Have you ever wanted to travel abroad but you’re not sure how?
Welcome fellow adventurer! Here are 5 tips to help you travel overseas before you graduate:
1. Get excited and have fun while planning!
What interests you and makes you happy? Where have you always wanted to go? These are questions you can consider when thinking about going overseas. For inspiration, you can take a look at the many pictures and videos of others traveling (check out @glateens, for example). You can also ask friends, relatives, teachers, and parents about their travels. People LOVE talking about and sharing their time abroad—you’ll soon enjoy this yourself! 🙂
2. Convincing your parents is more than half the battle
Even if it doesn’t seem like it at times, our parents love us and ultimately want us to be happy. But, as we all know, love can make us do crazy things and make people unnecessarily worried. What is truly best for you might not make sense for your parents, at least for the moment. If you’re certain about traveling, then you might need to negotiate your trip and answer any objections your parents have. The most common ones are related to safety, money, and scheduling. One idea is that you can join a global travel program specifically for teens and high school students—most of them have flexible times and some of them even offer scholarships!
3. Reach out to high school students who have already traveled
High school travel abroad is certainly not common, but you’ll find that many teens like you made it happen. If you’re lucky, your school might have an office or adviser that you can reach out to. They might be able to refer you to other students who have done a program you’re looking into or visited a similar area. For those of you with social media accounts, you can visit a teen travel program’s page (one great example with almost 67,000 followers is GLA’s Facebook page) and then private message other teens there. Most people are really friendly and will want to help you out. Since many high school students who travel abroad have done more than one program, they’ll give you the inside scoop. It really helps to get a well-balanced perspective of whatever program or area you’re considering.
4. Check out GLA and other quality programs
As mentioned earlier, there are many options you can check out for traveling overseas. What matters is finding the right program for YOU that fits with YOUR aspirations, interests, and schedule. It also doesn’t hurt if they know how to work with thoughtful parents and alleviate their (completely understandable) concerns or reservations. A fantastic resource you can check out for traveling is Global Leadership Adventures (GLA). But don’t let that stop you from considering other quality programs! Ultimately, what really matters is you having the best experience possible and no community—no matter how experienced or diverse—can do it all.
5. Take action now!
You betcha! Right now. This could be one of those moments where we all get really motivated and excited, but then nothing ends up happening. Or…it could be the first step towards something exciting….something new (maybe even a bit scary)…an Adventure.
Contributed by Nick Fochtman
