You Don’t Need a Prophecy to Embark on a Quest: Stop Waiting for a Sign

Scratch the Itch and Make Your Daydream a Reality—You Won’t Be a Student Forever

By Tiffany Wong

Graphic by Yeyoung Jang

Too often do we tell ourselves that this is going to be the year that the trip finally makes it out of the group chat, only for it to—surprise!—stay uncrossed on your bucket list, never to be brought up again. And of course, it’s understandable. College is intense, after all, with everyone desperate for internships and callbacks for that one job before they graduate.

Yet in the moment, we seem to conveniently forget that life rarely slows down for us. The time to do something doesn’t just appear—you have to make the time for it. And if you wait too long, then one day, 20 years later, you may find that you never went on that trip at all, always postponing it for a better time that never came.

The Stars Are Aligned (or as Much as They’ll Ever Be) Right Now.

College is arguably the best time to travel, especially if you’re too nervous about jumping right into solo traveling and want to start out with a friend. For four years, you’re promised week and month long breaks at the same time as your friends’. But once you enter the workforce, time constraints quickly make themselves apparent. Unless you can work remotely, prepare for your longest vacations to only be two or so weeks long. And even if you manage that, how can you possibly finesse a break at the same time and for the same length as your friend, who’s working a completely different job with completely different rules and schedules?

Keep in mind, too, that a degree of alienation will be inevitable once you graduate. As we walk further down our own separate journeys in life and grow into different people, it’ll become more and more difficult to catch up. Eventually—though you once thought you would never drift from these people—you may find it too awkward to even extend the offer to travel together.

Besides, They Want You To Travel!

Beyond availability though, think of the plethora of opportunities that being a college student grants you. From student discounts on flights to school financed study abroad opportunities where you’re both learning and traveling. Under that lens, think of the fact that excursions are planned for you—no hassle, no trying to find deals online—as well as the culture and other aspects of that destination that you may have never explored otherwise. Not only is it suddenly more accessible financially, but you can kill two, or more than two (if you play your cards right!) birds with one stone.

And It Truly Is a Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience.

Try as you might to deny it, but the TikToks are right: you will never be 21 and drunk dancing in the streets of Florence again. Perhaps you’ll finally go when you’re 25 or 30, and you’ll believe you would’ve had the same experience if you had gone five years ago. But it will be different. You’ll decide not to go on that skydiving excursion because it’s just too scary, and you’ll pass on the invite you got to a party happening that night because gosh, that’s a little too dangerous, and you won’t even know anyone there.

And when you’re sitting in your hotel room at night, instead of FaceTiming your friends (they’re all asleep by 10 nowadays), you’ll be busy worrying about cleaning the house once you get back, or the money you have to save tomorrow because the bills are due at the end of the month.

So take the chance to experience things with newer eyes and a more reckless mind when you’re easily awed by everything and too oblivious to know any better. Do it now, when your brain has yet to fully develop and you aren’t scared to talk to random strangers or go on spontaneous adventures. And maybe you’ll look back and think it was ridiculous or stupid to do those things, but at least you’ll have done it and will be able to look back fondly, knowing you embraced your youth.

Your mind is tied down to nothing but yourself and the moment you’re in right now—no kids, no house, no job, and no heavy responsibilities—so live. Live, and let your soul sing with the freedom that comes in and lets you explore without the burdens of adulthood.