Off the Beaten Path

Many students’ fondest memories of Dordt include travel. While students may enjoy seeing new places, it’s often the journey, not just the destination, that they find themselves recounting for years to come.

For students who live across the country, traveling home for the holidays often brings both great joy and a little bit of anxiety, especially if they’re traveling through the Denver airport. With unpredictable and extreme winter weather, there’s really no telling if that United flight from Sioux Falls will depart on time, have prolonged delays, or be canceled altogether. Living in Idaho, I experienced this on several occasions.

Often, I traveled with my sister and a high school friend, but we’d also run into vaguely familiar faces from campus. We usually didn’t know these other students well, but there was something comforting about the shared experience of travel delays. There we were, all stuck in the same situation—desperately trying to connect (and stay connected) to Wi-Fi, pacing the terminal, waiting for an update. And then when we returned to campus in January, a passing glance on the sidewalk that might have seemed insignificant before was now something more—a silent acknowledgment of that shared experience—an unspoken bond formed from hours stranded together in an airport.

While some students find themselves traveling alone during the holidays, they often soon find out how deep and wide Defender Nation connections run. For Kelsey Evenhouse (’24), getting home for winter break her sophomore year turned into a lengthy solo adventure. With finals wrapping up late and campus mostly empty, she boarded a Dordt shuttle to the Sioux Falls airport during a growing blizzard—only to find her flight repeatedly delayed, then canceled. “I panicked. Everyone was gone, and I had no car or place to stay,” she recalls. Thankfully, a Dordt connection in Sioux Falls helped her get to a nearby hotel for the night.

While the travel setbacks continued, so did the kindness. “I eventually called another connection in Omaha to see if they could take me to that airport,” Evenhouse explains. “They kindly came to get me in the storm and take me to Omaha.”

Looking back, Evenhouse says she realizes just how powerful the connections built and sustained in Defender Nation are. “I’ll never forget the kindness of Dordt friends and family who helped me during that trip,” she says.

Heartland, or Tri-State, Break marks a significant weekend of travel for students. It’s the first real break from classes in the fall semester, and for some, it’s the first chance to get away. I’ll never forget my freshman year, wanting to visit a friend at a college in Chicago, but arriving on campus without my own car. It didn’t take long before I found other students heading east for the break. I had never spoken to any of them before, but somehow, that 10-hour car ride became the beginning of a friendship that would last through the rest of our years at Dordt. It’s funny how a long, monotonous car ride—endless stretches of highway and small talk and so many snacks—can be the start of an enduring friendship.

Sometimes the best travel memories and friendships are made when things don’t go according to plan, just like Kaysha Steiger ('21) experienced during a band and orchestra tour over spring break. When a blizzard forced the group to stop unexpectedly in Martin, South Dakota, she wasn’t thrilled. “I wasn’t used to traveling with 70 people, and I like to travel efficiently,” Steiger says. “A blizzard on tour doesn’t really allow for that.” However, as they spent hours in a local community center, passing the time by playing familiar games with improvised rules, watching classic movies, and enjoying late-night meals at IHOP, Steiger’s frustration turned into gratitude. “We made the most of it,” she says.

Even as travel woes continued—bus drivers’ sudden illnesses and maxing out their drive hours—Steiger decided to embrace the chaos. “I learned that you just roll with whatever comes on a tour,” she recalls. Looking back on those memories, she realizes that adaptability became the heart of the trip. Above all, Steiger says she’s grateful for the way the Lord guided their travel, allowed them to make their concerts despite disruptions, and provided all they needed during the trip.

Student-athletes spend a significant amount of time on the road, too. Whether it's long van rides, flights across the country, or hotel stays with teammates, these moments often bring teams closer together. Sometimes it’s the unexpected turn of events in those trips that create the most memorable—and meaningful—experiences.

Zach Espenson, a senior finance major and member of the Dordt hockey team, recalls one such trip earlier this year when the hockey team traveled to Florida. Everything went smoothly—until the final day. “We had the vans loaded up and everything packed up. We were eating lunch just before heading to the airport when Coach Morgan got a call that it was storming in Atlanta, where we had our connecting flight,” explains Espenson. “Our flight home had been canceled.”

At first, the team didn’t mind the delay. With temperatures in Sioux Center well below freezing, a few extra days in Florida didn’t sound so bad. However, despite Florida’s reputation for sunshine, it wasn’t exactly beach weather. With limited outdoor options, the team spent much of their time hanging out in the hotel lobby, playing games, sharing stories, and simply enjoying each other’s company. What could have been a frustrating disruption turned into a meaningful bonding experience.

“It was an opportunity to get closer as a group,” reflects Espenson. “Looking back, it says a lot about our team culture and how important it is to build relationships that can handle the good and the bad times. Being able to take a negative and turn it into a positive is a valuable skill, and that experience showed how being surrounded by the right people can help you do that.”

With students coming from all corners of the country, and over 40% of students hailing from over 400 miles away, road trips have become a regular—and sometimes unforgettable—part of the Dordt experience. For many, the school year begins and ends with a drive. Some students take their time, turning the trip into a multi-day adventure. Others want to get home as fast as possible, powering through mile after mile of open road.

Lori Den Hartog (’02) vividly remembers the feeling of independence many students experience leaving for college. “Our parents would stand in the driveway, waving goodbye. And off we went,” she explains. “We’d often caravan with friends, making the 1,200-mile trip across the country together, usually without so much as phone call home.”

Now, with a quick glance at a phone, parents can follow their child's journey from a distance.

Den Hartog says she doesn’t remember any major setbacks on the road as a student. “Maybe things were different, but I can’t help but wonder how we pulled it off back then.”

While today’s students may never know the freedom (and creativity) that comes with cell phone-free travel, modern road trips come with their own quirks, some novel and some timeless—being turned away from hotel check-in for being underage, discovering your credit card was flagged for “suspicious travel activity,” or realizing too late that the next gas station is 60 miles away. It’s moments like these small setbacks that often become the most memorable part of a trip, offering a chance to encounter unexpected hospitality, gain a little perspective, and collect the kind of stories that stick with them long after the journey ends.