How to Make a New Town Feel Like Home!

Author: Aashni Talati
Posted on January 19, 2021

1. Identify your favorite coffee spot:

The first few days in a new town can be exceptionally exciting because you can gallivant all around the place seeking the pleasures of caffeine while straying from your usual order for a while. Were you a medium roast iced latte with almond milk back home? Now you can explore the greater joys of dark roast maple cappuccinos! (side note: when you come to college, you will definitely become a dark roast person – I guarantee it. I tried fighting it too. I failed miserably.) When picking your favorite coffee spot, keep in mind things like how far the café is from that 8:30am you keep sleeping through, how large their large coffees actually are, and how good their Wi-Fi is for those days when you want to go ‘study at the café’ but actually just scroll through Instagram for an hour.

2. Your Go-To UNHEALTHY foods for all-night cram sessions:

Three weeks of midterms and 9357 assignments later, I’m proud to declare that snacks are the most important study supply. Some personal favorites are Garlic Fingers from Jack’s, Hot Cheetos or Slim Jim’s from the gas station, and, of course, GOLDFISH!!

3. Identify a thrift store for guilt free (or at least, comparatively reduced guilt) shopping sprees:

At the risk of sounding like Rebecca Bloomwood from Confessions of Shopaholic, thrift stores are my happy place. Three consecutive weekends of ‘I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR’ freak-outs will often result in a trip to the mall, a hurt wallet, and guilty creative excuses to justify why you bought YET another yellow sweater. Instead, to keep your bank account and heart happy, identify your favorite thrift store (or, make a list of all the thrift stores near you and work your way through them!)

4. Your necessities aisle at the grocery store:

Wandering around the grocery store without a list is a dangerous venture. It does not end well. You go in for a bag of carrots and some hummus and leave with two whole boxes of Halloween candy and chocolate milk and Kraft Dinners and a tub of ice-cream and a bag of chips (based on a true story!) – It’s like they have you under some kind of spell?? Instead, MAKE A LIST of things you’ll be buying regularly, identify exactly where they are, and hold your hands to your temples like blinders the rest of the way.