Unlike many travel companies, we specialize in group travel. We’ve been customizing student travel to Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, Orlando – and many, many more exciting cities – since we began. These student travel destinations are excellent for educational tours and for leisure, and we know just how to get you there and how to help you make the most of your time until the moment you leave.

So, what makes a group?

As long as your group is greater than fifteen, we can take care of anything. This removes so much hassle from your planning, and we love to do it. We’ve got you covered on reservations for your hotels, any tours you hope to experience, as well as transportation. We’ll help you plan an itinerary designed around your group’s interests and that perfectly suits your needs.

What if our group is less than fifteen?

If you’re traveling with a smaller number, we’ve still got great resources on our site to help make the planning easier. Start with our destinations page if you haven’t chosen a city, and take a look at some of our sample itineraries for great ideas on which attractions to include. Once you know where you’re going, you need to get there. Use our student travel airfare page to help you book the best prices available.

We’ve got everything you need for large or small groups. Student travel is our passion, an excellent learning opportunity, truly inspiring, and something we want to see every student experience at least once. When you take advantage of our travel professionals or the tools on our website, you’re guaranteeing a once-in-a-lifetime experience to your group. And that’s when we know we’ve done our job.

When it comes to themes for student travel, volunteering tops the list these days. We’re all looking for a life-changing experience in which we not only gain appreciation for the earth and our place in it, we also give back in a way that changes us forever. 

Although today’s media notoriously fails to focus on the greatest needs around the world, we do live in the age of connection. With the technology of the internet and the immediacy with which news can travel, we are more aware than ever that we share the planet with endangered animals, underprivileged families, and nations devastated by war, poverty, and genocide.

We know many of you have focused on different areas of need for years now. For you, creating a student tour to a location where you can provide some sort of aid is far more enticing than roller coasters, wax museums, or the beach. We want to help you make these visions a reality.

Perhaps your heart belongs to endangered animals. Our opportunities to volunteer abroad include working with several different species, endangered and otherwise. Or perhaps you want to build homes for those who don’t have them or volunteer in an orphanage. Our volunteer student tours offer trips to the rainforest of Ecuador, a tropical island in Thailand, Costa Rica, Honduras, South Africa and more with a variety of opportunities working with the needs closest to your heart. 

For your next student tour, consider volunteering. The benefits belong to you as well as to those you help. And there are simply too many needs to ignore.

Recognize this building? It’s the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington D.C., commonly known as the FBI, and it’s just one of the D.C. sites you’ll visit on one of the latest theme tours to hit our websites, the Law and Order tour.

The sites on this tour are all about crime, punishment, justice, and the investigative process. You’ll see law and order through history and today, honor fallen heroes, learn the tools of the trade, and discover some of the most common law enforcement issues like the fight on drugs. 

Some of the other sites include the National Law Enforcement Museum and the memorial by the same name, dedicated to men and women who have fallen in the line of law enforcement duty. The first known such death was in 1792, and new names are added to the memorial every year. 

The tour includes a look at the Newseum, which showcases headlines around the world – over 500 front pages happening around the country today, plus phenomenal headlines from the past and tributes to the amazing journalists who brought them to us. You’ll also visit the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, which includes a look at the television set for America’s Most Wanted.

You’ll tour the Pentagon and the Supreme Court, plus visit the fascinating International Spy Museum, which is exactly what it sounds like. This museum has interactive exhibits, history and personal stories, plus tools and artifacts from the thrilling world of espionage. You’ll more thoroughly understand its important role in our safety, quite possibly develop an interest in the profession you never had before, and definitely sleep better at night. 

This entire tour opens your eyes to our Department of Defense and National Security Administration, plus everyday heroes who put themselves at risk as our federal, state, and local law enforcement officers. It’s a thrilling tour in one of the most exciting cities for students that the nation has to offer: Washington D.C.

Photo Credit: cliff1066 on Flickr

Acadia National Park is a different kind of landscape than the other featured parks last week. Whereas they were all in the west, Acadia is one of the eastern-most regions of the United States. Again, we owe this gorgeous landscape and its preservation to that common denominator of national parks, the visionaries of yesterday who managed to protect it for future generations to enjoy.

Acadia includes the coast of Maine, so this park has ocean shores in its varied scenic options. The park’s mountains include the tallest peak on the Atlantic coast, Cadillac Mountain. Acadia is a cluster of islands and includes many fresh water sources besides its ocean shores. One of the great learning centers in the area are the tide pools where students will be amazed at the plant and animal life.

Acadia National Park sits at the edge of deciduous and coniferous forests, adding to its rich variety. This park is a beautiful choice for educational tours. Its landscape is a learning center on its own. The area is rich with human history as well – consider for instance reading a sea captain’s letter from over 150 years ago. And its ranger-led programs highlight all kinds of educational aspects to the park. Acadia national Park has beautiful scenery, a powerful glimpse of America’s eastern coast, and is an inspirational setting for education.

Photo Credit: Lee Coursey on Flickr

Yosemite was one of the first wilderness areas to become a national park, and it is a beautiful choice for student travel destinations. The waterfalls are perhaps the most famous natural wonder in this area and reason enough to walk, hike, or bike the famous paths. But there is more to Yosemite than the falls.

For a comprehensive look at all it has to offer, bus tours might be the way to go – at least the first day. Students can get an overview of the many different aspects of this amazing area – the falls, the meadows, the deep valleys and giant, ancient sequoias. These are the reasons Yosemite will take your breath away.

To make the most of the educational opportunities in the park, choose a ranger-guided tour, rich with information about Yosemite and its history. “A shrine to human foresight,” the National Park Services declares, and the “strength of granite,” and “the persistence of life.” Yosemite can teach students all kinds of valuable, life-changing lessons. 

For an even richer experience, after a day of exploring, consider a few hours of volunteering. You won’t find a more wonderful work environment nor a place that more fully inspires the preservation of our beautiful earth.

Photo Credit: Rob Inh00d on Flickr

There is one thing all national parks have in common: They have been preserved because someone at some point recognized their amazing beauty and stood up for them, realizing they must be treasured, that they must remain as places of ultimate inspiration. For some, they are reminders of what nature provides us all on its own and our responsibility to it. For some, they point to a deliberate Creator. For almost everyone, they are a wake-up call to our own small place in a vast and beautiful universe. 

National Parks, like this one – the amazing and incomparable Grand Canyon – are therefore the perfect environment for educational tours. They are learning centers all on their own without any human hand. And yet, they are usually rich with guides who can steer the inspiration toward an interest in nature, conservation, and history. 

The Grand Canyon has made it to world wonder lists for a reason. It’s simply breathtaking – a play of light and color and deep caverns that cannot be properly reproduced on film. Standing above this amazing footprint of nature is something so moving you simply have to experience it for yourself. There are all kinds of accommodations just minutes from this amazing US attraction, making it both possible and a must-see. It’s just one more gorgeous landscape carefully preserved and honored by the National Park Services. But you have to admit once you’ve seen it, this park kind of stands alone.

Photo Credit: mandj98 on Flickr

As long as we’re talking about national parks – for that matter, if you’re considering making a tour of them or adding even one to your list of must see US attractions – then you’ve got to consider Yellowstone. Besides its expanse and beauty – this is the first National Park established in our country and certainly deserves a nod just for that.

We like educational tours around here.  When you put students and travel together, education is almost inevitable.  There is simply so much to learn from our earth, from travel, and about our country’s rich and amazing history. Yellowstone is full of educational treasure like this.  Ranger-led programs give students insight into ecology, geology, wildlife, weather patterns, and so much more. Plus, every American should see Old Faithful at least once – the amazingly consistent geyser. Can you imagine the history it could share? And, although the most famous, Old Faithful is not the only geyser in Yellowstone. There are hundreds of others as well as hot springs – one of the most fascinating wonders of nature.

Yellowstone is an unequaled experience.  It has its own Grand Canyon and amazing sights throughout. There are activities galore and a rich, fantastic history – all brilliant choices for student tours.

Photo Credit: Savannah Grandfather on Flickr

This week:  National Parks. Our country has hundreds of beautiful reserves and natural wonders – many of them conveniently preserved by the National Park Services, a national treasury of natural beauty.

The Black Hills of South Dakota are first up. This unique area of the country actually contains SIX national parks.  Today, with students in mind, I want to focus on one famous portion of these hills – not strictly “natural” – but easily one of the most famous historical sites in the nation and something every American should see at least once. So why not consider it for educational tours?

I’m talking about Mt. Rushmore, the 16-story presidential faces carved into the granite in the famous black hills themselves. Can you name all four? I guarantee you’ll always be able to if you see it even once. The figures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln are completely recognizable in their detail. They are beautiful and almost seem animated, or lifelike, in the sunlight.

This National Memorial is more, of course, than just some landscaping and the famous sculpture. You’ll find a museum, the sculptor’s studio, walking paths, various viewing spots, and the Avenue of Flags with one for each state, commonwealth, and US territory.

This memorial is just a great choice for students, and it is smack dab in the middle of the beautiful black hills/national parks territory – making it a great choice for this week’s theme.

(photo by bcmom on Flickr).

The Midway at Cedar Point

That is the claim to fame that makes this theme park in Sandusky, Ohio, my Friday choice for the week of thrills.  If you’re looking for dips, drops, loop-da-loops, corkscrew twists and turns, and the ability to do them all again and again in one single park – Cedar Point is your destination.

This park had the first coaster to span a midway.  It’s actually called The Corkscrew, and standing beneath it as riders scream above you is almost as heart-pounding as the ride itself.  Almost.  

At press time there were sixteen roller coasters in this roller coaster capital of the world – all seventeen rated as high to aggressive thrill on a scale from mild to moderate to the latter.  If your group brings some first timers looking for the mild to moderate ratings  - they’ve got those too.

For the rest of you – think classic wooden coasters like the Blue Streak and the Mean Streak.  For steel twists and turns, you’ll love Mantis, Maverick, and the Iron Dragon.  As if they needed more innovation, the Gemini is a thrilling chance to enjoy the trip while competing with your friends in a race to the finish on a side-by-side dueling coaster.

Cedar Point is cleverly nicknamed “America’s Roller Coast.”  It’s located on a Lake Erie peninsula and an absolute MUST for thrill seekers.  Student travel, educational tours, and graduation trips have never looked so good.

photo credit: Andrew 94 on Flickr

Yes, Sea World is a surprising choice for a week focused on high-thrills.  We all know this park as the brightly-colored sea life oasis in the midst of Orlando theme parks actually known for their rides.  It’s certainly no Six Flags or Busch Gardens.  And, frankly, who wants a roller coaster to outshine Shamu?  No one.  We want Sea World to remain the home of flipping dolphins, splashing Shamu, playful seals, and ominous sharks (behind glass).  Still, it doesn’t hurt that they’ve thrown in a few looping thrills for the human visitors to this famous park.  And they’ve thrown them in with such gusto, you may indeed find yourself drawn to this park as much for the coasters as the fish – (and mammals!)

The Kracken is the big one.  This is the tallest, longest, fastest coaster in Orlando.  Named for a mythical monster that used to destroy ships to eat the sailors, this coaster certainly lives up to its legendary name.

Journey to Atlantis is a leisurely ride through another mythical legend with twists, turns, and surprising drops at the end.

The newest addition opens in May 2009.  They call it the Manta, and it’s a full senses, entertaining thrill with the illusion of being strapped in a flying position to the bottom of a manta ray as it flies at high speed through a twisting, high-thrill ocean adventure.

Sea World has been thrilling audiences for decades with its amazing animal shows.  Now they’ve taken the thrills up one notch further, making this attraction perfect for student trips of any kind – from Orlando graduation trips to educational tours with a twist.

(photo by lemoncat1 on Flickr)