Society Spotlight: Take a journey with Travel Society

Amongst the myriad of stalls at Refresher’s Fair stood the fairly recently established Travel Society. I spoke with Scarlett Walker, Michael Ozun and Rebecca Blyth – on the committee for Travel Society – to find out more about TravelSoc and about the events that they shall be running over the course of this term.

TravelSoc was formed shortly before Christmas, so in comparison to other Sussex societies, its stands as a fairly new one. TravelSoc is targeted at anyone who has a desire to travel and explore on a student budget or just meet people with similar interests – given Sussex’s infamous reputation for taking an influx of international and gap year students, it certainly has a wide demographic that it could appeal to. The society hopes to provides its members with a greater knowledge of travel, covering every type, and providing information on culture, language and music.

As a relatively new society, TravelSoc aims to join forces with different societies to bring together students interested in travel and culture – proposed collaborations include the EU society and international students societies. The more students interested in going on proposed trips, the cheaper travelling will be.

Plans for socials beyond actually travelling itself  – (as lovely as that would be, the student budget can’t really accommodate for weekly trips to Europe) – include “typical tourist” style socials, quiz nights, talks from seasoned travellers about travel safety and advice etc. and even things such as lazerquest to appeal to those who may not be interested in just drinking. Whilst speaking to the committee, they also suggested film screenings of international films and films with a focus on travelling itself.

Game nights were also suggested as a great way to help bring students who have an interest in travelling together beyond just heavy drinking. As a lot of Sussex students do have a great interest in going travelling in the future, TravelSoc aims to bring together students who may want to do so together in the future and place an emphasis on members choosing activities and having an active voice within the society.

In regards to planned trips, TravelSoc is eager to hear from its members about ideas and suggestions for trips on their Facebook page. The committee greatly hope to plan a trip to Europe at some point in the near future, hopefully implementing some fundraising to not only lessen the cost of going abroad for students but to raise money for various philanthropic organisations in need of funding. The society also wants to plan UK based trips – perhaps Edinburgh, Cornwall etc. – for international students who have come to experience the UK in all its rainy glory. If you want to take part, TravelSoc urge you to join through the SU website and attending their “Typical Tourist” social on the 21st of February.