Amy Lohmann is a junior at St. Olaf College, studying English and Middle Eastern Studies. This semester she will be traveling on the St. Olaf program "Term in the Middle East" ( read about it here!), spending time in Turkey, Morocco, Egypt and Israel, where she hopes to expand her worldview while trying foods certainly more exciting than the traditional Minnesota hotdish. She is originally from Northfield, Minn., and hopes to have a career in journalism or publishing.

Laura Barnes, 22, attended Eden Prairie High school and graduated from Duke University in May with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering. She will be traveling through Peru, Chile and Brazil in June and July with a fellow Duke graduate, and then will travel to Guatemala in mid-July to help run a month-long health care project. She will join the working world in August as a project manager for Epic, a Madison-based company specializing in digitizing medical records.

Karis Hustad, a senior at Loyola University Chicago studying journalism and sociology, will be trading the Midwest for Morocco during the fall semester to study journalism with SIT and Round Earth Media. She will write about wandering the Medina, reporting abroad and attempting to learn Arabic (key word: attempting). She is originally from Falcon Heights, and graduated from Roseville Area High School in 2009. She also blogs for ChicagoNow.

Marielle Foster is a Minneapolis native and graduate of Lake Country Montessori and The Blake School. Born and raised on the south side of Lake Calhoun, she likes to approach life with a sense of adventure and curiosity. Currently flitting around France, Spain, England and India, she hopes to use her gap year to master certain skills, like navigating train stations, eating unusual foods and bartering in foreign languages. She will then join the Class of 2016 at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.

Alex Persian is a 21 year old, unemployed roamer from Big Lake, Minn. His story really started after graduating high school, when he attended a technical school and got a degree in a field that he wasn't interested in. He then worked in that field for a year and saved up enough money to do something different. Now he is 4,100 miles away from home, traveling around Europe wherever he can and with as little luggage as possible.

Matt Wagar is currently a junior majoring in Biology at The University of Wisconsin-Madison. He will be spending this semester studying at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand. While abroad, he plans to tramp around the North and South Islands, and study the unique biota found there. He grew up in Edina, and graduated from Edina High School in 2009.

Devin Berglund is from Twin Valley, Minn. She graduated in May 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in English/mass communications and also received a certificate in publishing from Minnesota State University of Moorhead. In 2010 she toured the UK and then studied at the University of Sunshine Coast for seven months in Australia. At the start of 2012, she returned to Australia to work abroad for a year and spend time with her boyfriend. She is currently living in Brisbane. Feel free to check out her blog: http://devinberglund.wordpress.com/

If you're interested in joining the blog group, e-mail Travel Editor Kerri Westenberg at kwestenberg@startribune.com.