One thing which I realized after moving to the US was that holidays here are very different from the country I am from. In India, holidays and family festivities are centered around Diwali, while here in the US it starts from the Thanksgiving week and ends with Christmas and New Years. Like most of the internationals living far away from their families, I took this opportunity to get together with other international students and travel around the US. Having just moved to the US, I had a clean slate of travel adventures to write upon. Over my 2 years here at Chicago Booth, I got to travel much more than I have travelled before. This is also thanks to enthusiastic bunch of students at Booth who are always ready to join.
The US, as a country, has a lot to offer to explore, both due to its size and connectivity. One of the first things I tried out was skiing, as coming from a country with tropical climate, I had never seen too much snow, or got to enjoy various winter sports which are popular in snowy regions.
Also, snow-peaked mountains are much more accessible here in the US, and I took that opportunity to hike as much as possible on such mountains.
We also explored other cities of the US. Cities like Austin and New Orleans, both charmed and surprised us with what they had to offer.
Boothies just before taking a swamp tour at New Orleans
Puerto Rico is one of the most beautiful and accessible places in the US to travel.
Apart from academics, traveling taught me so much about others as well as myself. I highly recommend students to take advantage of their enthusiastic batchmates to travel as much as possible during their time at Chicago Booth.