It’s a common experience for all college students to want to go on that big spring break trip. According to popular culture, the best spring break trips include three things: the sun, getting tan, and going out. But this isn’t the case for many students, including myself. This year, spring break trip planning has been a nightmare (at least for me), and with break being less than four weeks away, my friends and I are stuck.
It all started over winter break, when my friends and I were deciding on where to go. We created a Google Doc, listing various places in the US and abroad. My friends and I thought we began to plan this trip well, linking specific AirBnbs or hotels and listing a few different activities for each location. Then, we began to narrow down the list based on safety or if most of the group wanted to go to that location. However, once we went back to school and narrowed down the list to three different locations, we were not able to decide on one place.
Some of my friends didn’t know if their parents would let them go to Puerto Rico or Costa Rica (our top options), and if they were comfortable navigating things like transportation or language barriers. Because we couldn’t decide on a location that made everyone happy or that everyone at least was comfortable with, we entered into a limbo state. My friends and I were all stuck on where to go and what to do, and find a place that was easy to plan with our busy schedules. So, we began to think about potential alternatives. We considered a road trip, Hawaii, or other places in the US like New York City or Miami. But, no one was 100% into it.
My friends and I are still going to do some sort of trip, whatever that looks like, but this limbo state has allowed me to think about spring break differently and give me some perspective. While there is so much hype surrounding spring break, everyone wanting to go to a cool spot and relax, I think that spring break doesn’t have to be this big event. At the end of the day, spring break is truly for relaxing. So, if that means going back home and spending time with your family, or taking a small road trip with your close friends, or maybe even taking that big trip to Europe, do it.
I’ve begun to adopt this mentality of not following what is everyone else is doing when it comes to life planning. While it would be nice to go on a big spring break trip, I will be OK and still have just as much fun taking a smaller trip with my really good friends. I am not necessarily rejecting what other people choose to do, but I am slowly becoming less hyper-fixated on what I know just doesn’t work for me. And this comes with knowing myself really well. I know that if I wasn’t doing a big trip to Europe this summer, I would want to do a really big and planning-extensive spring break trip. I would feel worse about not having any plans for spring break yet, and want something to look forward to. It is so easy to feel negatively or be in a bad mental state, especially with the fast-paced nature of the quarter system, but when you have something to look forward to, you feel better.
So, that leaves us with what my friends and I are doing for spring break. For now, we are hoping to do a road trip across California and, if flight prices go down, we will potentially book the flights and take a big trip. The bottom line is, we are losing the pressure to take a big trip and just do something we know will be fun. So, when it comes to spring break, the one piece of advice I would say is this: forget about what you feel like you should do, and plan a trip or go back home if that is what will allow you to recharge and prepare yourself for spring quarter. Because, if we take a trip we don’t want to take, we’ll regret it and start the quarter in a negative headspace.