Hey, Rozkuszka

Given that architecture is best understood when experienced in person, there really isn't any downside to travel.  In my experience (I took off a year to travel in France while completing my BArch) you are both a better candidate for admissions and a better student of architecture with travel than without.  I was admitted to an ivy afterwards, so it didn't hurt me when applying to grad schools.

But don't let it seem like a false dichotomy.  DO take the studio, but don't just take the studio.  Spend every spare moment getting out of your studio and into the city: sketch all day every day, bring your camera but leave it packed until after you have at least a few sketches of every place you find yourself.  Get a student travel card and a Eurail pass: I can't speak from experience for Florence, but from a base in Paris you can reach a wide range of examples that you should visit and document in depth.  Plan ahead and have a list of buildings you are prepared to encounter, with research ahead of time to get the most out of your trip.

Architecture is perhaps unique in that it is the only discipline where time spent out of classrooms can be as valuable, if not more so, than time spent inside one.  Travel can only strengthen a portfolio.  My experience reviewing undergraduate portfolios is that they are often strong on technique but very light on analysis of and attention to form.  Any grad school you go to is going to want to train you in their own approach to design, in which case they are going to look at your undergraduate design projects more for evidence of how you look at form and space than for any particular design vision.  Plan your portfolio to show two or three of your best design projects, along with a range of careful analyses of buildings you have researched and documented in detail (hand drawing is key here - sketch your plans, sections, elevations, details, etc.).

You have plenty of time here to plan things - you should be able to stage the work for your application so that everything except your travel material is ready ahead of time.  Start designing your portfolio now, creating finished pages for design and technical work completed, along with templates that you can quickly plug your study abroad work into.  Document (bring an inexpensive small-format scanner along with you?) and cull your work on a weekly basis so that the best of what you have produced each week is easily available for you to work with.

Best luck

If you're interested in western grad schools, I'd recommend looking into University of Washington ... if UWM stands for Madison, and from what I can tell from the website, the two schools are pretty similar in that physical models are still important, along with structural integration with the concept, etc. all that stuff.

Have you looked at UC Berkeley?

Lance - UWM stands for UW - Milwaukee

architectrix-

Thanks for the advice, you post really made me even more excited to go aboard. I think i am pretty set that i will do the program now. The scanner is a great idea, something i am going to def bring along. 

As stated earlier, there is no downside to study abroad; you know that you are doing it so you can research graduate programs during spring and summer and get all of your application ducks in a row before you leave.  You can take the GRE, ask faculty to write your letters, and even prepare your portfolio.

As for not having the extra studio, that is not valid.  From my experience with students studying abroad, they bring a difference experience / work to the portfolio including an amazing ability to sketch.

Why do not the schools from IL interest you.  UWM and UIUC are very parallel in many ways; UIC has its uniqueness plus School of the Art Institute of Chicago has a new accredited MArch program.  I would also caution you on simply moving to a new location for a year and automatically getting in-state tuition.  It is NOT that easy.

Do it and do not look back.

Dr. Architecture