The semester is finally nearing the end and weeks of hard earned vacation from school work, the library, and in most cases even the campus, are now within sight, but the question still stands: what do we do with our brief freedom?
1. Visit Home
The most obvious choice is to pack your bags and head for home where free home cooked meals, laundry, and a comfy double bed await you. If you live within a reasonable distance of school, or have saved up enough to afford the flight home, then there really isn’t anything better then taking the chance to catch up with old friends, celebrate the holidays with your family, and just catch up on some rest in a familiar place!
2. Visit Friends / Boyfriends / Girlfriends
Runner up in the commonality department to visiting home is visiting someone else’s home. Normally reserved for that special person in your life or your roomie and best friend. This can be a fun experience as you get to (possibly) visit a new city or state while also getting the chance to see a little deeper into this persons life outside the walls of Harvard.
3. Staycation
For those of us who don’t want to visit home, or can’t visit home and have a few friends in the same boat an awesome way to spend the time off is to plan a “Staycation”. Essentially all you need to do is rent an Airbnb, or whatever space fits your group, budget and ideals, within your city and live and act like tourists for a week or two. It’s a great way to bond with friends, escape school, and still have a lot of fun – plus splitting an Airbnb between 5-10 people really brings down the cost!
4. Road Trip
Similar to the Staycation, roadtrips are best done with a group of friends and, or course, a reliable vehicle or mode of transportation (such as a train or bus). With the limited time window and probably limited finances available to us as students I would suggest keeping the road trip close to home, no need to drive all the way to California on a whim. Instead, check out one of the many awesome states/cities located nerby in New York (because NYC, nuff said), Vermont (great skiing if you’re into that), or New Hampshire (just beautiful in general)! The road trip can last for a day, can occur multiple times, or can last for the whole vacation!
5. Destination Trip
Oh to escape the cold. If you search now you have a good chance of tracking down some deals for all-inclusive, or nearly all-inclusive, vacations to sunny, warm places such as Cuba, Mexico, or even Vegas if you’re of age. To make the destination trip better (and even more affordable) round up a group of friends, most airline companies will offer discounts if you have a group of 10+ and what’s more fun then beach activities with a group?