This summer I visited Granada Spain for 5 weeks to take classes at the Centro De Lenguas Modernas school of the University of Granada. My experience was a bit different than the typical “study abroad” experience. For one, I had been to Granada many times before: in 2008 I lived there with my family for 6 months, and I over the year I had travelled to the city roughly ten times. My experience was also much shorter than the typical study abroad experience that lasts a semester or a year, unfortunately as much as I would have loved to spend that amount of time abroad, I had professional obligations that wouldn’t allow me to spend that much time out of the country. Due to these factors, I had a different experience than most. I would say my experience would be characterized more as a tourist experience rather than a full immersion experience. While the idea of being a tourist has negative connotations and is often seen as a negative in study abroad, I believe that it has benefits that are often overlooked.

I would define my experience studying abroad as more of a “tourist” experience than an immersion experience for a few reasons. The first is that I did not live in a mostly Spanish household. This was not my intention: I chose to live in a residencia, or dormitory, with the idea that I would meet local students. However, as we arrived the Spanish semester was just ending, and by the second week the dormitory was almost entirely foreign students. Secondly, I was surrounded by foreign students at the Centro de Lenguas Modernas, as it catered towards foreign exchange students. Finally, we took many side trips on the weekends and explored different parts of Spain and Granada. I believe that for an experience to be a true immersion experience, the student should live with a local family or with local students and take classes with local students at the University.

I have been lucky to have that experience before, but even though I spend a lot of time with the people I had met in previous trips, I spent the majority of my time around fellow Americans, and I believe this experience was valuable in different ways. For one, more “touristy” experience allow students to see sights that locals don’t visit. Few locals regularly visit the monuments, museums and other tourist attractions in their area. It’s just not part of the day to day life. For example, in 2014 when I visited Granada for Spring Break, I went to see the Alhambra palace with some of my friends who were natives of Granada. They told me they hadn’t been to the Alhambra since they visited in elementary school. A tourist experience can be quite a lot of fun as well. People living a regular day to day life are not going to go out and try to experience the restaurants and bars every night like a tourist might, and I know that during my five weeks in Granada we got tapas almost every night, which is a luxury those living a more “normal” life may not get to experience. Finally there is something to be said about experiencing another culture with a group of people from your country. While there are definitely stereotypes about American tourists that are grounded in reality, I believe you can learn a lot about your own country as well as another when you travel with a group of your fellow citizens. I also don’t think this is something that is exclusive to Americans abroad: one of my Spanish friends was telling me about how she travelled to New York City with a group of Spaniards, and how they stuck together and had a great experience.

Another way I learned quite a bit through a tourist experience is that I got to play “guide” within my group of study abroad students. Since I had been to Granada so many times, I had many spots that I wanted to show everyone, from miradors overlooking the city to out of the way areas in the Alhambra to tapas bars and nightclubs. Teaching is often said to be one of the best ways to learn, and I certainly found that to be the case in showing other Americans around Granada. In showing them my favorite areas of the city I got to experience the city in a whole new way, which was a very valuable experience to me.

Overall, I believe that the tourist experience is very underrated. Immersion is great, especially for goals such as learning a language or making long lasting contacts in a region. But I believe that a more tourist experience can also be incredibly valuable, and I certainly had a great time and learned quite a bit during mine.