California Baptist University

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F or many students, COVID-19 equated to canceled trips and summer plans. However, for Amanda Kurowski, senior intercultural studies major, a fall apartment lease gave her the perfect opportunity to close the summer on a highnote. With her best friend, Elisabeth Iserman, a CBU alumna, and her cat, Lemon, the trio made the cross-country trip from Maine to California. Originally from New Hampshire, Kurowski moved back to her home state from Riverside after campus closed. Once fall semester approached, with a leased apartment waiting for her back in California, Kurowski needed a way to move her stuff across the country. The answer came in the form of a close friend. “I purchased a car over the summer meaning to drive it out to California because I got an apartment for this coming school year. So I hit up my friend Bizzie (Elisabeth), who flew to New Hampshire to drive back to California with me,” Kurowski says. From this point on, the two friends and furry companion took a scenic trip back to campus, stopping at travel hotspots such as Niagara Falls and Chicago along the way.

“Bizzie and I both love to travel and have always wanted to do a trip like this,” Kurowski says. “(We hadn’t) seen each other since March, when I moved back home to New Hampshire, so it was great to catch up with her and see the entire country. It was so much easier of a trip than it seemed going into it,” Kurowski says. Beyond a rekindled friendship between the two, they were also lucky enough to meet other friends along the way. “We got to see a friend in every place that we stopped, except for Niagra Falls, which was so sweet,” Kurowski says. Though traveling may seem expensive, she says careful planning made their road trip college-student friendly. “We were able to budget this trip so well using Groupon and credit rewards for gas; also McDonald’s has $3 large iced coffees. It is so worth it and way easier than it seems to drive across the country,” she says. Despite the pandemic, Kurowski used her love of traveling to make the most of her last summer as a college student.

WORDS Anyssa Gonzalez

PHOTOS Courtesy of Amanda Kurowski

ILLUSTRATION Kia Harlan

25 Amanda Kurowski