Once you know you want to travel with your students, the next step is to collaborate with a tour consultant to plan your perfect student travel itinerary. Your tour consultant will ask you questions in order to get to know you and your group, your objectives for the trip, your must-sees and more.
Here are some things to consider when fleshing out the details of your tour itinerary.
Group Dynamics and Logistics
- Are you traveling with a large group, small group, or somewhere in between?
- Are you an active group who can handle a fast-paced tour? Or do you prefer to spend more time in a limited number of locations?
- How well do your students know each other, and how will you handle room assignments (how many students per room)?
- Do you have students with special dietary needs? Or other individual requests?
Trip Objectives
- Think about the concrete educational components of your tour as well as the life lessons inherent to travel in general.
- Depending on the site, will your students benefit more from expertly guided tours or personal explorations?
- Consider the importance of experiential learning activities, where your students will actively participate.
- Balance historical, linguistic and cultural learning opportunities.
Structure
- Opt for a balance of must-see sites and lesser-known places. Often, the former will be particularly important to increasing your students’ general cultural knowledge while the latter will be particularly memorable for your students.
- How much free time do you want your students to have, and in what places?
- Will physical activities be part of your itinerary (i.e., ziplining in Costa Rica or a half-day walking tour of a city)? Think about spacing them out so as not to exhaust yourself and your students!
- Consider the amount of time you will spend at each location and the time spent in transit. Maximize your time abroad by staying in centrally located hotels.
If this list seems overwhelming, no need to worry! Helping you to find all the answers to these questions and organizing a tour itinerary to match your group’s needs and preferences is all in a day’s work for a good tour consultant. So the first step is nothing more than to reach out to a tour consultant and discuss all the amazing opportunities available to you and your students!
And that’s the secret to why customized student trips always go far beyond teachers’ and students’ expectations. Your tour consultant will take the time to understand your group before proposing a tour itinerary that matches your needs, your budget… and your dreams!
Student travel should be easy, affordable, and most importantly, life-changing. When you make the world your classroom, the learning opportunities are indeed limitless. A dedicated tour consultant can help you identify and order the ones that will mean the most to your students.
Happy travels!