Intro to Raina Visions

Hello and welcome to Raina Visions!

A version of this blog began in 2016, when I was a junior in college in New York City and I went to study abroad in Paris for a semester. While this wasn’t my first experience living abroad, it was the first time I made an effort to write things down and share them. I wanted to give friends and family a glimpse into my day-to-day life in Paris, and the blog was a fairly personal account of my time there.

After graduating from college, I went on to pursue a master’s degree abroad in European Studies. My master’s program had a mobility component which allowed me to study in up to three different countries. I ended up spending two semesters in France, one in the Netherlands, and one in Italy. This experience changed my life in countless ways. Not only did I make new friends and visit new places, but I was exposed to unfamiliar world views and ways of life. I learned constantly, both inside and outside of the classroom.

Now, I want to reflect upon and share some of these experiences, as well as past travel experiences. I’ve started thinking a lot about things like travel, culture, tourism, and the search for authenticity. I want to demonstrate how travel can be more than ticking items off a bucket list or taking the most envy-inducing photos. I would like to use this space to portray travel through my eyes, and I hope that you will find something that is interesting, thought-provoking, or helpful to you!

Let me know if there’s anything in particular you would like to see here. Thanks for reading!