When I was in high school, I used to spend hours flipping through National Geographic magazines on an old leather couch in my living room, admiring the photos and wishing I possessed some major teleportation powers. A Chicagoland native, I’d spent my entire life in a suburb just west of the city, and my travel experience mostly consisted of weekend trips to visit family in Wisconsin. I had never been out of the country—not even to Mexico or Canada. I just kept reading about the world in National Geographic, imagining a day when I could explore it myself.

I decided to start exploring in college. My freshman year I went to Middlebury College in the middle of Vermont; sophomore year I transferred to Northwestern to study journalism and international studies; and this year I’ve spent a quarter in Paris, a quarter in Washington, D.C. and spring break in Doha, Qatar. Back in Evanston now, I find myself unable to sit still. I love biking into the city, going on long distance runs, drinking far too much coffee and visiting my friends again. But I’m already itching to fly the coup, and summer in India can’t come soon enough.