When I first started planning my study abroad program, I realized something slightly uncomfortable. It is quite easy for “global experiences” to become environmentally careless ones. Study abroad culture often encourages constant movement, cheap flights, short stays, overconsumption, and the idea that seeing more places automatically means engaging with them more meaningfully. While developing my study abroad experience and my own independent research project on Jewish diaspora communities in London, Manchester, Paris, and Kraków, I became increasingly intentional about resisting that mindset and structuring my summer around slower, more locally embedded movement instead.
My project examines how communities preserve continuity across generations through institutions such as synagogues, museums, archives, neighborhoods, and cultural spaces. Because my research depends on sustained observation within cities rather than rapid tourism between them, I intentionally organized my travel around long term stays, public transportation systems, and walkable urban environments. While living in London, I will rely almost entirely on the Underground, rail systems, and walking. Even my comparative research visits were planned with the goal of minimizing unnecessary flights and avoiding high-consumption travel patterns whenever realistically possible.
This has made me think differently about what sustainability actually looks like in practice. I used to think about sustainability primarily through individual environmental habits, but studying abroad made me realize how strongly sustainability is connected to the pace at which people move through places. There is a major difference between consuming cities and engaging with them. My goal throughout the summer is not simply to “visit” London, Manchester, Paris, and Kraków, but to spend enough time within each place to understand how people interact with the communities, institutions, and public spaces around them.
My project also connects directly to UN Sustainable Development Goal 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities, because it focuses on the relationship between urban environments, historical continuity, and communal preservation. Cities are often discussed through infrastructure and transportation alone, but what makes a city sustainable is also its ability to preserve memory, community, and cultural life over time. London especially interests me because of the way its public transportation systems and dense urban structure make slower, lower-impact movement realistically possible while still allowing deep engagement with local institutions and neighborhoods.
Ultimately, I want my experience abroad to reflect the same values as the UN development goals which I have studied vigorously, like continuity, responsibility, and intentional engagement with the places I move through. I even will be documenting my entire experience on my instagram and TikTok which I plan to explicitly influence others to travel with the environment in mind, especially with these waves of “Euro-summer” trends and mindless travel between the countries. I would like to use my influence to inspire others to preserve our communities and travel more intentionally, after all, it is exponentially more fulfilling to the human soul.
