Travels in the States

By Louis Cotterell, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

In my time in America I have tried to get out of campus when I can, in order to see as much of this huge country as possible. While this has been a bit of a financial strain, travel costs are manageable, and I remind myself that money is temporary, but memories are forever.

We had our first long weekend a couple of weeks into the semester, and my friends and I headed down to Wilmington, a beach city in the south of the state. The North Carolina sun was burning hot, and it was great fun to rent an Airbnb, stay near the sea and check out the strip at night. The coach travel was also a great way to become closer to the friends that I had been making, as it was a three-hour journey.

A couple of weekends later I bought a last-minute ticket (for about $100) to Boston, to make a day-night trip. We took an 8-am flight out from RDU airport (although one person in the group overslept and missed it), and it felt so strange to travel on a plane with only a wallet, passport and phone. Once in Boston we started walking towards the Downtown area along the Freedom Trail, saw many of the historic sights and enjoyed taking in a new city. After checking out JFK’s childhood home, a Navy Ship and the Bunker Hill monument (a lot of steps), we grabbed some food and headed to a Red Sox baseball game at Fenway Park. When the game finished we hit the strip, and after a few hours, (at approx. 3am) we headed to the airport to sleep before our 6am flight home.

At fall break, my friends and I headed to Chicago. Two of us were supposed to be going to Asheville, but Hurricane Helene had destroyed the area and blocked all roads going in, so we joined the rest of the group in the Windy City. We saw the sights, such as the Bean, walked along Lake Michigan, and having spent the night in O’Hare airport I had a snooze in a skyscraper that was open to the public. We also visited a museum, saw a Halloween parade and enjoyed an authentic deep-dish Chicago pizza. It was nice, although I’d be lying if I said I preferred it to regular pizza.

On the way home we had a seven-hour layover in Atlanta, so we explored the city a little, seeing the Olympic Park and going to the Coca-Cola Museum.

My dad came to visit and we went up to New York. It was incredible to see all the famous buildings that have been etched into my brain through years of media. My favourite is the Chrysler building, and seeing One World Trade Center and Ground Zero was an amazing sight. On Wall Street, I bought a bull figurine to bring home for my girlfriend. At the end of the weekend, my dad and I went to David Gilmour (of Pink Floyd fame) at Madison Square Gardens, a true tick on the bucket list.

Finally, in our most recent Thanksgiving break, we rented a car and drove down to Charleston, South Carolina. Despite initially feeling nervy about driving on the wrong side of the road, the road trip was very fun, with windows open in the hot sun and tunes blaring. We stayed in an Airbnb once again, and went to explore the city, which is unbelievably aesthetic – we won’t mention how they financed the construction of all those amazing buildings… . The nightlife wasn’t too lively, as it was Thanksgiving, but it was still very nice to explore a new city and tick another state off the list, and on Thanksgiving Thursday we drove down to the beach and went in the sea during a lightning storm. On the drive back to Chapel Hill we visited Congaree national park, although didn’t see alligators like we’d hoped.