Laura Breshock is the Donor Relations Coordinator at Pike Place Market Foundation in Seattle, Washington. She graduated from Linfield College (Oregon) in 2014 with a BA in History. During her undergrad, she traveled to Oslo, Norway for her study abroad, where she studied cultural education. She graduated from King’s College London in 2016 with a MA in Creative and Cultural Industries. She is interested in music, art, and history. She is currently saving up so she can travel again.

Studying or working abroad is an amazing experience that can greatly impact someone's life. While volunteering to teach English with my family in Thailand, I had the opportunity to interview another person with a lot of international experience. My friend Craig has been working as an English teacher for eight years. Teaching English has dramatically changed Craig's life. He came to Thailand for boxing, and ended up making connections and landing a teaching job without any previous experience.

When I think southern Spain, one of the first things that comes to mind is solid white villages, lightly sprinkled into the folds and valleys across the coastline hills. But a few years ago, during the filming of The Smurfs 3D, this iconic tradition was broken… let me explain.

Before filming, in summer 2011, Sony painted a typical white Andaluz (southern Spanish) town blue, presumably because Smurfs are blue. To achieve this, they used 4000 litres (1,100 US gal-lons) of paint, creating a vibrant blue village in Andalusia, Spain.

John Dwyer, of Over50andOverseas.com (read another of our interviews with him here!), notes, “In 1991 I joined the Peace Corps. My Peace Corps service in Guatemala in 1991-92 led to work as a United Nations Volunteer in the first elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Bosnian War. I have since worked elections in 12 other countries.

"Sure, I know New Zealand. Lord of the Rings, Narnia and all that…"

New Zealand is a large country with a small population: about four million people in a country a little larger than Britain, a little smaller than Italy. This means there's a lot of unspoiled land to explore. In the new millennium, New Zealand's amazing landscapes have been pushed into international focus thanks to the work of Kiwi directors Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) and Andrew Adamson (Shrek 1 & 2, Chronicles of Narnia) but there's plenty more where that came from.

Packing for short trips is hard. Packing for long-term study abroad trips is even harder. I will admit, I procrastinated until the last day to pack. It felt like such a daunting task. The biggest thing I learned is if you forget something, you typically can find it there or something close to it. So don’t overthink it too much! I put together this packing list to hopefully help you make packing a little easier.