thought that would have typically sent me into a spiral of panic—the weekend turned out to be unexpectedly memorable. From braving a frigid ferry ride to the ABBA Museum, to wandering through the halls of a castle we stumbled upon, and even attempting to sneak the spoils of an unintentional shopping spree onto a Ryanair flight, our ragtag group pulled off a weekend we’ll never forget.
While my other trips so far have been more carefully planned, I’ve realized that leaving time to explore and being open to changing plans is actually one of the most exciting parts of traveling abroad. You never know where you’ll end up or who you’ll meet if you give yourself the freedom to veer off your carefully laid-out path.
If being abroad has taught me anything, it’s that no matter how much time you spend planning out the perfect weekend, something is bound to disrupt your carefully curated schedule.
Maybe your bus to the airport will get delayed, forcing you to hurriedly call an Uber and rush through security. Maybe you’ll walk two miles through the bitter cold in Budapest, only to find the bridge to the other side of the city is closed for the day. Or maybe you’ll end up in a misleadingly labeled “youth” hostel, spending each morning taking shifts guarding the shower doors.
As hectic and unglamorous as traveling abroad can be at times, I’ve found that these chaotic moments are the ones that bring me closer to the people around me.
The key to traveling, at least from what I’ve gathered from my month abroad so far, is finding the balance between scheduling and spontaneity. Sure, I still have my Excel spreadsheet mapping out each weekend’s destination and flight information. But I’ve started embracing the beauty of leaving a cell or two open to explore something unexpected each trip.=
So to anyone currently abroad or planning to go, here’s my one piece of advice: embrace spontaneity. Book a trip with new friends, travel to a city outside of your bucket list, and enjoy the opportunities to wander while you can. The unplanned adventures are oftentimes the ones you’ll remember for a lifetime.
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