By: Caroline Boschetto
According to GoAbroad.com, Italy’s is the world’s top study abroad destination. After being here for just over a week I have no questions as to why. From the food and architecture to the art and natural beauty, the country is overflowing with treasures waiting to be enjoyed… and, naturally, U.S. college students lining up to enjoy them.
In my past work and study experiences abroad I have had the fortune to form genuine local friendships and have incredibly genuine cultural encounters. These aspects of my travels, such as having dinner with a co-worker’s relatives in Guatemala or seeing a cultural show with a Chinese classmate and his friends, have been the highlights of my times abroad and have drawn me to continue exploring beyond my own borders and social circle. In Italy, although I am studying at the American University of Rome, my goal is to immerse myself in Italy’s culture by have as genuinely Italian of an experience as possible.
The prevalence of Americans studying abroad became most apparent to me when I signed up for a group trip to the Amalfi Coast with my roommates through a student tour company called Bus2Alps. I was enticed by stunning online photos of the coast’s colorful Mediterranean villages built into jagged seaside cliffs, and so I decided that I couldn’t miss a visit to this popular destination. After receiving multiple brochures on my Italian campus from advertisers of Bus2Alps and similar student tour companies, my roommates and I decided to give one of these pre-packaged experiences a go. This trip ended up being a valuable learning experience, as most abroad experiences are. In this case however, it was a lesson in how not to explore a foreign country.
As the company’s name suggested, we did indeed ride a bus to our destination. If fact, we rode one of multiple very large tour busses, packed in total with 350 primarily white, female, undergraduate study abroad students, differentiated only by our different colored program wrist bands. Our energetic tour guides stood in the aisles of each bus, hyping us for “the best weekend of our life” as we rolled down the coast from Rome to Amalfi.
The more the merrier is a statement I would hesitate to agree with after spending this weekend with such a massive group of fellow travelers. From hostel to island to restaurant to shopping district, our flock of yelling, wine guzzling, photo snapping tourists overtook the streets. The locals’ annoyance with us was understandable, as anyone would be displeased to have 350 loud foreigners rumbling through their quaint hometowns. As an international affairs major particularly interested in cultural awareness, I cringed at the rude spectacle that I realized I was a contributor to. Furthermore, as organized as our tour leaders attempted to be, going anywhere and doing anything with such a large group was a helplessly slow and confusing process.
Apart from the sheer number of students on this trip, the homogenous demographic of individuals with whom I spent this weekend also made achieving my goal of authentic cultural experience difficult. As a white, American, English-speaking female, I was in the constant company of individuals just like me. I think that many students understandably seek the comfort of those those similar to them, but I personally love travelling specifically to try to expand my social circle beyond the demographic of my small Pennsylvania hometown.
The itinerary of this program also prompted me to reassess what I value in a travel experience. While having every moment of my trip planned out for me was a relief, it was also a source of frustration. While filing onto a pre-scheduled boat for a tour of Capri was easy and enjoyable, the joys of spontaneously exploring historic alleyways or stumbling upon hidden art galleries were not possibilities on this trip. Also, it was a challenge for me to try authentic local cuisine when we were constantly being encouraged to dine at large, touristy restaurants who have partnerships with Bus2Alps.
In one word, I would describe this trip to the Amalfi Coast as a bubble. Perhaps the most glaring example of the insular experience that this program fostered was embodied by our last night in Sorrento. Instead of enjoying a glass of pinot at a wine bar with the locals, we all were encouraged to spend our evenings drinking tequila sunrises at the English Inn, a rooftop dance bar nearly entirely occupied by Bus2Alps students. I danced and had a fine time, but out of context, I would have guessed by the music and crowd that I was at a campus frat party instead in the heart of one of Italy’s most idyllic towns.
I do not intend for my criticism of this program to come off pretentious or judgmental. All students are looking for something different out of their study abroad experience and everyone has different preferences and comfort zones. I got to see some of the most fantastic sights of my life while touring Sorrento, Positano, Capri, and Pompeii last weekend, and I have no reason to complain about my incredible fortune. I can only criticize my decision to tour these destinations with a program so painfully catered to American students.
Nevertheless, when my like-minded roommates and I reviewed our trip after it was over, we agreed that we did not regret going on this trip to Amalfi Coast. We all learned what we did not want our future weekend excursions to be like and how we might approach future trip bookings in order to achieve a more independent and authentic experience. I personally feel that I gained a new sense of self-awareness above all else from this trip. I saw the behavior of other American students and I witnessed the reactions of the locals. I felt what it was like to be a cog in this tourism machine, churning out uniform, cookie-cutter travel experiences. And I imagined what this trip might have been like had I approached it independently, setting my own schedule based on my own values and priorities.
The next time that I venture out of Rome for a weekend adventure, I most likely will have to do more planning, manage more logistics, and refer more frequently to my trusty English-Italian dictionary. But hopefully, I will also encounter more surprises and more hole-in-the-wall eateries. If I am lucky, I will also meet more friendly faced locals who might be able to see how excited I am to be experiencing their cultures and how grateful I am that they are sharing their home with me in order that I may glimpse the wonders that it has to offer.
