As I am starting to settle into my schedule in Amman, I am beginning to make travel plans for my fall break less than two months away.

One of my best friends is studying at the SU Florence Center this semester and we’re trying to find a good place to meet up. As I started to research which countries or cities to visit, I found it difficult to find countries that weren’t on the U.S. Department of State’s Travel Warning list.

AMIDEAST, the program I’m studying in, has a specific system that places certain cities, countries and other areas on a level system based on how safe and secure those places are.

Their travel policy prohibits students from traveling to Palestinian and Syrian refugee camps; to any area within 10 kilometers of the Jordan-Syria border; east of Ar Ruwayshid, Jordan; and a few other specific Jordanian cities.

Many of the students in my program have discussed their interest in visiting refugee camps in Jordan, which has 2.7 million refugees registered within its borders, according to an article by the Jordan Times. While students are trying to schedule a trip to a Palestinian camp, safety is the main reason AMIDEAST made the policy decision.

The rule prohibiting travel to any area within 10 kilometers of the Jordan-Syria border does not apply to Syria as a whole, but we are strongly advised against visiting, along with any country on the Travel Warning list.

If I were to go to the countries included on the list, such as Egypt, Turkey, Israel or Palestine, I’d have to meet with on-site AMIDEAST staff to discuss the plans two weeks before I travel.

As the week went on, I decided to not travel to any countries listed as unsafe. Instead, I decided to focus my planning efforts on countries in Europe, a region of the world I have never traveled to, and also extensively within Jordan.

Although I am choosing not to travel to more countries in the region, I think everyone should travel at outside of their host city at least once in order to experience more complicated dimensions of the country and region they are living in.

For my fall break, I am planning to take trips to Aqaba, Jordan, a city that borders the Red Sea across from Egypt, and Irbid, Jordan, a city about two hours from Damascus, Syria, that is one of the largest cities in Jordan.

I think students should go out of their comfort zone to visit unique parts of the region they are in. I  am currently living in Western Amman, where the upper-middle class of Jordan resides.

While my host family is very welcoming and the area has a lot of things to experience, my professors and directors have already told the students in our program multiple times that we should explore East Amman and other areas of Jordan to experience the culture of the majority of Jordanians.

Within the next few months, I hope to travel with my program on planned excursions to the Dead Sea; Petra, a World Heritage Site; and Wadi Rum, a desert in Jordan where many nomadic Arabs called Bedouins live.

I’m excited to observe the Jordanian culture in my upcoming travels, and experience the different ways people of other nationalities have made Jordan feel like home. Stepping out of my comfort zone and pushing myself to leave the comforts of West Amman will be a good challenge for me this semester.

I hope students who study abroad in any country take their own steps to get out of their comfort zones and visit areas that aren’t highlighted on a tourist brochure. Those are the places that show the intricate dynamics of any destination you visit.

Katelyn Faubel is a junior newspaper and online journalism and international relations dual major. Her column appears weekly in Pulp. You can email her at [email protected]. 

Published on September 6, 2016 at 9:10 pm

Contact Katelyn: [email protected]