Journal: Traveling as a Student

Hello and welcome to ‘Traveling as a Student’, a bi-weekly blog where I talk about all things concerning traveling. In the coming weeks, you will be taken off the beaten path and hear a real person’s opinion on the latest travel news. Before I set off on this whirlwind journey, I think it is only fair to give you a bit of background about myself, so here is my short traveling biography.

My name is Henri and I am 21 years old. I’m a college student in Washington, DC, studying history, international affairs, and African studies. When I’m not at school, I call the mountains of northern New Jersey home (fine, they’re hills) and I’ve been traveling since I was little. It all began small, with car trips up and down the East Coast of the United States, after which I made it to the West Coast after a few years, and finally international. I’ve so far traveled (internationally) to: Argentina, the Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, France, Israel, Mexico, Switzerland, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay.

Although travel is my passion, I am very focused on my studies and I am trying to become proficient in several languages. I speak English (my native language) and French, with a high level of Swahili and elementary levels of Spanish and Russian. I find that knowing a local language, even at a basic level, makes traveling off the beaten path all the more enjoyable (although, I guess, it can be useful not to understand what people yell at you when you tread over their property mistakenly). Anyway, I digress. I hope you enjoy reading about my adventures and my take on all things travel. I find that going into new things with an open mind and a “let-life-roll-by” attitude makes traveling, and life, all the more enjoyable. Even if you cannot make it to the places about which I talk, I hope that I’m able to give you a taste of what it is like to be traveling in this world when you’re a student.


Henri Minion
Travel Approved Journal writer

Help our planet

Next time you fly, you should check if your airline provides the service to help the environment. Indeed, many airlines now have a service where you can donate a few dollars as a compensation to the environment for flying an environment unfriendly airplane.

For many a few dollars may seem like a waste, but when you think of it, most of us don’t fly on a regular basis and it is limiting the damage to the environment, natural resources, etc. If the environment becomes more damaged, will we continue flying and travelling all over the world? It is something one has to consider, since the deterioration of our environment lies in our hands and airlines want to continue their services and earning money, but compensation to the nature - the victim in this case - is always welcome. In the future, this compensation will come back to you.

Recent developments

A lot of things have been going on at Travel Approved lately, in the positive way. You have probably seen that quite a few parts of the site are being reconstructed or under construction, new photo banners are added and will be added, and we've seen a metamorphosis in our team during the past 2 months.

As said, we're reconstructing a lot these days; some new areas will be introduced, for which less popular parts will have to make space. A good example of this is the contributor area, which will soon be fully online in the About section. Here you will find information about all the people who actually make Travel Approved the way it is, and you will often get the opportunity to contact them for a "thank you" or question.

Next to that, we've asked some experienced and professional photographers to compose a few photo banners to make the upper part of our website even more attractive. You will already find a few of those online at this moment, but more are to be expected over the coming months.

The team behind Travel Approved has grown substantially, largely due to new contributors. As Travel Approved grows, so does the need for first-hand experiences, so we're very happy to welcome our new contributors! You will soon find the contributions on the earlier mentioned About page.

All this, along with an advertising campaign and more upcoming changes, will hopefully allow even more travellers to be informed the way they should be. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to drop us a line. In the mean time, enjoy our new features!

Inexperienced traveller? Read this!

If you're not that used to travelling yet, it is easy to forget things when going on a holiday. Let's assume that you have already booked transportation and a place to stay, that you have your travel insurances covered and that you have read some information about the country you're visiting, then what?

First of all, you have to make sure that some elementary things are taken care of:
- Choosing a suitcase; this is especially important when you go on a holiday by plane, make sure to pick a convenient and strong suitcase. Click on the link to read the article.
- Diseases; vaccinations are of vital importance.
- Electric plugs; there's many different wall sockets, make sure to be prepared for this.
- Useful gadgets; some gadgets that will greatly benefit your holiday experience
- Vocabulary; speaking a few words in the local language is extremely useful, and is actually a lot of fun too!

Next to that, depending on which kind of holiday you go on, go through one of the sections below:
- Holiday by Plane
- Holiday by Car
- Holiday by Train

Finally, if you're planning on staying in touch with friends and relatives at home, you have to choose how to keep contact. Read our Network section for more information.

Our team is happy to assist in any further questions you have, have a great holiday!

Under construction: USA country information

Because of the growing demand for more information about the USA, and the fact that some countries are too large to simply write general articles about, we have decided to completely change the information on the United States of America country page.

When you go to North America - USA , you will now get the following regions:
- New England
- Mid-Atlantic
- Southeast
- Midwest
- Mountain States
- West Coast

As you will see, information still needs to be added; our American contributors will soon provide us with the information necessary. In the mean time, if you think you have any information that should be covered on those pages, please contact us. Please excuse us for the temporary inconvenience.

Best,


Travel Approved Staff