Do a homestay

“I lived with a host family in Bordeaux, France for 5 months when I studied abroad there years ago. I was their first ever host student so it was a bit awkward at first but they were incredibly nice. They would host these amazing dinner parties full of champagne and foie gras and invite all their family friends over. When my host mom learned that I played trombone, she insisted on driving me to a music store and rent one for me. I also would help her daughter with her English homework (she was in high school at the time) and she'd sometimes help me with my French vocab. Overall it was an amazing experience. I was in an immersion study abroad programme so I took the same classes that the French students took at the university. Living with a host family fast tracked my French comprehension which I still use today (I'm now married to a French guy).”

“I think I speak for both of us when I say we could not have been more fortunate with our host family. At around 8:00 pm on our first night in Costa Rica, we were dropped off at the house of Oliver and Marielos, and they welcomed us with such incredible hospitality. Although that first night was a bit awkward and we might have seemed like zombies (we were jet-lagged and tired, especially Tori who had just flown in from Spain and was still 12 hours ahead of the local time), over the coming days we would get to each other so well. Oliver and Marielos live in the small town of San Luis, which is around a 30-minute walk to campus, straight up a hill for most of it (Tori and I got into serious shape those first two weeks). Even though we traveled to campus for our internships every day, we would always eat breakfast and dinner at their house. During this mealtime—or when we would watch the news or a movie at night—we would have long discussions.”