Submitted by Christy Arango-Kautz on the 2018 fall semester program in Buenos Aires, Argentina…
As a relatively experienced traveler, I’ve gotten used to planning out trips, researching cool things to do and creating itineraries. This past Friday, I decided to visit Colonia, Uruguay with some other students in the program. We bought our ferry boat tickets a few days before and once we finally arrived to our destination, we realized that we hadn’t really planned anything out. Nobody had done research about things to do or places to see so I think that at the end of the day, our trip was so much better because of our lack of preparation. With a previously downloaded map of the town to fall back on, we spent most of our day wandering around, turning random street corners and taking time to sit on different beaches. We picked a restaurant to eat lunch at, walked into various small artisan shops and stopped for ice cream whenever we felt like it. I had never traveled without an itinerary and it was honestly liberating to explore with friends without any expectations. We were able to soak in the experience and just simply enjoy being in a different country for the day.