The last line of the term paper has been written and you walk out of the seminar room one last time with light feet. Then it starts: backpack strapped to your back and luckily the ticket in your hand. Students like Minna and Jana are always drawn to foreign worlds; Their blogs reflect the impressions they collect along the way.
Traveling teaches gratitude
Writing texts and working at trade fairs, babysitting and giving tutoring – Minna does a lot to finance her passion for travel. But you don't need an incredible amount of money to travel, the students think. You just have to lower your expectations a little: "Sleep in a rental car under the stars in the desert, or sleep on a couch via Couchsurfing - that's more my travel style," says the 24-year-old, who, when she's not is traveling, studied American Studies and Sociology in Frankfurt am Main. Minna always tries to hand in homework before traveling. “If the time limit doesn’t quite work out, I’ll pack some literature and a netbook.” Minna then makes what she experiences while traveling public on her blog – in German and English.
Where to go is usually an intuitive decision. Minna finds inspiration in travel blogs or travel bargain portals. Her next travel destinations include Vietnam, Borneo, Indonesia, Iceland, Peru and Madagascar. “In my opinion, traveling is the best way to further your education and, above all, to form your own opinion,” says Minna. And so she had one particular experience on her travels: Once you have seen poorer countries and met people who have to work hard every day for a small piece of bread, you know how good you have it. “While people here are racking their brains over choosing a course of study, people in other countries are happy to be able to study at all,” says Minna. »I am very grateful for what I have. Traveling contributed a lot to this insight.« ◆
Between the lecture hall and the plane
When Jana caught the travel bug, she had just dropped out of her architecture studies in the third semester. “I wanted to get out, travel and discover the world,” says the now 23-year-old. So she simply booked flights and explored Australia, Bali, Dubai and Singapore within two months. A short time later she booked the next flights. This time: Thailand and Vietnam. Back again, word quickly spread that Jana had become a globetrotter, and she was bombarded with questions: Where are we going next? Have you traveled around the world? Can you show some photos? I would also like to go to Thailand – don’t you have some tips?
In addition to her new studies, media studies and German studies in Bonn, Jana has now set up her own travel blog to share her experiences with others.
Where she travels is usually decided by the weather and the price of the flight, says Jana. “I don’t like just lying around on the beach, though.”
Since the student tackles her homework and project work during the lecture period in order to have time to travel during the semester break, it is a little more stressful than for her fellow students. But the reward is always in sight: “Traveling allows me to have more time for the good things and allows me to just let my studies be studies in between.” ◆
By airmail to your ear
Does it annoy you having to talk about your last adventure trip over and over again? Always the same stories? With fellow students, friends, relatives? Then maybe you should talk to Daniel, because the 27-year-old studied media information technology collects the best holiday stories in his podcast “Luftpost”.
Daniel, how did you come up with the idea for the podcast?
After graduating from high school, I went on my first real trip and flew to Hong Kong with a few friends for two weeks. After that, the travel bug broke out in my circle of friends and since then everyone has been on the go all the time. When you come back, of course everyone wants to know what it was like and what you experienced. When you talk about the trip for the umpteenth time, at some point you think to yourself: “Why don’t I just record this? Then everyone can listen to it.” And so the idea was born. The first episode was about South Korea and went online on December 2, 2010. Since then, almost 90 episodes have been released.
How do you find your interview partners?
At first I simply interviewed my circle of friends, then the friends of friends and suddenly listeners wrote to me who wanted to talk about their travels. I am always happy about new interview partners. Fortunately, these don't seem to be running out and I can't really keep up with recording all the planned episodes at the moment.
How are you preparing?
I try to approach the interviews as naively as possible. During the podcast I always have a Google Map open to try to trace the route. What I also like to do is look around a bit using Google Streetview. This gives me a good impression of the country and often leads me to think of interview questions that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise.
The airmail podcast started as a project during your studies, will you finish it at some point?
Yes, if I recorded an episode about every country in the world! There is a world map on my website with all the episodes marked. I currently have episodes from around 70 countries. Depending on how you count, there are about 200 countries in the world. So I'm still a bit busy.
Students are always drawn to foreign worlds. Here are three blogs.
