Traveling with your students is not like traveling with your spouse, your friends, or on a solo adventure. It’s not like taking your students on a field trip to the symphony or the zoo. You have different goals for this trip, different expectations. You’re investing time and energy into organizing what you hope will be a life-changing experience for your students, and you want it to go as flawlessly as possible.

Will your students be as excited as you are about the sights they will see? Will they listen attentively to the guides? Will they take full advantage of their time on tour?

1. Give your students some input into what will be on the tour itinerary. The great thing about a customized tour is that you can hand pick the attractions you will visit and the hands-on learning opportunities your students will participate in. Make a list of your must-sees and then ask your students what their own top picks would be. You can give them a list of possibilities, or you can ask them to do their own research and come up with interesting excursions in your destination country.

2. Balance museum visits and educational visits with “fun” cultural or recreational activities. Don’t expect your students to go from one historical site to another, or spend three hours in a museum only to break for lunch and then hit another museum. Balance each day between learning experiences that require more concentrated attention (museum visits, historical reenactments) and those that are conducive to more implicit learning (learning to cook paella in Spain or helping plant trees  in a reforestation project in Costa Rica.

3. Balance free time with scheduled activities. Make sure your students have some downtime to absorb what they’ve learned during the day. After a guided tour of the Tower of London, for example, set aside some free time in Covent Garden.

 4. Interact with the locals. Students are social people. Add some opportunities into your itinerary (a school visit, for example) for them to interact with the local population. It’s the ultimate cultural experience and will likely be one of the most talked about parts of your trip. Your students may even get to practice a foreign language in the truest of immersion experiences.

5. Make sure your students get enough sleep. A simple rule, yet an important one. A student trip is exciting…and exhausting. From dawn to dusk, your students are seeing new sights, meeting new people, and learning new things. Make sure they’re at their best each morning!

With these tips in mind, you’re already on your way to a great educational tour with your students. Education is all about making connections, linking classroom lessons to real life and connecting the dots between school subjects. When your students walk, breathe and participate wholeheartedly in their learning journey, they’re connecting those dots.

So sit back, relax and enjoy your travel experience with your students!