Best. Summer. Ever.

This summer, I traveled with Travel for Teens to Italy for 10 days, which was quickly followed by a service trip to the Florida Keys.
In Italy, we started off in Florence, took a day trip to Venice, went to Cinque Terre (one of the most gorgeous places I have ever been), and ended in Rome. Each city now holds more memories than I thought imaginable. My trip director, counselor, and CIT were all amazing, and my experience would not have been the same without them. As a kid with quite a few allergies, it was sometimes hard to find places where I could eat, but my counselors were very accommodating, taking me to alternative places when necessary. I also made some amazing friends during my time in Italy. One of my favorite memories was when my counselor pretended to get mad at all of the boys for ding dong ditching us, then sneaking to ding dong ditch all of them afterwards. The hardest part of this trip had to be saying goodbye. I think I cried all the way from the end of our final dinner to the start of my second trip. The friends and memories I made will last a lifetime and I could not recommend this trip enough.
In Florida, we went through the Florida Keys and Miami. It was a service trip, so we worked with the Coral Restoration Foundation, a sea turtle hospital, and a dolphin hospital. I learned SO much about coral from the interns at CRF, and we always did super fun activities. We also got to go snorkeling twice, which was incredible if you ignored the possibility of getting stung by a jellyfish. We always had a decent amount of down time in a day to relax and hang out with our friends. A lot of the time, we drove around in a big van, blasting our music. On the night that the Barbie movie came out, I think the 10 of us spent an hour trying to convince our counselor to take us. We finally convinced him, and hurried to our hotel to get all dressed up in pink. Overall, this trip was an amazing experience that I learned so much from and made so many good friends and amazing memories.