By: College Tourist
Get to the heart of your destination with a Lonely Planet Guide Book, ENTER TO WIN our GIVEAWAY. #TravelLovesMe
We've teamed up with the worlds biggest travel guide book publisher to spread the travel love. 10 lucky winners will receive one of ten Lonely Planet Guide Books in our Valentines Day #TravelLovesMe giveaway.
Students share why #TravelLovesMe
Roslyn Kent, University of Calgary I love to travel for the adventure. Exploring outside the city's limits can be one of the best and most exciting ways to discover hidden wonders and places that the average tourist never finds. For me, this often includes hiking, swimming and just wandering in general. If there's a little known secret about a destination that I'm travelling to, I'll make it my mission to find it, regardless of the trek it takes to get there. After all, it's often not the tourist destinations that give the best adventure, but the exploration of new ones that people never told you about.
Nikki McKenna, Florida Atlantic University
I love travel because I love meeting new people and learning about their cultures, their languages and their customs. I love trying new food and seeing new sights as well as admiring the local flora and fauna of each place I go to. I love exploring new places and feeling that sense of adventure that the unknown brings. I not only learn about other cultures but I learn a lot about myself when I travel.
Miranda Siwak, Elon University I love to travel because I love the opportunity to see and experience new places, cultures and have new adventures doing things I normally wouldn't have the chance to do. Travel has long been one of my favorite pastimes, as I have always loved stepping outside my hometown and seeing more of the world. I've always loved just walking around, exploring new places and travel as been the perfect way to satisify that desire. I like seeing new cultures, and learning more about the historical context each place has to offer, spending as much time as I can at each destination, viewing every immense detail and learning more about what everything was used for over time.
Alea Gilhuly-Mandel, Curry College I love traveling because it makes makes me expect the unexpected and you get out of your comfort zone. I've always been a fan of routine and excessive planning, especially when traveling, but when you travel nothing goes to plan. Instead, you learn to expect the unexpected and deal with situations that you never thought were possible. Trying new things and getting out of your comfort zone is one of the best things about traveling because the minute you step outside your comfort zone you learn the most about yourself. You learn that you can handle any situation and you learn that you are stronger, braver and smarter then you ever thought possible. Sometimes you learn this early in the morning after getting your cell phone stolen the night before and sometimes you learn it late at night when you're trying new foods with people you never knew existed.
Check out all the mobile news from Lonely Planet with the launch of Guides.
"We are very excited to launch Guides for mobile. We were one of the first travel publishers ever to have content available in the App Store and were a launch partner for the iPad," said Lonely Planet CEO Daniel Houghton. "We have taken the time to understand what travelers need and expect from a mobile product in 2016. Guides delivers Lonely Planet's expertly-curated content in a format that is contextual and intuitive on mobile devices and which utilizes the many great innovations of those platforms to deliver the best possible user experience."
Guides is available starting January 28, 2016 on App Store and Google Play for iOS and Android.
Carine Alexis, St. John's University I love to travel because it allows me to re-invent myself, and be more like the person I've always wanted to be. There's something very liberating about finding yourself in a new culture, free from the preconceived notions of people who know you well. Traveling has given me the opportunity to delve into different experiences and become the most adventurous, independent, and free-spirited version of myself; and once you experience that personal growth of character, you carry it with you for life.
Emily Roth, University of Connecticut I love to travel because I love being lost! There's nothing better than spending the day searching the streets of a small Italian city for gelato or wandering a deserted Greek island. I like not knowing what the coming hour, day, or week will hold. Our lives are usually so planned and scheduled and traveling is the perfect vacation from all that!
Emily Freebery, Fordham University I love travel for the amazing photos and the memories that come with them! There's nothing I love more then looking back at all of my travel photos, reliving the days and experiences from when I took them. Travel photos are an amazing way to take yourself right back any city or country you've visited. Uploading, sorting through, and editing my photos is one of my favorite pastimes (other then actually traveling and taking the photos of course!) and I never get tired of looking at them! Past travel photos are also a great tool to inspire future trips! Looking through my photos always makes me want to plan my next adventure!
Alexandra Perez, University of Iowa I Love to travel because I love the thrill of being a stranger in a new place. When you stay in the same place for so long you become stagnant and your life becomes routine. Traveling brings out the brave and courageous person that I've always wanted to be. I truly believe that I'm my best self when I'm exploring new places.
Molly Green, University of Minnesota love travel because I love feeling anonymous in a new city. I love that nobody knows who I am, and I am just another traveler drifting through the universe carefully observing the surface level of a new culture. It is a very grounding and humbling experience, and I'm grateful for every opportunity I've had to be an outsider at a coffee shop, a family dinner, or a holiday parade in another part of the world.
Hannah Polston, University of Denver I love traveling because I love learning. College textbooks can teach you a lot about the world but traveling can teach you so much more. I love what travel has taught me about other cultures, customs, ways of doing things, people, food, languages, history, why things are they way they are, and maybe most importantly, what travel has taught me about myself.
Brooke Stafford, Penn State University I love to travel because I love to eat! After only a few weeks in Barcelona, Spain, my eyes were opened to foods with flavors I'd never tasted before--paella, chocolate-dipped churros, croquetas, empanadas, jamon, potatoes bravas and an endless supply of tapas. Salty, sweet, savory, spicy. I was suddenly head-over-heals in love with trying new foods. When I traveled to London, I experimented with food in the same way. I tasted classic foods, but with new flavors. The Camden Market taught me what ice cream and mac & cheese should really taste like... and my stomach couldn't have been more grateful. My love affair with food has grown ever since. Every new place I go, I taste-test the delicacies, I sip on new wines and I try as many desserts as I can. The world is a big place. If you're traveling to make new memories and to have new experiences, don't forget to EAT NEW FOODS! You won't regret it.
Gabrielle Hickmon, Cornell University I love to travel because I like to test myself! I love to see if I can find my way home, or figure out the subway system in another country. I find that I'm the best version of myself when I'm off wandering somewhere and quite honestly I'm addicted to the high I get from being both lost and found at the same time by traveling. I enjoy being forced to step out of my comfort zone and seeing how I will handle that. Will I feed myself, make friends, get lost? I like to travel because I love the challenge of losing myself in a new culture, land, and community, but also finding and recreating her again at each new destination.
Sarah Dougherty, University of Alabama I love to travel because I love feeling like I'm a part of something bigger. Anonymously exploring is my favorite way to experience different cultures, lifestyles and things beyond the bubble of my comfort zone. I often get caught up in work and to-dos, and travel is my favorite way to refresh, feel inspired and get closer to being the person I want to become.
Niki Kirschner, University of Delaware I love to travel because of the duel feelings of adrenaline and relaxation. There is always the unknown factor when going somewhere new for the first time, but there is a calmness in that feeling as well. Getting to see, touch, taste, smell, and explore a part of the world that is new to you...there is nothing like it! If 100 people travel to the same destination there will be 100 unique experiences within that destination, which is why I love traveling so much!
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