“Look guys, I’m in the Sahara desert!” It’s not everyday you get to video call your grandparents atop newly christened Kevin the camel, phone balanced precariously, as you watch the sunrise in Merzouga, desperate for them, too, to experience what you’re lucky enough to be witnessing. It’s certainly not everyday that the wages from a part-time job in your home town, combined with university term-time dates, allow for travelling across continents. This is the magic of the Cambridge Travel Society: it’s not only possible, it’s life-changing. What do you mean my bucket-list trip to Morocco, one I’d assumed would be financially out of reach until I had a pension plan in place, is actually achievable? And what do you mean it’s not going to completely bankrupt me, at just £155?

“once your first adventure is over and done with, the sudden urge to flee far and wide is so strong it’s insuppressible”

Every single shift saving up money for spending, flights and food was worth it. How else could you ride camels into the desert to watch the sun both set and rise, camp there under the stars, dance to the locals’ drums, explore Marrakesh, see the snowy Atlas Mountains, visit a women’s argan oil cooperative, drink homemade Moroccan mint tea in a rug-weaver’s family home, wander through Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou (home to the filming of the Gladiator duology, Indiana Jones and Outer Banks), sample local street food, and trace the red rocks of the Dadès Gorges? If I could afford it, I would pay millions to relive such an invaluable experience.

Just six days can change your entire outlook on life. It’s not that I didn’t have the urge to travel beforehand – I did – but once your first adventure is over and done with, the sudden urge to flee far and wide is so strong it’s insuppressible. Equally, there’s something rewarding about the challenge: having to navigate an overwhelmingly different world to the one I’ve always known, and figure it out fast, was disorientating and difficult, but these are precisely the experiences that make travel as a young adult so transformative. Morocco is a developing economy, and a melting pot of cultures. Instantly, it being mostly cash-based, we needed to figure out the conversion rate and estimate the total amount of dirhams needed to see us through the week. We also needed eSIMs to communicate with home, a constant supply of bottled water so we didn’t get sick, firm (but polite) boundaries to avoid being hounded for money, and determination – both when haggling in, and finding our way out of, the Souks. The frequent overcoming of each little hurdle, despite having no Arabic but Shukran to my name, offers you a level of confidence nothing else can – not a false confidence, but a confidence earned through resilience.

“there’s nothing like a ten-hour journey across Morocco to bond you and your coachmates for life”

A travel society like this does more than just organise itineraries: it makes ambitious, international travel affordable and accessible to students for whom it might otherwise never be possible. The group aspect of it all forges temporary communities which will go on to flourish into permanent friendships. After all, there’s nothing like a ten-hour journey across Morocco to bond you and your coachmates for life. Just like that, you feel improbably close to students on different courses, from different colleges who you might not ever have crossed paths with. Half the time, I was laughing so hard that my stomach hurt: someone surely developed abs from the way our abdominal muscles were working (it wasn’t me).

However, it was the local people we met along the way who left the deepest impression – it was an absolute honour to be warmly invited into so many homes, to drink so much tea, to dance with so many children and to learn about so many lives. I’ve never met people more excited to answer a constant stream of questions, desperate to share more and more about their culture, families, food, architecture – you name it, we asked it. The knowledge I’m now returning to Cambridge with feels a thousand times more valuable than the first year of my degree (don’t tell my DoS).

“you’re forced far out of your comfort zone … only to realise you’re equally as comfortable out of it”

And then there was the food. Tagine, falafel, tea, msemen, pastilla, couscous, kefta – I tried it all; everything was delicious, and that’s coming from a self-proclaimed fussy eater. But when you travel, there’s no room to be fussy; you’re forced far out of your comfort zone, your own long-standing method of self-protection, only to realise you’re equally as comfortable out of it. You eat what you’re offered, and you love it. Equally, I nearly froze in the Sahara desert camp, despite my three thermal layers, and the showers were ice-cold every single time, but I wouldn’t change a thing: discomfort was a fundamental, yet surprisingly insignificant, part of this adventure. Getting to star gaze in the Sahara made every second spent shivering entirely worth it.

We’ve arrived home laden with Berber wool jackets, pashmina scarves and trainers that will never be fully sand-free again. Six days is not a long time: it’s no six-month stretch down Australia’s East Coast, but it’s long enough to change your life. My calendar is still littered with essay deadlines, but they’ve begun to feel surmountable – push through this term, and there just might be another adventure ahead. Once you realise that the world really is your oyster, it becomes increasingly difficult to stay still in one place.