Warm sand beneath your toes, the cool condensation on the side of a Virgin Pina Colada, and the calming splash of clear water on the coast. Paired with beautiful, lush trees, layered on top of island wide mountains, the salty wind drifts between their leaves. 

 This is what senior Abby Spidle experienced on her exotic trip to Guanacasta, Costa Rica during spring break. After two long days of travel, and eight days of island adventures, Spidle  made some life-long memories with her best friends Megan Chambers and Ally Stalzer and her mom, Nancy Spidle. 

One of the key parts of this exciting trip were the monkeys. Native to Costa Rica these well loved Panamanian White-faced these Monkeys have found their sanctuary at a local restaurant on the coast.  Where the customers have the chance to spoil them with bananas and other fruits.

“The monkeys were so cute! Megan, Ally, and I were saying how we wanted to take one home with us,” Spidle said. 

Spidle and company had visited a restaurant called the Monkey Bar, which is surrounded by beautiful forests and is only blocks away from the beach. 

Their trip seemed to be timed perfectly, as these white faced monkeys paid them a visit and ate the bananas given to them by the owners. 

For Spidle, this had been the dream stereotypical senior trip. Even though she had to take the trip during spring break due to summer conflicts, to her it was the graduation celebration that has been making its way to the forefront of social media.

Senior trips are not a new phenomenon, but with social media their relevance has increased rapidly. With the beautiful sights and Instagram photo ops, more students are taking the opportunity to celebrate their graduation on a tropical vacation. 

However, Spidle is not the only MN student who had decided to take an exotic trip of their own. Senior Nick Dolezal had traveled out of the country for the first time to visit Cancun, Mexico. 

Having never experienced a trip of this accord, Dolezal had seen some of the many great wonders of the world for the first time. 

“We went and toured the Mayan ruins,” Dolezal said, “Then we swam in cenote caves, which are underground caves with a ton of freshwater.”

The caves were his favorite part of the trip due to the fact that it was something he had never seen before, and in his eyes it was almost like he was in a movie. 

Gorgeous sights are a key feature of a good trip, and senior Shasha Rayamajhi will be traveling to several different islands over the summer.

One being the many islands that are a part of Thailand. Rayamajhi will be visiting with her cousins for a vacation However, Thailand is not the only country she will be traveling to. Rayamajhi will be visiting Nepal to see her family, who currently reside there to celebrate her 18th birthday.

At the moment, her exact plans for Nepal are not set in stone, but she does know they will be traveling to several different places in Nepal.

“I think I’m most excited to see my family again and spend time with them,” Rajamajhi said, “I’m also excited to explore a new country and cross things off my bucket list.”

By seeing a new country, teens are able to experience once in a lifetime events that their home state cannot provide them, such as visiting the clear ocean waters of Florida, which Rayamajhi will also be doing during the summer, petting a monkey like Spidle, or even swimming in cenote caves like Dolezal. 

Senior trips are not only for celebrating an end of an era, but getting that chance to cross off things on one’s bucket list.