Well All, welcome to March.  For College Students, March means Basketball.  The March Madness Tournament will soon be upon us, and your campus will most assuredly be a buzz, assuming you do not go to an over-priced private school with no basketball team.

But, don’t let the extra excitement on campus deter you from leaving it, for March also means Spring Break – a college institution years in the making.  Nowadays, destinations for Spring Break include everywhere from Cancun to Colorado, Palm Springs to Pasadena.  With the Internet highly accessible to college students like us, all kinds of resources have open up to provide you with an inexpensive and memorable (or mind-erasing) Spring Break.

For instance, take some time to reflect on the history of Spring Break.  Some trace Spring Break to early Greek/Roman rituals in the spring to the god of wine celebrating the fertility of the spring (Check out A History of Spring Break).  All kinds of information is at your fingertips this Spring Break season.  You can map out different destinations on either coast of the country and escape to the beach, or if you go to school at the University of Hawaii and are around sandy beaches all the time, you can get away by going to Hell.

At any rate, a Spring Break in a recession might depress you into not getting away.  I recommend taking that attitude back to High School.  If one thing college students are – it is creative.  Use the MacGyver re-run education you apply to every engineering project you have to work for you this Spring Break.  Want cheap?  Enter: Road Trip. 

The Road Trip is as college as Spring Break itself.  My friends should partake in one this year, and I would be quite the hypocrite if I didn’t recommend the same to you.  Take one minivan, three friends, and a random assortment of destinations and you are golden.  A Motel split four ways becomes surprisingly inexpensive, and who can’t sleep in the van one out of two nights anyway?  Bars?  Kiss them goodbye.  Beaches mean 6-packs and grocery stores.  Restaurants?  Forget them.  Bring a gas grill with you and the grocery store stops are for grub too.  Split four ways, remember.

Need destinations?  Take all your traditional ones.  Florida and Las Vegas are both easily attainable for a week even as far in the center as Austin, Texas.  If you live out on the East Coast, when was the last time you’ve been to New Orleans or Chicago?  Can’t decide on a destination?  Start on a route and flip a coin to decide the next city when you get there.  Don’t believe you can get halfway across the country?  Oh, that’s right, your math is wrong.  You assumed there were rest stops on the way back.  No way.  No road trip is complete without driving shifts with unconscious passengers.  This gives the driver the radio, the open road, and his/her own reflections on the week.  For my money, there ain’t a better feeling in the world.

Don’t want to take the trek?  Don’t have a minivan or SUV?  Bus out to a camping or backpacking trip.  Camping costs 10 dollars a night (split four ways!).  Or, take the week off.  Use the three hundred dollars you would have spent on Spring Break (if you would have spent more, you don’t qualify as a “Scrooge” for the purposes of this article) and blow it in your own town.  No additional lodging or food costs – just blow the cash on one fat party.  Have each one of your friends host a different one every night.  Take your cash all to the local horse track and don’t leave until you’re rich or broke.  You’d be surprised how much fun gambling is when you know you would have blown the money anyway.  You could even pool your money together on a flat screen television, and gather a March Madness party that lasts 7 days – giving you a durable good to kill each other for control over after the Break.

All in all, don’t worry if you haven’t planned Spring Break yet.  The best Spring Breaks I’ve found are planned within hours before you leave.  No matter what happens, don’t let Spring Break pass you by.  Don’t use your lack of funds as an excuse.  Saving money now will not make you any richer later – you have student loans piling up faster than your bank account can accrue interest.  Enjoy, ladies and gentlemen.  Enjoy.