Your history paper is uploaded to Blackboard, the fate of your Spanish midterm is sealed, your bags are packed, and you’re ready to get the heck out of the frozen tundra in which we go to school. You bring your fake ID with you on the plane so you can start drinking before you fly over international waters, and you don’t stop until you’ve landed back in Syracuse. You’ve been working hard, the weather has been miserable, and you deserve to have some crazy Cancun spring break blackout nights with your girls. Right?
There is nothing wrong with using your spring break to escape into the warmth with your friends to drink, dance and have a good time. You won’t be 20 forever, after all, and you only have a couple more years left until people start looking at you funny when you order your fifth margarita at one in the afternoon. But Cat Stevens said it best — it’s a wild world. If you’re headed out of the country, you may find yourself in sketchy territory.
We are all smart individuals with common sense (we’re reading Her Campus, after all). We know not to leave our drinks unattended, not toshove wads of cash into our wallets before going to the bar, and not to go wandering alone down the alleys of Punta Cana. There’s no reason to stay in your hotel room watching telenovelas while you’re away for spring break. You have a great way to keep safe while out of the country in the palm of your hand — literally.
You’re probably familiar with “checking in” to places on Facebook, whether it’s Panera Bread on a Sunday morning or Chuck’s Cafe on a Tuesday night. It takes two seconds, and gives all your friends and followers your creepily precise location. While it’s annoying to see people check in to Ernie Davis, and then Bird Library, and then Starbucks, and then Bird Library, and then the Quad (yeah, people check into patches of grass), checking into places while you’re on spring break could help keep you safe.
Even if you don’t use Facebook’s Check In feature or know how to work Foursquare, you can still tweet the name of the bar you’re dancing on or post a picture of you and your roommate double fisting margaritas in the pool. You’ll get to show off all the fun you’re having doing something you normally do anyway, and your family and friends will have an idea of where you are should anything happen. Now, where is that fifth margarita…