The Importance of Seeing the World In Your Early Twenties

Hi everyone! Welcome back to It Girl Archive, your hub for all things hot, all things fashionable, and all things essential to becoming the it girl of your dreams. Today, I wanted to touch on the importance of travel as a young woman. For those of you who don’t know, I just arrived back in the United States last week (hence the chaos with my posting schedule) after spending seven months in Spain. I moved to Barcelona, Spain in January 2024 to study abroad. The last 7 months months have been some of the most exciting and challenging months of my life as it was my first time in several years living outside the United States. I studied at the Universitat de Barcelona in the psychology and biology faculties, and it was a rocky experience at first in terms of navigating academic bureaucracy and culture shock as a student interacting with students and professors from a different culture than my own. There was also the language barrier. I speak Spanish at a level C1, so I’m not fluent but I can handle everyday conversations with relative ease.

The inside of the Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona, Spain (photo taken by Whitney Kuma-Perry)

It was still a challenge to navigate different conversations and dynamics, but ultimately, I loved my experience despite the challenges and I think it’s so crucial for every young woman to travel and see the world in their early twenties. Besides the obvious reasons like being in a new environment and fostering independence, I think it’s so important to network and meet as many people as possible, something that I felt I have struggled to do at my small liberal arts college. Being in a huge metropolitan city like Barcelona was so good in forcing me to engage socially with people my age, and I had access to fun events and outings that I otherwise would not have had access to at home. For example, I got to explore my love of fashion and network on an international scale at all the events I went to, and this was so invaluable for me as an up-and-coming member of the industry.

Dia de Sant Jordi Celebration in Barcelona, Spain (photo taken by Whitney Kuma-Perry)

I think the most important reason it’s so necessary for young women to travel and experience the world is this — the opportunity for self-discovery is incredible and so important. In my time abroad I learned more about myself than I think I ever have. It was hard to be away from home, and I learned about my ability to build a community anywhere I am in the world. I learned about my ability to thrive in a completely different environment, and I learned about the importance of maintaining your connections with those you are leaving behind. I experienced an ego death that my therapist and I will be talking about for months, and I learned how to grow as a person through that. Through it all, I learned to continue to give myself grace, allow myself to reach for new goals even if they seem crazy, and strive to be the best person I can be, and that’s what being and it girl is all about. It’s about striving for more, maintaining authenticity, and living with reckless abandon, and I would not be here without the experiences I had in Spain. I am now excitedly embarking on my next adventures with renewed passion, and I can’t wait to see what is next for me.

My classmates and I on a trip to Zaragosa, Spain (photo taken by Whitney Kuma-Perry)

If you have any cool travel experiences, you should reach out to me @itgirlarchive_ on Instagram and tell me all about them! Also, stay tuned for newsletter information coming very soon!