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By: Grace Cowhig

As I wrap up my semester abroad, I can’t help but think about how enriching and important my weekend trips were throughout my time in Barcelona. While it can be hard to balance exploring your home city and traveling to other destinations, traveling to other countries is one of the best and most fulfilling aspects of studying abroad. So, here are some of my tips for weekend travel in Europe.

1. Learn how to pack your whole life into 1 backpack

While the cheap airline fares are one of the most amazing things about traveling throughout Europe, they definitely come with a price. Its often a lot more expensive to bring a carry on than it is to just bring a backpack, and it is a lot less convenient especially if you take and earlier flight and can’t check into your hostel/hotel until later. So, learning how to pack only the necessities for a weekend trip is probably the most important skill and will help you so much both in saving money and in convenience.

2. Book the early flight Friday and the early flight back Sunday

Since most ºÚÁÏÍø911abroad courses do not have Friday classes, most students travel somewhere and stay from Friday to Sunday. From my experience, the best thing to do is take the earlies flight out Friday (even if you have to get up super early) to be able to have the whole day Friday and Saturday, and then take the early flight Sunday so you don’t have to worry about making a check out time, and you get home early and can catch up on all the sleep you missed during the weekend. I truly think this is the best way to do it because you get 2 full days, but you also get time to rest and reset before Monday Classes.

3. Pick and choose your travel weekends wisely

It is really tempting to want to travel somewhere every single weekend, but eventually it starts to get really exhausting and sometimes you need a weekend to recharge in the same place. Definitely try to take all the opportunities possible to explore new places and cultures, but also remember how important it is to immerse yourself in the culture of your host city, and also to take care of your mental health and make sure you do not get burnt out.

Overall, these 3 tips will help you have the best experience possible for weekend travel during your ºÚÁÏÍø911program!