It’s not too early to think about spring break, is it?

Sand between your toes, drink in your hand, and the sun beating down on your face?

Every year, college students embark on once-in-a-lifetime spring break vacations. Among top destinations for spring break vacations, California and Florida attract thousands of students annually. The Caribbean is also a prime destination for paradise-seekers.

Castleton junior Emily McColl says she wants to head straight to the Virgin Islands, “to St. John to snorkel!”  Snorkeling is one of McColl’s favorite things to do, and she’s been lucky enough to go exploring underwater in Greece and in St. Thomas as well.

It’s kind of hard to imagine being in a swim suit, swimming underwater with marine life, when you’re walking to Leavenworth in February.

Some folks here at Castleton University have visited some pretty surreal vacation destinations. Others have even better plans for where they aim to go one day.

Eric Mack and the rest of the graduating members of the men’s ice hockey squad are planning a senior-trip to the Dominican Republic. Mack says the group is in the process of booking the trip, and they are trying to find a happy medium between an affordable price and a five-diamond luxury resort. Either way, Mack says “it’s gonna be a blast.”

It can be almost dizzying trying to decide where on earth you would want to vacation to, if you had the opportunity. Imagine, being magically given the time and money to choose anywhere in the world to go…

Thoughts can quickly jump to beautiful places like the Mediterranean.

Senior Rachel Elliott had the chance to live in Germany for two months and cannot wait to be able to travel back to “see the alps.” Elliott remembers visiting “towns in castles with cobblestone roads.”

“The culture’s just way different there and people have a lot of respect for each other,” Elliott adds.

But we can’t forget what’s in our own backyard. Senior Katie Haseltine says the most captivating place in the world she has ever been to is Mt. Katahdin, in America’s very-own Maine.

Haseltine and her family have climbed the centerpiece of Baxter State Park, and got to witness the beauty of looking down upon the land. Mt. Katahdin is the highest mountain in Maine, towering at 5, 270 ft. Haseltine and her family basked in the view from that mountain, at a height more than four-times that of Fifth Avenue’s Empire State Building.  

Haseltine said the 12-hour adventure was worth it, describing how “it was so beautiful; I had never been that high up before.” Mt. Katahdin was named by the Penobscot natives, and the title translates to “The Greatest Mountain.”

Professor Bill Wiles says Maine is his ultimate-vacation destination as well. Given the option of going anywhere in the entire planet, Wiles maintains there is nowhere in the world he would rather travel to than “the coast of Maine.”