Based on fieldwork in China and Italy, this article examines the affective dimension of middle-class Chinese students' youxue (travel and study) practices in Italy. With the liberalization of state policy in China's self-funded study abroad market and the proliferation of educational intermediaries, youxue has become a special type of educational consumption that caters to the middle-class Chinese family's desire for transnational mobility and cosmopolitan life styles. The blurring of the line between travel and study points to the open-ended and multi-linear nature of transnational student mobility. However, due to the limitations and pitfalls in international education policies in both the sending and the receiving countries, Chinese students' youxue experiences in Italy are marked by notable contradictions between mobility and immobility, hopes and frustrations, self-appreciation and self-reproach.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is noncommercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.self-funded study abroad market, student migration from China has developed new trends in terms of the diversification of student backgrounds, motivations for studying abroad, and choice of destination countries. The rise of the youxue phenomenon in the late 2000s is one example: the Chinese word xue means study, but the word you has multiple meanings, such as travel, tourism, wandering, play, and fun. To expand their consumer market, commercialized intermediaries often trace the origin of youxue back to ancient China, when Confucius travelled with his students to surrounding countries for the purpose of building their knowledge and character. While upholding the combination of knowledge formation and character training in the Confucius model, the contemporary concept of youxue also highlights the experimental and experiential dimensions of overseas education. There are generally three types of youxue activities in the Chinese context: short-term study tour or summer camps for children or adolescents (sometimes accompanied by parents); touring elite overseas university campuses by pre-college youth and their parents; and short or long-term study abroad projects for the purpose of obtaining language certificates, course credits, overseas degrees, and cross-cultural experiences.This research focuses on the youxue practices of Chinese students who study abroad with the purpose of obtaining a Bachelor's or Master's degree.