I had never left the United States before this trip to Costa Rica, so a lot of my anxiety about it came from the unknown. I had to get a Passport for the first time, and I had never flown alone before, so one of my biggest concerns was the logistics of leaving the country and navigating the airport on my own. I also knew little about the trip and what we would be doing other than some significant hiking, so I purchased some new clothes and hiking boots, borrowed binoculars, and used advice from friends and family on how to pack and prepare for this trip. Before the trip, I wasn\u2019t sure if I would need hiking boots or if I could get by with other shoes, but I learned in less than 2 days abroad that they were essential. Thankfully Costa Rica is country with few diseases not found in the USA, so I didn\u2019t have to prepare with extra vaccinations or any strange medicine. Overall, I think I was well-advised for this trip, and the support of my family was a big help. My parents and my brother both helped me purchase and let me borrow things for trip, so I was prepared for most of the things we did. I was both anxious and excited for the trip after finals were over and we prepared for my departure for the weekend before. I was mostly looking forward to the opportunity to experience a new culture and the chance to see the beauty of a different country. It was totally new for me to get ready for a trip this big, so it was a unique experience; I couldn\u2019t wait to leave the U.S.!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had never left the United States before this trip to Costa Rica, so a lot of my anxiety about it came from the unknown. I had to get a Passport for the first time, and I had never flown alone before, so one of my biggest concerns was the logistics of leaving the country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":408,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,33,35,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avian-biology","category-costa-rica","category-faculty-led","category-maymester"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/408"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2785,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2784\/revisions\/2785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}