Mavi

About Mavi’s program:

• Program: Florence Spring 2017, She is an Italian minor and has family in Italy!

• Program cost: $8,000 included tuition for 4 courses, room (apartment), and a small meal plan that used a point system

Advice from Mavi:

• A six month program is harder to plan and budget for, but in the end you get to see and do so much more that makes it worth while.

• She did not prepare for the weather very well, which resulted in her buying a lot of clothes in country. Since she was there for a whole semester she experienced a variety of weather over time.

• Going grocery shopping and doing a little bit of meal prepping is helpful. Planning that you are only going to eat out a certain number of times each week works well.

• Having a little extra money set aside for the unexpected is a good idea. Mavi’s laptop broke, which she needed for school, and the repairs were pretty expensive.

• Pinterest is a great resource for finding travel blogs with all sorts of advice you might be looking for.

How Mavi afforded her trip:

• Mavi worked a job as a server to save up money. The restaurant’s fall season tends to be pretty busy so she was lucky that she was able to save a lot before spring.

• She also lived at home to cut back on a lot of expenses.

• Her mother had saved up flight points that she used to book her flight. There are many options such as to use half points and half cash to pay.

• Many places in Italy only accept cash, but some places will give you discounts if you pay with cash. She got 20 euros off on a nice wallet just for having cash! It could be worth the extra trip to the ATM.

• Since Mavi has family in Italy, they were able to help get her an Italian bank account and debit card so she never had to pay many exchange rate fees.