Your Guide To Weekend Trips

By Lev Novak

Sometimes you just need to get away.

Your campus or area can feel possessive. You know all the bars and all the friends and foes around. You’re all to familiar with where you’re going to get pizza and you know exactly, with heartbreaking precision, how your night will be.

It’s then that you need to travel.

Getting away from your natural rhythm is great. One, it’s an adventure in and of itself, and second, it makes your return that much sweeter. When you get back, your campus will feel like a home to return to, not a prison you’ve been trapped in. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so get absent for a little bit.

So the question is: how do you do it?

1. Get An Excuse

You need an excuse to get out of your cycle. It doesn’t have to be a great excuse- in fact, a mediocre reason to leave is best, since you won’t put all your eggs in one basket- but it has to exist. Do you have a friend to visit? A party you were invited to on Facebook in a neighboring city? That’s your reason. Hop on and go.

2. Get a Partner

Ideally, two. One should be someone you travel with, on the bus or in the car, and the other should be the person you’re meeting. You’ll ned a place to sleep, after all, and “staying up all night in the park on vodka-redbull and then falling asleep on the bus back” is a terrible plan (that my friends once did) so don’t do that. Have a place to crash (so you don’t end up getting in a fight with a homeless man after it turns out you fell asleep on his bench, as my friend did.)

Once you have partners, everything can be an adventure. New local bars? Adventure! Random people? Future adventure-pals! Whatever it is, it won’t be the same, and it won’t be Netflix. Enjoy.

3. Google…With People

Find out what you should be doing in your area. Any Bostonian will let you know what to do- and avoid- in Boston, and if you ask four of them, you’ll have four completely different sets of great advice. Follow this principle and ask around for wherever you’re visiting. What bars are good in DC? What area is stupid? Where is the best hamburger in the city? Is it open late? What should I get on this hamburger?

People love telling other people what to do. For once, let that work to your advantage.

4. Enjoy

Most of all, take the time to enjoy your new scenario.

Don’t have too high standards or hopes for whatever will go down, and don’t have a fear of missing out on whatever you’re leaving behind- that’s why you leave when you’re going stir-crazy, after all. This way, whatever happens- bar-hopping in a new city, going to a concert in a nearby town, raging at a new college where the frat scene is wayyyy to intense but whatever- is a whole new thing to add to your personal history. Your life is a journal, and this is a whole new entry.

Aww.

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