Student Group Trips Introduction

A question we here at Groople.com are often asked is how did we get so darn passionate about group travel? Fair question and, like so many things, it has many answers, including fond memories of family vacations and a childhood fascination with maps. But certainly another experience that helped generate our zest for group travel were student trips, both within the U.S. and overseas, which gave us an enticing enough taste of all there is to explore in the world that we’ve been searching out new places ever since. Sparking an early curiosity and engagement with the world is one reason student group travel is a worthy endeavor. Here are some others:

• It helps both teachers and students. There are few things that keep the attention of both students and teachers like the anticipation of a big event—like, say, a trip to Boston or maybe even London. Teachers can use a trip as the basis for numerous pre-visit lessons about civics, history, art or just about anything. Once students are at their destination, they’ll have a greater appreciation of everything they’ve read about and discussed, and after they return they’ll have a depth of understanding that only comes with direct experience.
• It establishes community. Sports, theater and other extracurricular activities are wonderful ways for kids to bond, but student group travel enables even adults to form tighter friendships, since these types of trips always require parent chaperones. Experiencing a new place and spending a few full days together is bound to build a tighter community.
• It can change a life. Sure, that’s a bold statement, but at Groople we know the power of group travel. Maybe a student trip to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is just the impetus a kid needs to become an art major in college; perhaps a career in public service will be the result of a student trip to Washington, DC. That’s the beauty of student travel: it literally has the power to shape the direction of a young person’s life.

Great Student Trip Destinations:

Historical Big Cities.

There’s nothing more inspiring and rewarding for a student than to actually see the places and things they’ve been learning about during all those countless hours of studying.

1. Washington, DC
2. Boston, Massachusetts
3. New York City, New York
4. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
5. Chicago, Illinois

Historical Small Cities.

If visiting a big city is neither possible nor desirable, you can certainly find a lot of history in these smaller cities as well.

1. Charleston, South Carolina
2. Savannah, Georgia
3. Key West, Florida
4. Portsmouth, New Hampshire
5. Tuscon, Arizona
6. Williamsburg, Virginia

European historic cities.

If your students think the U.S. is old, take them to one of these places to show them some real ancient history.

1. London
2. Paris
3. Rome
4. Berlin
5. Madrid

Cultural.

If the goal of your trip is something more cultural, go to one of these places for a trip focused on art, theatre, or a particular author.

1. New York City
2. San Francisco
3. John Steinbeck’s Salinas and Monterey, California
4. Mark Twain’s Hannibal, Missouri, and Hartford, Connecticut
5. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s St. Paul, Minnesota

Volunteer trips.

Here are some ideas for volunteer trips that your students may find fun and fulfilling.

1. Work on a farm
2. Build a home for the underprivileged
3. Help with a conservation project
4. Teach English in a foreign country

Plan Your Student Group Trip:

If you’re the leader of a student group trip you deserve congratulations. But don’t try to do everything yourself. Use Groople to help you pull everything together. A few suggestions:

• Create a Groopvine page. Depending on the age and size of your group and your destination you’re going to need at least a few adult chaperones. Utilize Groopvine to discuss accommodations, sites you want to visit, documents (like a passport for foreign trips) people will need as well as discipline procedures and emergency planning. Groopvine can be a forum to help everyone be prepared well before you leave.
• Decide what kind of student trip you want to take. Check out Groople’s Where to Go: Great Ideas for Student Group Trips for suggestions.
• Find a hotel or resort. Groople will help you find a hotel within your price range featuring all the amenities you’ll want for your trip. Groople can find the best group rates for your students, and will enable everyone in your group to pay separately. Groople also has plenty of expertise about which hotels accept youth groups; many do not, particularly groups of kids under high school age.

Tips for Planning your Student Group Trip:

There’s always a lot of responsibility to bear when you’re the lead organizer of any group trip. But that responsibility is particularly acute when you’re in charge (with the help of chaperones, of course) of the safety and enjoyment of a group of students. Take the time to:

• Discuss with the other adult chaperones how to handle various disciplinary problems. Think about coming up with a list of exactly what you expect in terms of behavior from the students and distribute it to their parents before departure.
• Once you’re actually on the trip, hand out a card with emergency contact information (hotel and adult cell phones) to each student in case they get separated from the group. If you’re in a foreign country, be sure to have the information in the native language.
• Work with Groople’s student group travel experts to lower costs. Not only will they help you find the best deals, they may be able to suggest other cost saving measures, like staying in a hotel in the suburbs of a major city. Also look into student discounts, which are offered for museum admission, trips to the theater and various forms of travel.