It’s a standard cold, grey, rainy day in Dublin. November weather has finally settled in, and you can’t help but feel restless. You and your friends crowd around the kitchen table of your flat, the fluorescent yellow light obnoxiously glares overhead. After sitting for hours, you attempt to form a decent plan before you embark on the unofficial rite of passage for every Trinity student: hunting down the cheapest Ryanair flight. Debit cards and parents’ credit cards are scattered across the table casually like poker chips. At the same time, the air hums with nervous anticipation as everyone refreshes the page, desperate to lock in a fare before the price jumps even higher. This is the inevitable gamble one takes with Ryanair roulette- low stakes in theory, but somehow always high stakes in practice. The plan that has been talked up for weeks has finally graduated from the group chat, and now the next obstacle lies in developing a convincing excuse for missing your Friday afternoon lectures. 

The details don’t matter much when you’re planning. Sure, maybe your flight leaves at 5:40 a.m. and lands at Gatwick or Paris Beauvais at some ungodly 11:55 p.m. hour. Sure, you’ll probably regret having to wake up at 2:30 a.m. to catch the first bus or sleeping half-curled on the airport floor. But in the moment, the thrill of what lies ahead keeps you motivated. The idealized outfits you’ll wear, the Pinterest-inspired photos you’ll attempt to recreate, the group shared album flooded with over 400 photos, the restaurants and museums you’ll “accidentally discover” when, in actuality, it was all meticulously planned or found on TikTok by that one type A friend.  

Then comes the sobering moment every Ryanair passenger knows all too well: boarding time. Your eyelids are still half-shut, the sun hasn’t yet risen, and you are counting the minutes until you can nap. You and your friends couldn’t agree on when to arrive at the airport. On every trip, it is either a matter of arriving three hours early or less than 30 minutes before the gate closes, yet time and time again, you willingly bid on that chance. Most of Dublin Airport Terminal 1 is still closed, except for the one 24-hour bar where rowdy American tourists savour their final pint of authentic Guinness. A Ryanair gate agent, dressed in her navy pencil skirt, which is likely pilling, and a wrinkled white button-down that has been reworn too many times to count, is eyeing your overstuffed backpack with suspicion. The dreaded baggage sizer looms over you. You plead, you press, you insist that your overstuffed bag does in fact fit the 40 x 30 x 20 cm dimensions. Sometimes, if you are lucky, they let you pass and don’t even bat an eye. Other times, you’re €80 down before sunrise and have embarrassed yourself in front of all the passengers. 

It’s safe to say that for many, travel defines young adulthood, or at least, we like to think it does. Saying “I want to travel the world” feels almost cliché at this point, but the allure is real. To wander a city where no one knows your name, to get lost without consequence, to interrail across Europe with old-time friends, to feel that strange mix of freedom and possibility, it’s intoxicating and refreshing. It’s the reason we all keep wanting to go back- you feel like you have wasted your time well. It’s a rewarding way to run through all your funds, but by the end of the trip, nobody is left with any regrets. 

Travel in your twenties is undoubtedly its own phenomenon. It fails the comforting yet stereotypical structure of a family vacation; it’s messy, spontaneous, and a little reckless. It’s a trip defined by forced flexibility: delayed trains, questionable budget hostels, missed flights, and learning how to adapt when plans inevitably fall apart, and they may or may not be your own fault. Your friends get to witness both the best and worst sides of you. At times, everyone is hangry, tired, and on each other’s last nerves, ready to snap at any moment. Yet, there are also moments when you all feel completely carefree and captivated by the charm of a new city. It’s chasing adventure while telling yourself (and everyone else) that you’re “cultured” now because you’ve eaten escargot, avoided the tourist traps, learned how to say hello, or navigated the metro system.  As a society, we have normalized measuring our worldliness in stamps on a passport, tagged photos in foreign cities, and the ability to order something obscure off a menu without flinching and in the perfect accent. But maybe what we’re really chasing isn’t culture at all, but it’s the version of ourselves we get to be when we’re away,  dissociated from reality,  and feel entirely unburdened.  We’re all constantly chasing this idea of being “the traveller,” and to channel that one well-travelled friend who’s seen all the sights and ticked off all the boxes. Our version of being “cultured” has evolved into a blurred and highly flawed line.  Oftentimes, it boils down to posting the Instagram story, curating the aesthetic, and convincing ourselves (and others) that we’ve found meaning in our travels. Travel is sold to us as this ticket of self-discovery, yet sometimes it is more about escape. It’s easier to hop on a plane than to face the looming realities of adult life: the serious relationship, college, the broken situation, the nine-to-five grind, the responsibilities that creep closer and closer every day. When things start to feel too scary, real, or distant, a change of scenery offers the comforting illusion of freedom that we never thought we had, but now feels ever more tangible. Suddenly, the deadlines, expectations, and realities from life feel nonexistent. And sometimes all it takes is the motivation to escape, a new city, new people, and a new environment that can push us into an identity crisis disguised as a personal awakening. We either grow into a whole new person or succumb to the worst version of ourselves. 

Despite all this, each new city I explore tempts me into believing I could live there – and I genuinely convince myself I should. Admittedly, I do find myself falling into the trap of visiting the overpriced attractions, dining at the “authentic” cafes with English menus, and even buying an occasional postcard.  And honestly, who among us doesn’t want to marvel at the seven wonders of the world, splurge on a $17 Erewhon smoothie, be mildly scammed by an Italian street vendor in Florence, indulge in a croissant and hot chocolate at Café de Flore, or proudly make their rounds at every Brandy Melville in Europe? Nevertheless, no matter how you choose to travel and for all its cliches and staged illusions, travel has a way of reframing how we see ourselves and the world. Travel gives us perspective and yanks us out of our perfected routines, making us compare our lives with those living entirely different from us. Ultimately, travel serves as a source of inspiration, whether creatively, intellectually, or socially. It offers us an unexpectedly new environment, prompting us to question what we know and what we are familiar with. Sometimes this adventure ignites something deeper; other times, it simply evokes a youthful recklessness of traveling in your twenties. It reminds you that you’re young, scared, alive, and feverish with possibility – caught in a fever dream that never quite ends, and right now, that is enough.