Old Destination, New Frontier

This will be a whole new type of travel for me. About a year and a half ago, EF Tours contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in leading student educational tours abroad. I had been kicking the idea around in my head since I became a school teacher five years ago. The logistical planning always deterred me, though. How would I know which hotels, buses, guides, etc., to trust? And what about liability? Yikes! So, when EF Tours gave me a chance to do what I wanted -- the chance to open my students' eyes to the world -- without having to worry about the logistics, I jumped at the chance.

So, here I am, more than a year later, getting ready to take a group of 10 students, along with 10 parents or grandparents, to Italy for just over a week. Another experienced traveller teacher is going along, too, in our group. Since we have only 22 total, EF Tours is combining us with two smaller groups. Both are of high schoolers, one from the Chicago area, the other from Houston. My kids will all be going into the 7th, 8th, or 9th grades. We will be the "younguns" of the combined group. Hopefully, I've prepared them well on what to expect and what we will see. Am I nervous? Strangely, no. Maybe it is the more than 1:1 ratio in our group of adults to students. Maybe it is that the adults going along, and to some degree the students, are experienced travellers themselves. And of course, this will be my fourth trip to Italy.

So, follow along with me on my blog over the course of the next week. See what happens when Worldwidemike takes middle schoolers abroad. Hopefully, it will be an amazing, positive, and even life-changing trip for my kids. For now, it is time to say "Arrivederci!" As I finish up those last-minute errands before a trip...