Kate Henry | Spring 2024
It has nearly been three months since I arrived in Scotland. I’ve heard other students say that St. Andrews is a bubble, and I’m finding that to be true; it is really easy to stay put once here, and hard to leave if you don’t intentionally make plans to do so. So far, I have left St. Andrews a total of eight times, five of which were only day trips. While I have fallen in love with my little town by the sea, my favorite experiences so far have been outside of St. A. This post is a highlight of those excursions.
My favorite trip, hands down, was with the St. Andrews hiking club to the Cairngorms National Park. Scotland’s public transportation is reliable and clean, and young people under the age of 22 are able to apply for free bus transportation. That said, there are some places that are very difficult to reach without a car. The
Cairngorms is one of these places, but it is because it is harder to reach that I appreciated it that much more. The wilderness in Scotland feels more rugged than what I’m used to back in Tennessee; there was one part on our very first hike where the path had been covered by a rockslide and we had to climb with our hands and feet down the slope. Especially because I spend most of my normal time with my nose in a book or writing essays, it was exceptionally rewarding to do something so physically challenging and come out on top.
My next favorite excursion was with my affiliate company – USAC. This tour was to the North East Coast, during which we stopped at Dunnottar Castle, just south of Aberdeen. This too is a wild place, and although the castle was closed for maintenance, we walked along the cliffs and got 
magnificent views of the ruins against the sea, which was frothy and violent that day. For me, learning about the history of some of these places has the same effect as being surrounded by nature; I can reconnect with my own humanity, my problems seem small and inconsequential, and I find that I’m much more grateful for my life.
Lastly, I have taken two overnight trips to Glasgow. If you can’t tell, I am much more a nature person than a city person, so I have a more difficult time finding things to do in the city. On the first trip, we went to the People’s Palace Museum, the cathedral, and the Necropolis, but having no insider knowledge we went at a bad time of the week and missed out on the best of Glasgow, which is its contemporaneity – its nightlife, live music, and its people. I was later invited to go to Glasgow a few weeks later to see a concert, but this time we met up with one of our St. Andrews friends who is originally from Glasgow. She showed us some fantastic restaurants and nightlife in the West End, and Glasgow has since been redeemed for me. Don’t trust Google – always ask the locals for recommendations!
Scotland has endless, life-altering experiences within its borders. A semester is a long time, but possibly not long enough for me. I am anxious already to come back to Scotland, maybe for graduate school, but I am equally excited to see how different life back home will seem now that I’ve experienced such a different part of the world. It may be cliché, but studying abroad creates perspective like nothing else does.
More about USAC Scotland: St. Andrews>