Off the Beaten Path- International Trips With Students

So my Off the Beaten Path is usually places that no one goes that usually involves a struggle to get to or danger. So why am I putting trips to Washington DC, Greece, and Italy with my Off the Beaten Path Section? Let me ask you a question….Have you ever traveled with over 50 kids to international destinations? Have you taken plane flights with them? Have you ever been in a crowded place trying to keep your kids together? Now you get the answer as to why this is an Off the Beaten Path section….

To see the 2015 Italy Trip Section in which students reflected on their time in Italy, please click

Washington DC with 12 Venezuelan Students-2012

My time of three years in Venezuela was coming to a close. It was the last of my three years and I was teaching American History, so of course I got to take my kids to DC. The trip was late in the year, towards the end of school, but I knew it would be a fun one!!!! My friend Damian was meeting me there from El Paso and stayed with me for the week….

I put a pretty good itinerary together through Gerber Tours. A few of my students almost didn’t make the flight as they were at a sports tournament and their flight got cancelled. I was really sweating it for a while talking to students and trying to make contingency plans!!!! They literally barely made it in and had to meet us as the bus was taking off from the school to the airport.

We took our flight from Venezuela to DC via Miami. When we got in, we met our tour guide named Mike Hollingsworth. He had handled some of our students before and he is such a great guy with a wealth of knowledge about the DC area.

We were out pretty much all daylong every single day!!!!! You can guess what we did the whole time. Sightsee. We saw the monuments, Ford’s Theatre, The Lincoln Death House, The Newseum, The Art National Gallery of Art, The Capitol Building, Smithsonian Museums, The Library of Congress, The Air and Space Museums, A play called Sheer Madness, Arlington Cemetary, Riding the Underground most of the time, Hard Rock Café (common stop every time I am in DC), Potomac National Park, The Zoo, Georgetown, and the final night, we had a Potomac River Cruise with dinner included.

I really enjoyed this trip a lot as it gave me a chance to be closer with my students and talk to them not as a teacher but as a person. My kids made friends with people they usually do not talk to, in class and I really think they had a great time. It was more like a vacation with them as I had so few kids, and they were very well behaved. If I could,  I would of held that moment in time and stayed there forever……

Greece with 61 Egyptian Students-2014

We use and will continue to use an awesome tour guide who does student groups as well as any other type of occasion.  She is an awesome person as well as guide and she can arrange just about anything:

It was my second year in Egypt, and I was team leader of 7^th Grade and in charge of putting a trip together for our curriculum revolving around Greece. Easier said than done!!! However I was working with a good group of teachers and an awesome group of students…

The Math teacher did a budget chart for the students, the Science teacher revolved her curriculum around our trip to the zoo and the animals there, the English teacher had them do myths and had a very good set up with them making videos or projects. For me, we did a lot of Ancient Greek and Hellenistic History, so with all this being taught, it was bound to be a great trip!!!!!

We stayed in Athens over five days at the Fresh Hotel. I have stayed here overall three times as I am in love with this hotel. You may want to check out the website to see if you agree with me. It is very centrally located. Only about ten minute walk to Plaka Area of Athens. The students really enjoyed this hotel and this is why we keep staying here over and over again.

Pretty much In Greece we went around to all the sites….The New Acropolis Museum which is ranked as one of the best museums in the world. We also of course went up to the Acropolis to see the sites there. We would take day trips out to places like Mycenae, Corinth, and Delphi, which usually take a long time because of the driving, but is well worth it. We also hit the Archeological Museum which I think is one of the better museums for Greek history that I have seen. Attica Zoo is probably one of the cleanest zoos that I have seen in my life and of course the dreaded shopping day and MacArthur Glen Mall.

I thought this trip is one of the better trips I have taken that lined up curriculum. The students knew what to expect and what to know on the trip. In the end, they got a lot out of it learning and life wise…..

Washington DC with 43 Egyptian Students-2014

Let’s just say that taking any amount of students from Egypt to DC is not all it is cracked up to be. When you take a flight from Egypt to Amsterdam to DC, then jump on a bus and drive to Philadelphia right away, you are bound to have some problems along the way…our problems were tired and whiny students.

But for the most part they sucked it up pretty good and were able to get around the cities. We were first in Philadelphia for two nights. We went around the city and saw all the stuff like Ben Franklin’s House and Independence Hall. We had some great food at Hard Rock Café of course!!!

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Philadelphia and we loved it. They had the kids separated by floors (boys and girls) and had security watching the rooms!!!! Overall it was a good experience. We left Philadelphia after two nights and then made our way down to DC via Valley Forge.

Once we got down to DC, we checked into the Capitol Hotel and started making our rounds around the city. Food was not in short supply here as we ate heaps of Italian Food, Fried Chicken, and BBQ (for me). It is always nice to come back to the United States to see the culture, but as far as spending a lot of time here….I simply cannot do it anymore. Pretty much our time around DC was spent around doing all of the tourist sites that I had done previous.

We had a tough group of kids but I think in the long run we had a great trip. The only thing that killed us was on the way back we checked out of the hotel, went to a Flight Museum near the airport, then jumped on the flight which took us to Paris and then Cairo. However on the way back from a long trip, it is not good to stay with 43 kids in the Paris Airport for 8 hours…especially if you have ever been to the Paris Airport…note to self next time do not get a long layover in the Paris Airport with any kids or even by yourself…..

Greece with 53 Egyptian Students- 2015

This was pretty much the same itinerary that we followed with my students the year before except that I was with students that were not my own (the same students from DC the year before).

I actually thought this trip went pretty good.  We had the same great tour guide Vivian as the year before and stayed in the same hotel- Fresh Hotel.  We had a great time at the Acropolis and the New Acropolis Museum as well as with our excursions to Delphi, and Mycenae.  I lost count of how many times we went to Plaka to shop, but it was sufficient, as well as the outlet mall again (which the kids loved).  The zoo was the big highlight as we got to mingle with the Lemurs and the kids had a great time!!!!

We did have a few bumps in the road like food, kids getting sick, and long bus rides, but isn’t this expected with any type of person on any trip, much less 53 kids?