You only get one long vacation a year, so travel while you can, advises Omar Burhanuddin. Omar Burhanuddin, Varsity
With the holidays approaching and the dreaded prospect of not seeing friends until October looming, it's time for Cambridge students to frantically re-plan how they will spend the next three months. The choices are familiar to us all: internship or not? Summer job? And where? And there are those who preach at Camfess that there is no need to feel guilty about doing nothing.
“I'm not going to repeat the opinions of regular MASH fans, but I'll at least do it for the sake of the story.”
All of this is beside the point. Like a second-rate Anthony Bourdain, I'm here to advocate for traveling as much as possible. That's right: put on your boots, put on your backpack and leave the country. We're young and in university with unusually long holidays, so we're in a great position to do so. There are lots of ways to do this cheaply – au pairs, funded TEFL, workaways etc – making travel an affordable option for many people.
I don't mean to repeat the opinions of the average MASH fan, but at least do it for the story. Think about the experiences you'll have. Maybe you'll manage a class of kids who don't speak your language. Maybe you'll eat homemade hummus on a rural hike. Maybe you'll stick your hand up a cow's ass in exchange for food and lodging. If you haven't experienced at least one of these (or all of them, like me), you haven't lived life.
I don't want to hear any typical reasons for traveling. Forget “immerse yourself in the culture”, “leave your comfort zone”, “develop spontaneity and adaptability” – I know these are just clichés and I know all too well the clichés that student travelers usually face. I will admit that youth travel too often leans too much towards lifestyle guruism. Who hasn't met these bullshit artists? They are usually students or a little older, dress and talk like Russell Brand, claim to have “found themselves” and “learned a lot from traveling”. [insert marginalised group they encountered for 5 minutes] Are they saying, “They've done more than they learned from me”? A little questioning will quickly reveal some seriously flawed views.
“At Cambridge, I feel like there's always pressure to fill your time off with CV fodder.”
It's not just the stereotype of cultural insensitivity that holds many students back from traveling. At Cambridge, it can feel like there's a constant pressure to fill your holidays with CV fodder to embarrass your productivity during term time. Without being too specific, I recall meeting a lot of these people during my time here. One student spent his holidays leading the youth wing of a major European political party and running its rallies. Another developed an app using software he wrote and patented himself. Not to mention the serial holiday-seekers. In this environment, it's natural to feel pressured to do something “useful” (i.e. marketable) during your holidays.
Let this article be a humble plea for us to forget all that and book the next flight. Of course, the initial costs may not be that high, but I understand that not everyone is on an equal footing. The privileged can play during their vacations with the security of knowing that they will be employed in their mother's company as soon as they graduate, but some cannot bear the opportunity cost of giving up career-oriented activities. Acknowledging this, I ask you to consider more carefully than usual the following common questions: What do we want from life? What is it that we are really striving for? What kind of person do we want to be, ultimately? I can't tell you how many adults I have met who don't have much to talk about except about work. It may sound harsh, but they are simply not very interesting people!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that travel is a perfect antidote to this, of course. But speaking for myself, I can say that I have bonded with some of my best friends through these experiences. This wasn’t always direct, but through exchanging stories about the funny, frustrating, and downright bizarre situations we encountered abroad. When we leave a place, our memories of it can feel like a sealed capsule that forms an indelible, yet intangible part of ourselves. We may fear that as time passes, those moments will feel more and more unreal and lost. Sharing these stories with others reopens them and keeps them alive. Those memories form intimacy, and when shared lovingly, they can build powerful relationships.
When that happens, travel doesn't have to be primarily about ourselves and bragging rights (which only makes us insufferable). Travel can be about how we relate to others — treading lighter, listening more carefully, and sharing more generously. As summer approaches, it's time to redefine student travel stereotypes (the gaper, the college ski trip buddy, the mission trip guru) and reclaim travel as a respectable activity for all of us.
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