The really fun thing about holidays is always the people you get to do it with. And parents are always good companions, but there is a world of difference between your unsupervised college trip and your well paid for vacation with the school or with your parents.
- The city you go to has a completely different side
I went to Manali with my school, and recently with my college. Manali was so wildly different from what I had seen previously – you wouldn’t know the vast music culture, or the more untouched treks around the mountains. It can be insanely satisfying to go on vacation where everybody is more interested in food and music than about shopping. It also incidentally leads to better shopping, by the way.
- Fend for yourself, ye who enter!
Apart from the things that have been paid for previously, everything depends on you. The itinerary is flexible, if not completely discarded. Lunches and dinners should be done by yourself, and everybody is expected to pay for themselves. Plans can be made on a whim, and there’s hardly any stress over what kind of curfew all of us should follow. The best part about this sort of independence is how easily I could get used to it. The lack of micromanaging it intoxicating.
- The wilder adventures
Going with college friends seems to lead to exciting and dangerous adventures. Ones involving a lot of substances which nobody should have their hands on, with treks and crossings which span dangerously high territories. All one has to do is make sure that they come out alive – that just about it. Avoid your death, and you shall be rewarded by sheer exhilaration.
- Social anxiety? What? That exists?
The biggest plus point would probably be the easy way in which one can make friends during trips. This is a quality that holds true in school trips as well, but one tends to stick to their friends during school trips. College trips are a free for all – anyone can become friends with anyone, no matter how improbable the friendship was initially. The socially anxious can rest easy, because people are always, always ready to talk to you.
- The deeper shit
Philosophy. Life. What am I even doing with my time? What is this existence? People suck. Some of the conversations one has. College seems to be a myriad of people ready to spill out their secrets to strangers, in hopes of making friends, and it just gets emphasized when you spend three or four days with the same people.
My first college trip was about deep talking and emotional catharsis. What an exciting time to be alive.
