Must Have Travel Apps

By: Lauren Ward

Although technology can have its drawbacks it has made traveling a smoother experience in many aspects. From electronic boarding passes to live weather updates from around the world no one can deny technology has its benefits for trotting around the globe. I have compiled a list of a few applications (aside from your run of the mill flight and weather apps) to help any Harlaxton student or traveler make their time away from home faster, cheaper, and easier.

Skyscanner:
This is a mobile application as well as an online website that searches for the cheapest tickets for your desired destination. You enter in the dates that you want to fly out and return. You also input what airport you wish to use. Luckily for us Harlaxton students you can tell it to search every airport in the London area! It also conveniently gives the option for multi city travel. An example of this would be flying from London into Rome but flying back to London from Florence. It takes in all your desired specifications and generates a list of flights for you to choose from. Often it will tell you to book from two different airlines to save even more money for your travels. However, my personal favorite setting on this app is the ‘Everywhere option’ which means it will tell you the cheapest place to fly to on the days you want to go. This can be helpful when you’re stumped on where to travel to next or if you’re torn between a few locations!

Google Translate:
This application can be a extremely useful tool to use when traveling to foreign countries. They have a mobile application that can be downloaded onto your phone that has many useful functions. For example you can save a language to use offline so when you are suck in a city with no wifi or data you can still communicate with the locals. By far the most impressive feature is the camera function. You can open up your camera, align any text in a foreign language, and it automatically translates it on the spot. This can save lots of time when looking at menus, train time tables, or signs around a city.

Currency exchange app: 
When studying abroad and booking trips with different people, to different countries, with different currencies every weekend it can get pretty stressful. Money definitely gets moved around quite a bit. And with fluctuating currency exchange rates you want to make sure that you are always paying and getting paid the correct amount. I would highly recommend downloading a currency exchange app, although google can work perfectly well too. It can be really convenient to be able to open the app and search for your destination quickly.

HappyCow:
If you are vegan or vegetarian this app will make traveling so much easier for you! You put in your location and it lists nearby restaurant options with reviews by fellow vegans or vegetarians. You can then filter your search for strictly vegan restaurants, bakeries, farmers markets, or grocery stores. No longer will you be worrying about doing extra research or settling for a restaurant that doesn’t work for you.

Hostel World:
This website is great for finding the perfect hostel. This website compiles reviews from past guests and ranks hostels based overall value. You can select your location, a price range, and what amenities you want. It then generates a list and you can pick the hostel that best fits what you are looking for. This is definitely a helpful and reliable website when you are traveling and trying to save some money.

Tube Map: 
If you are attending Harlaxton College chances are that you will be spending quite a bit of time in London. And the fastest, cheapest, and (sometimes) easiest way to get around is by taking the infamous London Underground. If you download the Tube Map app you can GPS yourself from you current location to wherever in the city you want to go. Tube Map then will give you the cheapest and most efficient way to get there with step-by-step instructions of what lines to get on. This can save you valuable time on a short weekend when you want to see a lot of different places around the city. (Apple/Android)

I hope these apps will help in all of your future travels while at Harlaxton or wherever else you may travel to!

Having a Home at Harlaxton

By: Krysta Wininger

You’ve just finished your first long weekend at Harlaxton. You’ve probably gotten back from a special place that you saved specifically for the long weekend – that extra day does, after all, make a large difference. But still, it seems as though you’ve returned all too soon, and the place you visited that was so near and dear to your heart feels left in the dust. It certainly doesn’t help that you’ve had to come back to where the weather is almost certainly colder and wetter.

But nonetheless, here you are, roaming the halls of Harlaxton once more, and you may be feeling as though Harlaxton is just an in-between place that you stay at while you visit all the places you’ve dreamt about since you were little.

Or maybe you’re on the other end of things. Maybe you don’t have extravagant travel plans or don’t have certain places tugging on the strings of your heart beckoning you.

Whatever the case is, we all might be getting to a point in the semester where the walls of Harlaxton feel like a belt you might be starting to outgrow… just a little too tight.

Until the end of the semester, Harlaxton is your home - even if that home feels a little too small at times - and it’s important that we all take the time to appreciate exactly what that means. Living at Harlaxton means scheduled meals, scheduled activities, scheduled times to leave, and scheduled times to return, but having a home at Harlaxton… well, that’s all about what you choose to do with time that isn’t booked.

Sometimes a new home isn’t about the things you take with you; it’s about the things you leave behind that make the place a part of you. Take a walk on the grounds of the manor and watch how your shoes leave molds on the hills – can you feel yourself leaving your mark? Walk up the stairs that thousands of students before you have also walked up, and revel in the fact that while their time has passed, your time is still right here, right now. This manor belongs to you.

When you leave here, a piece of you is inevitably going to stay here with Harlaxton – make sure it’s a piece of you that you want Harlaxton to keep. Hold on to this time here at the manor for as long as you can because before you know it, your time will be up like all those before you, and you’ll be asking yourself, “Did I do everything that I could to have the best experience I could? Did I make an impact? Did Harlaxton impact me? Did I use my time to make it all that it could be?”


Ask yourself those questions now with everything that you do at Harlaxton. Don’t reflect on how you made this your home after you’ve left – reflect on it every single day that you’re here. The semester may be a third of the way done, but you’ve still got over half of your time here. Make sure you’re making it a home you’ll keep with you forever. You’ll keep Harlaxton with you forever – make sure it keeps a piece of you, too.

Writing About Your Travel

By: Drew Chittick

Travel writing probably doesn’t strike everyone as relevant to their semester abroad.

Some people don’t keep blogs, and the ones that do probably feel like they have a good handle on it, and they may.

But you’ll write about your trips more often than you think. Some of you might keep a journal, most will probably post pictures on Instagram or Facebook, and almost everyone will have a family or friend from home text them and ask how and where they’ve been. So, think of this less as advice on maintaining a long-form travel blog, or how to attract readers, than just as advice on how to show people what you’ve been doing abroad, and give them answers that might actually satisfy their curiosity.

The most fundamental habit you can have is just a slight shift in thinking: write about how you felt, not what you saw. Not just something vague like how you were “blown away” or “just can’t believe it,” really think about how what you saw affected you. If somebody is asking what’s been going on in your life, then they care just as much about you as the goings-on.

With that comes a little shift in how you travel: think about how you’re feeling. Even if you never write a word about your trip, just stopping to notice how this has all impacted you will make your trips feel so much more fulfilling. Your memories of what this village looked like or how that baguette tasted will never last as long as the joy of something adorable but ancient, or the satisfaction of a peek into someone else’s craft.

This last one has a little less to do with you and a little more to do with the person reading what you wrote, but it’s no less helpful: consider how the trip changed you. How were you different from when you left the manor on Thursday to when you got back on Sunday (or Monday)? The change doesn’t have to be drastic, but it shows the person reading what they really want to know: why does this matter to you? Maybe you were just having a down week and Paris cheered you up, or you were pumped on the shuttle to Grantham, but just barely staggered into your room Sunday night. Because if you didn’t allow the trip to make any impression on you, what was the point in going?

I hope this is helpful. Not even just for writing, but just for your travels in general as the semester chugs along. We’re almost a third of the way through. That may sound depressing, but remember: whatever you’ve done so far, you’ve still got time to double it. So, go out, and feel as much as you can as you travel the world.