I feel like I am wasting my youth.?

I am a rising junior in college who goes to a small private school. I am a communications major and I am also on the swim team. I do well in school and I work as a research assistant to one of my professors. I still have strong ties to my home town as I am close with my family, especially my younger sister. I have two really good friends from high school who are also in college, but they go to big universities in the city. They go out to bars with their fake id's and go to frat parties. They are both studying abroad; one of them is even interning abroad. They have no ties to our hometown and it seems like they go back to their apartments at school every chance they get. I feel like they are both such free spirits, and I'm just not. I would love to study abroad, but swimming has always been really important to me and I've made a commitment to my team; I have also committed myself to helping my professor. I don't dread coming home for breaks like they do, I actually enjoy it. I'm pretty okay with my life, but then I look at all the cool things my friends are doing and it makes my life look so boring. My one friend says she just works hard during the year so she can travel and have fun in the summer. I would love to say the same, but I have to work hard all year round because I need to work at my job in the summer to pay for my education. It's not that I don't take advantage of opportunities, they just don't present themselves to me that often. I try to tell myself that all my hard work will pay off and that I can get a good job that allows me to travel and what not, but none of that is guaranteed. Am I wasting my youth being responsible and doing "the right thing"? Should I take some time to travel the world and be crazy? I need some feedback from people other than my family.