A Week in Ireland

The Village Program has two required periods of travel for students, called VisionQUEST. Each travel break is supposed to be about meeting Europe and traveling on your own where you most want to go. It’s no surprise that all of us looked forward to these travel breaks and relished all the preparation that went into making our own trips feel successful. For our first VisionQuest, I traveled with one of my classmates to Ireland. (We were pretty sure that we’d made excellent traveling partners because we have similar interests and personalities. Plus we knew that we wanted to explore Ireland and see the spectacular scenery that it had to offer!) So we started planning for what was going to be our first major travel experience without the rest of the program and our professors. We looked into things to do and started booking everything and figuring out how we’d manage to get everywhere we’d have to go all on our own.

When the week of VisionQuest 1 finally arrived, we were ready to leave Paris and embark on our adventure. We took the metro and the RER to the airport, where we boarded our plane to Dublin. Once in Dublin, we figured out what bus we needed to take and what stop we needed to get off at to get to our hostel. We did all this successfully and encountered no issues. I felt pretty successful making all of our connections and navigating a new city without any problems and without The Village program guiding us.

We stayed in Dublin for about two days, exploring the city, trying out its shopping and visiting the sites we’d chosen to see. We found cute stores and especially enjoyed shopping in vintage stores, instead of the chain stores that were found everywhere. (I feel like by doing that, we really got to experience the city and see what’s unique about it. You can go shopping in chain department stores in any city.) My advice to anybody traveling to a new place is to explore and see what each individual city has to offer and find what they have that can’t be found anywhere else.

We dedicated a full day to just walk around the city and see the sites. We went to the unforgettable cathedrals and found Dublin castle. We also made sure to do touristy things, such as having a Guinness at the Temple Bar and of course, going into souvenir shops and buying trinkets.

After Dublin, we took a train up to Belfast where we again stayed for about two days. We found a little cafe that had amazing hot chocolate, which was a great way to feel welcome in Northern Ireland. Throughout our travel time though, I had come down with a cold. So when we got to Belfast, the first day we stayed in our hostel for the most part. We got Dominoes pizza and took it back to our room and just relaxed and talked. I took advantage of the down time and called my parents to update them on my travels and my experiences so far.

The next day, we took a day tour with Irish Tours up to the Giant’s Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede bridge. This was hands down my favorite part of VisionQuest, and honestly why Ireland stayed at the top of my list for my favorite place I visited while on the Village. The views and the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. The country was so green and the cliffs were absolutely incredible.

Having this time to travel on our own without the whole program taught me a lot about traveling. I learned many valuable skills, such as how to get information, how to use forms of transportation, and what to take into consideration when booking hostels, trains, or planes. Most importantly though, traveling on our own gave me the confidence to travel wherever I want want to, whether it is completely alone or in a group. I realized I am completely capable of doing all of this on my own and definitely made me more confident in my abilities. Overall, this program taught me how to be successful at traveling, and my confidence is what increased the most during The Village.