My high school in Nandi County, Kenya was different. Being a residential high school, I would not travel outside the school compound during the term unless on an authorized school-sponsored function or for emergencies. 

I did not have to worry about travel expenses within the term. Coming to Harvard College in Cambridge, I knew that I was now at more liberty to travel freely within the semester. I love exploring my surroundings, and from the beautiful things that I had heard about the Greater Boston area, I was more than eager to get out there and explore. However, travel is almost always not free! In one way or another, money must be spent to facilitate it. 

As an international student, I was surprised by the travel expenses in the United States since by converting my local currency to the US dollar, I found travel back to Kenya to be far much cheaper by all means of transport. This especially dawned on me when I elected to use an Uber from the airport to the school when I first landed in Boston. Despite the offer by Harvard’s First-Year International Program (FIP) leaders to pick me up from the airport and bring me to Cambridge, I was too excited to wait for them. I quickly downloaded the US Uber App on my phone and luckily got a 50% offer for my first ride. I was not keen when I selected the type of Uber to pick me up till I saw a heavy Cadillac Escalade SUV coming to pick me up. I rechecked and noticed that I had selected the Uber Luxury SUV category in the ride. I was just lucky that I had a 50% offer hence saving me tens of dollars. Two weeks later, I wanted to visit a friend in the neighboring MIT. I did not know that public transportation was an option to go to Kendall Square/MIT hence I used an Uber for the roughly 2.3 miles (3.7 km) and noticed that it was at least 3 to 4 times the price that I would pay for an Uber for the same distance back in Kenya. I knew I had to find a way to travel more affordably to explore the Greater Boston area. 

Harvard in itself is quite a large campus and classes can be far apart. Fortunately, the college has provided shuttles that operate on a fixed schedule at intervals of a few minutes through different routes in the college. They are only used by Harvard ID holders, and they are completely free. To know their schedules and track their location, students use the Passio GO app (found on Appstore or Playstore) and get a free ride for whichever route the shuttle is plying till they stop at whichever stop is convenient. There are also the M2 shuttles that provide service from Harvard Medical School in the Longwood Medical Area to Harvard Square in Cambridge. This is also a free option for Harvard ID holders who use that route.

Back to the Greater Boston area. I learned from upperclassmen and from the First-Year International Program (FIP) about public transportation in the Greater Boston Area. I found out about Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") which is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston. MBTA manages the public shuttle buses labeled “T” in the Boston Area and the subway system in the area. This came in handy whenever I wanted to go to downtown Boston or to many of the towns connected by the railway tracks and roads in Greater Boston.

The fares for MBTA vehicles (shuttles and the subway) are more affordable than all the other forms of public transportation in the area. To use the shuttle, one pays $1.70 to enter the vehicle and to use the subway, one pays $2.40. Most passengers load money on a certain MBTA-provided card, the CharlieCard, and tap it on the card reader of the shuttle or subway station to gain access. Harvard College has made it even easier for us since we do not have to visit the select bus and subway stations to get the CharlieCard. Harvard College students receive an enhanced Harvard ID card with an embedded MBTA chip. We simply load enough money onto our ID cards at an MBTA machine and use the ID to gain access to MBTA public transportation. Using the subway has saved me a lot of money since I only had to pay $2.40 to go to downtown Boston one way without worrying about traffic or other car-related challenges of a busy city. One can also go as far as Alewife, Heath, Lechmere, Braintree, Riverside, Forest Hills, or Wonderland for the same price.

Transfers come in handy to further save on costs. Generally, one’s trip includes 1 free transfer to a mode that costs the same or less than your first fare payment within 2 hours of the first trip. For example, your subway fare includes 1 free transfer to a Local Bus route within 2 hours of your first trip. This means that if you make a connection from a subway to a bus, only money for the subway trip will be deducted from your CharlieCard/ID within 2 hours of that trip. Fortunately, it is possible to travel for free from the airport to school. All the MBTA shuttles from the airport are free. Preferably, one can take the SL1 shuttle from the airport and transfer at MBTA’s South Station and travel in the subway till they reach the Harvard Square stop at no cost. This means that on my first day at Harvard, if I had waited for the FIP leaders to come to pick me up at the airport, we would all have traveled for free to Harvard’s campus.

Sometimes one would want to do some exercise while also traveling at a faster pace than walking around the Greater Boston area. Biking can be a good way to travel for short distances since it also enables one to do physical exercise in their travel. However, bicycles are not cheap, and one may also not see a need to buy them if they won’t be used as often. BlueBikes come in handy in this regard. Bluebikes, originally Hubway, is a bicycle-sharing system in the Boston metropolitan area. Users can rent out a Bluebike with the Bluebikes mobile app or directly at one of the many Bluebike station kiosks. One can rent a Bluebike for as low as $2.95 for a 30-minute ride or less, and it gets cheaper as one buys a monthly or annual pass. Harvard has also partnered with Bluebikes to give its affiliates the Bluebikes Annual Membership for only $90 ($29 off the regular price). 

I find Boston’s public transportation system and Harvard College shuttles to be really efficient in saving money by not using ride apps that often or other more expensive means of ground transportation. With the use of Google Maps, Apple Maps or Passio GO, students can see the public transportation options around them in Boston together with their schedules and stops, and travel efficiently and more affordably. This has made many Harvard students travel around Boston very affordably and efficiently.