Thanksgiving break is a time when students usually return to their homes to indulge in gratuitous amounts of food and spend time with family.
Others, however, may see this time away from classes as a perfect opportunity for a vacation.
Auburn is one of few schools that have a week-long break for Thanksgiving. With this longer break, students have more leeway in planning a short vacation.
“A lot of people come in and ask us to help them with their travel plans,” said Katie Bodden, a travel agent at Travel Travel of Auburn. “For Thanksgiving, I think cruises would be the most popular because people go home. I really think more people take cruises just because they are short. Other short trips include Savannah and Charleston.”
Bodden said for those interested in a cruise, Carnival has a cruise that leaves out of Mobile and usually costs around $100 per day per person. But for those interested in staying closer to home, there are alternatives.
“Another popular place is the Smoky Mountains up around Gatlinburg,” Bodden said. “All of those places are in driving distance, so all of those places are ‘hot spots’ as far as easy trips and usually do not involve flying.”
Wes Rivera, a freshman in business administration, is going with his family to Tampa, Fla., to visit his aunt and uncle during Thanksgiving.
“We’ve been to Tampa to visit them in the past,” Rivera said. “It’s always good to see family that you don’t see often.”
Rivera said when his family doesn’t go to Tampa during the break, they sometimes vacation in Tennessee.
Though such trips seem like a good way to relax after months of classes and tests, most students end up traveling home for Thanksgiving break.
Stephen Houghton, a freshman in wireless engineering, said he will be going home to Georgia come Thanksgiving break.
“We go to Birmingham a lot because that’s where my family lives,” Houghton said.
Steven Wheatley, a junior in electrical engineering, also said he isn’t planning any sort of vacation for Thanksgiving break.
“I’ll probably just go home,” Wheatley said. “Most of my family is in town for Thanksgiving.”
Bodden said students, for the most part, come in and plan trips for spring break and Christmas break.
“A lot of people come in and ask us to help them with their travel plans,” Bodden said. “We usually do a lot of people’s spring break trips.
Skiing after finals, but before Christmas is always a popular trip. Most of the student trips are going to be geared towards after finals or spring break.”
Students like Houghton and Wheatley have already started planning trips for the time off for winter holidays and spring break.
“I may go to Florida or out of the country hopefully,” Wheatley said. “I may be going skiing for Christmas, but right now I don’t know.”
Houghton has plans to go on a trip out West to Montana with some of his friends to fish and do other activities.
Both Houghton and Wheatley said they never knew Auburn had a travel agency, but both said they might use one to plan a big trip.
“Me and my friends almost used (a travel agency) this past summer,” Houghton said. “We wanted to go to Europe, but ended up not going.”
Bodden and other travel agents are available to discuss trips at Travel Travel of Auburn, located in the Winn-Dixie shopping center on the corner of Glenn Avenue and East University Drive For more information, visit www.4u2travel.com/Travel_Travel/Welcome/.
