Planning a trip to Europe in the middle of the semester right around midterms was probably not Emilee Hastings’ brightest idea, not to mention with such a tight budget, but after she had put her mind to visiting Ireland, she wouldn’t let anything stop her.
Hastings and her friend, Allyson Fife, both BYU students, had been talking about visiting Ireland for months. As two redheads, they felt that it was their right to visit the motherland of gingers and cheer.
With not much of a plan or knowing how they would accomplish such a feat, they bought airplane tickets as soon as they saw a sale and figured they would do what they could to just make it work. They each spent months gearing up for the big trip.
They made an effort to set aside a portion of money from each paycheck and, as the fall semester began, they communicated with professors about their plans to take a week off. They planned to complete assignments and exams before they left so they wouldn’t fall behind in their studies.
“Once I got there it was all totally worth it,” Hastings said. “It was so stress free and I was just focusing on being in the moment and enjoying Ireland, not worrying about anything else.”
The experience of planning a trip, saving for it and making it work with the demands of school and work was empowering.
“I felt like I could do it on my own,” Hastings said. Hastings and Fife proved to themselves that traveling as young adults was possible, exciting and worthwhile. When traveling is a priority, even as a young adult, with limited income and the weight of school and work, it still can happen.
There’s always a way to make it work. Being in Ireland was unlike anything Hastings had experienced before. She and Fife explored the remnants of ancient castles, took in the breathtaking beauty of some of the world’s most famous cliffs and became well-acquainted with a culture and people very different from the Provo standard.
“I feel so grateful for everything that traveling has taught me,” Hastings said. “I feel like I know so much more about different cultures and it’s really taught me that I have so much to be grateful
for.”
The trip provided opportunities to learn through experience. They talked to the locals, tried new cuisines and took in the landmarks and architecture that can’t be found anywhere else in the world.
Kian Bangerter, another BYU student, had also chosen to experience this kind of experiential learning by traveling abroad. Unlike Hastings and Fife, Bangerter chose to take off the whole semester instead of trying to work around classes and extra academic stress.
For Bangerter, traveling offered more than a semester’s worth of learning, so taking the time off felt like the best decision.
“(Traveling) made me realize how much I don’t know,” Bangerter said. “It actually made me want to learn more about different things rather than what I thought I wanted to study.”
From August to October, Bangerter, his sister and a friend traveled to 13 countries around Europe. The montage of countries, cultures and customs began to change the way Bangerter saw
the world.
“It opened my eyes to how a whole other side of the world lives,” Bangerter said.
Hastings and Bangerter had met over the summer while working at FSY. As new friends, they had shared their plans to travel in the coming months.
Upon realizing that they would both end up in Ireland around the same time, they made plans to reconnect on the other side of the world. From Provo to Ireland, the five world travelers reconnected at the train station in Galway and shared what they had seen on their travels thus far.
“It was so exciting because we were in this whole new place that neither of us had ever been before, not a single other person in the country knew us, and here we are together exploring,” Hastings said. “It was so much fun!”
Roaming the streets together and dancing in the local pub created memories that they’ll each hold onto for a lifetime.
As the magical week in Ireland came to a close, Hastings and Fife boarded a plane back to the United States and geared up for another packed week of classes and responsibility. Bangerter, on the other hand, along with his travel partners, moved on to the next country they felt drawn to with still a few weeks left to explore and travel.
The decision to travel as college students was an easy one for both Hastings and Bangerter. The benefits of traveling young and not having responsibilities such as a full-time job or family obligations allowed for flexibility and ease in traveling which completely outweighed any potential cons.
“There are so many benefits,” Bangerter said. “First of all, you can travel cheaper because you have more energy, you’re able to see a lot, there’s also not really an opportunity cost like I wasn’t missing out on my career and it didn’t really put me behind in my education.”
There may always be obstacles in life that may seem hard to navigate through when wanting to travel such as money, school, work or other life responsibilities and obligations. The obstacles never truly go away but they’re definitely easier to work around as a young adult.
The sacrifices to travel abroad are most likely always worth it due to the life experience and world education gained, Hastings and Bangerter said. The World Tourism Organization published in its Global Report on The Power of Youth Travel that “youth travel has become one of the fastest growing segments of international tourism, representing more than 23% of the over one billion tourists traveling internationally each year.”
“Today’s young travelers venture independently to further places, stay longer and immerse in other cultures to build their life experiences,” the report says.
Resources are abundant for young adults and college students who want to travel. From study abroad opportunities to working as an au pair or just taking off a semester and applying the money that would’ve been spent on tuition toward a truly world-class education, the possibilities are endless.
Financial cost is often one of the main reasons young adults avoid traveling. However, study abroad programs often have plenty of financial aid offered, there are a plethora of websites that offer discounted rates on flights, hotels and other forms of transportation and most museums or exhibits around the world offer student discounts with a school ID, just to name a few opportunities.
Hastings said she didn’t have to take on an extra job to afford her trip. She simply made it work by cutting corners, not going out to eat as often with friends and just being more conscious of the money she spent. Bangerter, with quite a more expensive adventure, said he “basically just spent the money he would’ve spent if he had gone to school.”
By taking off the semester, he saved his tuition fund and applied it towards traveling around Europe and, when he got back, lived at home to save on regular living expenses. Travel is now back to being a viable resource and exciting source of adventure for young adults following the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
After years of halted travel and extensive restrictions, most of the world is back to normal with arms open wide for visitors. Not only has the return of regular travel been a benefit to tourists that now get to see the world just as freely as before the global pandemic, but it is an extreme source of revenue for locals abroad that suffered greatly financially through the pandemic.
Travel aids all involved. The World Tourism Organization released a study that showed how the pandemic “led to massive losses in international revenues for tourism-dependent economies: specifically, a collapse in exports of travel services (money spent by nonresident visitors in a country) and a decline in exports of transport services (such as airline revenues from tickets sold to nonresidents).”
Since the pandemic has come to a close, and travel restrictions have been lifted, it’s viable that young adults begin to travel once again to restore the economic functioning of travel and show that it is safe for the world to open up their borders to travelers once again.
Following their European adventures, both Hastings and Bangerter have since returned to classes at BYU with a deeper understanding and appreciation for the world and what it can teach. Their studies have continued on and tuition was still able to be paid. Nothing but good memories and valuable experience lingers as a consequence of their time in Europe last fall.