April 30th, 2016
When studying in Europe, multiple things influence the facility of travel. If you’re lucky enough, you wont have class on a Monday or Friday, which will give you the opportunity to really enjoy your weekends. I was really lucky to have family friends that lived around Europe, so my roommate and I were able to travel and pay for only the basic things like travel and souvenirs, since my friends were so generous. But we did stay at a hotel when we went to Paris for the first time, and to Nice as well. There are several ways to reduce costs when traveling from Aix. You can get a Cartrieze card, which is the local bus system card that gives you a 24 hour pass to anywhere for only 2euros. There is also the student card for the TGV (which is the high speed train that goes all throughout Europe), this one gives you around 60% off train tickets. There are also cheaper airlines that fly around Europe like Ryanair and Easyjet that have flights for as cheap as 9euros depending on the time of year. IAU is affiliated with a tour guide named George, who does really cheap trips around the south of France, I went on the ski trip, Monaco and Cassis/La Ciotat with him. So he’ll charge around 25-100euros depending on the length of the trip, which is good because he shows you all the main tourist sites and it just involves less thinking. It’s important to make the most of the time here, but don’t forget to go around the city you’re living in too! In spring, you get two one-week breaks, which is tons of time to explore new places!