Come on, let’s travel!

By Paolo Giordano, Italy

Santa Barbara from the pier

I want to start this article with a phrase that I think is so cute “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.” Yes, that’s true. When you travel, when you leave your country to search for new adventures, vibes and emotions, you have the opportunity to escape from your daily life and land in another world. All the things that you see change and you have the possibility to discover new lifestyles, customs and traditions, especially when you go in a country with a lot of artifacts.

It doesn’t matter if you’re travelling for job or a normal vacation, when you come back home you will feel better, wiser, rested and with a different vision of life. Yes, because your life will change, and your intention is to continue to travel, save money and planning the future trips.

I want to spend now a few words to talking about my experience in EF. I arrived here in Santa Barbara on August the 6^th, and I am going to stay here for four weeks, one month.

I think that Santa Barbara is a beautiful place, such as all of California. It is a little city, not like Los Angeles which is bigger, and the thing that I noticed is the elevated number of restaurants that there are here. There is a wide variety of  food, from Mexican to Japanese, Italian and obviously American!

But my trip here in California doesn’t stop only in Santa Barbara. EF organizes other trips in the USA. So I had the opportunity to visit Las Vegas in Nevada. I think that Las Vegas is an amazing city, and there is no possibility to be bored there. Pubs, discos, nightclubs and obviously casinos are the major attractions of the city, and the only way to have fun! In the same Las Vegas trip, there was the opportunity to visit the Grand Canyon reserve and I grabbed the chance and I decided to go there. It was the right decision: one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! Red rocks, the Colorado River, and unfortunately, the weather was not very good…cloudy and after 45 minutes that we were visiting the Canyon it started to rain! Fortunately, we had the time to take a few photos and enjoy the view.

The second trip that I have made, in the second weekend available, was in San Francisco. I decided to not go with EF just because the city is big, and because of the long bus journey. The time wouldn’t have been enough to visit the city as well as possible. So I went by car with a few friends and we had more time to go around the city and enjoy it. We got on a boat and sailed into the bay and saw the Golden Gate, symbol of the city, up close. It was massive, high and breathtaking. A great experience! I enjoyed it so much, but San Francisco is not only the Golden Gate Bridge. The city is full of fantastic places such as Lombard Street, the Financial Center, Union Square, Golden Gate Park, Alcatraz, Cable Cars, Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf where I ate a very tasty Crab!

The last trip: Los Angeles!

Well, I had a fantastic trip in California, but I would have felt incomplete if I hadn’t visited Los Angeles! I went there for just two days, but they were enough to visit all the most important things of the city. First of all I went in Beverly Hills, and then I spent a major part of the day having fun at Universal Studios. It was amazing but the ticket was very expensive! In the evening of the same day, I went to Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Sign, and to see the view of Los Angeles city. The sign with the light at sunset was something beautiful…I really enjoyed it! The second day, I spent my time visiting the Walk of Fame and the beaches: Venice Beach, Santa Monica and Malibu! I rented a bike with my friends and cycled, and unfortunately when I went to Venice beach it was cloudy so I didn’t enjoyed it as well as I wanted. In Santa Monica, I had a ride over the roller coaster on the pier and then I went to the beach in Malibu by car, just to sunbathe because the ocean was very cold!