Summertime is the season when our timelines are filled with our friends’ travel pictures and adventures. I often find myself liking these pictures, and then I’m quickly filled with a sense of travel envy, a touch of nostalgia and a strong case of wanderlust. Now it’s not to say I’m necessarily jealous of my friend hiking 12-plus miles in Colorado, or my friend spending a week on a boat. I’m filled with this travel envy and nostalgia because seeing people be adventurous and living out lifelong dreams causes me to remember all of the adventures I’ve been on. Wanderlust is a very real thing that you don’t fully understand until you crave that adventure and desire to explore the world like you did previously.

I am lucky enough to say I spent an amazing four months living in England and traveling around Europe. During this time, I was able to go to many places I only dreamed of visiting. Whether it was walking around ruins in Rome or gazing at the Swiss Alps while riding a train, I found myself in a dreamlike world. When you travel with friends as a college student and stay in hostels, you meet a variety of people and always seem to find yourself in interesting situations. Now there were many moments that I didn’t inform my frequently worry filled parents of until I was safely back in America, but it's those moments that my friends and I look back on with the fondest of memories. Whether that was the time we found ourselves with six Swiss 20-somethings in a train station in Zurich or the time we hid in a leather store in Florence, we have a story we can look at with love, laughter and a desire to go back.

I’ve heard it said that the problem with traveling and living abroad is that you develop relationships with people and places so far away, and because of this, you never feel completely whole again. Now I realize that sounds utterly terrifying, but what I mean is you leave a piece of yourself with the people you meet and places you go. That could be the group of backpackers you met in that pub in Prague or your favorite spot in Hyde Park in London. When you return home, you find yourself longing to be back in these places with these people just living life. Life seems so much simpler when you’re traveling, yet strangely complicated at the same time. All you really have to worry about is how you are getting from one place to another and where you’ll be laying your head at night. You are traveling with your bare necessities quite literally strapped on your back. You feel lighter, freer, more at ease, and find yourself growing in confidence. Having to communicate in a country where you speak none of the language means you’re forced to find your confidence and security in being shamelessly you.

Traveling causes you to bond with people you might otherwise have never met. You find yourself dancing to traditional German songs in a beer hall or climbing roofs with an Irishman in Austria. It doesn’t matter that you speak different languages, grew up in different cultures and live totally different lives — you bond over living in the moment. While not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could be backpacking around Europe with some of my best friends, I am forever grateful for the many memories and countless friends I made along the way. If I could give anyone advice it would be to go. Go without a plan, meet people, explore this beautiful world we live in, and catch your own case of wanderlust.