Sometimes the bread-and-butter holiday vacation to a relative’s house just does not cut it. Inside every Tech student is a young thrill-seeker yearning for adventure. This fall break consider some alternative vacations to spice up life.
Not every vacation is necessarily rest and relaxation. For adrenaline junkies trying skydiving for the first time may just be the fix they need. Either through commercial flying businesses around Atlanta’s perimeter or even GT Sport Parachute Club, do not let price or availability shy you away from one of the greatest life experiences out there.
If falling through the sky does not fit your fancy, try flying through it with the Yellow Jacket Flying Club or the Atlanta Flight School at Peachtree-DeKalb airport.
For more terrestrially inclined adventures, Atlanta is only a few hours away from the start of the Appalachian Trail.
Individual paths can range from a couple hours to a couple months, if you take the whole route up to Maine. Closer mountains are Kennesaw up I-75 and Stone Mountain on I-20 East, which are more mild hikes to take the family on.
Lakes Lanier and Raburn are only an hour or so from Tech, and facilitate a number of extreme water sports like wakeboarding ramps and jet ski courses.
Interested in community service? Love the fresh air? Join GT Trailblazers on their fall break trips to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and the Santa Fe River in Florida to hike and restore trails or canoe and clean up the riverbed.
Tech’s Engineers Without Borders also hosts several international trips during the year to impoverished countries to build access to clean water. Lastly, the Christian Campus Fellowship has a relief effort in Joplin, Mo.
Tired of all that the United States has to offer? Travel abroad to remote and exotic regions of the world to discover hidden cultures and untouched experiences.
Find a standby ticket to Berlin and hitchhike across the plains of Europe, sleeping in hostels and stopping at biergartens (beer gardens) along the way.
Make your way to Greece and see the Athens acropolis, the remnants of a great Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy.
On the other side of the world, visit Tokyo and walk through the world’s largest city, visiting the Japanese Imperial Palace amongst the daunting walls of skyscrapers.
In short, the ultimate alternative vacation is nothing that is out of the reach of a Tech student.
With a few resources from the school and a little courage anything is possible, next week you could be falling out of the sky or driving through Europe with nothing more than a backpack and a sense of adventure.