The year of living internationally

Their accounts, sent to me in e-mails, show that the road less traveled can be strewn with misadventure: giant spiders and poisonous snakes in Australia, train strikes and overzealous suitors in Italy, running out of money and into anger at US foreign policy everywhere. But it's also full of revelations, new friends, and moments of bliss.

"When you grow up in Brooklyn and then move to Boston, you don't get to experience much by yourself," wrote Tom Kneafsey, 21, a junior at Northeastern University studying in Australia. "I learned more about the size of the world alone on a beach in Fraser Island than I ever could have at the top of the Empire State Building or in the middle of Boston Common."

Many students also are mindful of the role international understanding has in these tense days.

"It's very important for people of all countries around the world, but especially the USA, given its current position as a global superpower, to participate in a study abroad or some other form of exchange program," wrote Daphne LaBua, 20, a Tufts University junior from Chatham, N.J., in Paris.

Some students abroad have clung tightly enough to their hometown affiliations to be able to relate the best places to catch Red Sox games in Florence and London. (Fiddler's Elbow and Sports Caf, respectively.)

Others, like Tamara Garcia, 19, a sophomore at Northeastern, have resisted the temptation to be in the ever-accessible American bubble. Writing from Gold Coast, Australia, she cautioned against frequenting bars recommended by university programs.

"There are so many Americans there that you end up hanging out with people you could have easily met back at home," she said. "I did not come halfway across the world to meet people from New England, no offense, guys."