Tag Archives: travel tips

My Fav Photo App to Use Abroad

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By: Spencer Rojas

Pictures are worth a 1000 words – but I think they are worth even more when you are studying abroad. My biggest issue was finding a fun way to capture these memories and live in the moment. I was able to make these moments even more memorable by using a cool app that is a little retro. Disposable is a free app that allows you to take pictures but does not let you see them until 9:00 am the next day. The photos have that disposable camera look and just give off a cool vibe. I used this app a lot because it was fun to take pictures without having to worry about how the pictures would turn out. It allowed me to live more in the moment. It was fun to relive the moments when the photos would show up at 9:00 am the next day. Now that I am back in the US, it is fun to remember all the good times I had in The Netherlands.

Check out some of my favorite photos taken using the Disposable app:

 

About the Author: Spencer is a Global Mentor in the Education Abroad office at St. Cloud State University. He studied abroad to HAN University – Netherlands and the Greece & Netherlands Political Science short-term program.

 

Novel Ideas for Your Next International Flight (or Quarantine)

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By: Jacob Mercer

Once on a flight from Seoul to Honolulu, I sat next to a young couple who opened matching blue backpacks and pulled out matching editions of The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings. It was one of those “Now in Theaters” book jackets, same as the movie poster: George Clooney sitting at a bar, looking over his shoulder at his kids on the beach with this melancholy, indie-film kind of expression. “How’s the book?” I asked.

The man made a face. “Bad,” he said.

“But we love George Clooney,” the woman said.

“Did you see the movie?” I asked.

“We’re reading the book first.”

“Did you know the book was set in Hawaii?” I asked.

“Of course,” the man said. “We always read books about the place we’re traveling to.”

“Me too!” I said, taking out my copy of Hotel Honolulu—and then we all gave each other high-fives. (Or maybe we didn’t, but that’s how I like to remember it.)

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Getting around in South Korea

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Lucas Clasen

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All photos courtesy of Lucas Clasen

When I was in Korea and Japan, figuring out how to use public transport was a real challenge. Seoul, Korea had a pretty straight forward system, with the ticket machine and the location names being in English. In Wonju, where the university is located, the transit system is very different, and was very confusing to me. Nothing was in English, and there were no maps or guides to traversing the trains or buses around the city. Osaka and Kyoto were similar stories to Wonju, with hardly anything in English, especially with the ticket machines or transit maps, which very rarely used any English at all. As such, they needed to be translated.

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How to See a City in a Day (and on a Budget)

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Sophie Torgerson

One of the things that has always been on my bucket list has been to travel to Europe.  I was ecstatic when I made the decision to study abroad in Denmark in June of 2019.  The majority of the trip would be spent in Aalborg, which is a smaller-sized city in the northern region of Denmark.  The last couple days would be spent in Copenhagen, the capital and largest city of Denmark.  The program was only three weeks, and although I was told we would have free time most evenings and weekends, I wasn’t expecting to have enough time to travel outside the country, although that was something I was interested in.  However, in our second week abroad, a few of my classmates were researching things to do for the weekend and came across a $39 round-trip ticket to London for the following Saturday.  I decided that I couldn’t let this incredible opportunity pass, as I wasn’t sure when the next time I would be in Europe would be, so a couple hours later, four of my classmates and I booked our flight.

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All photos courtesy of Sophie Torgerson

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