I have a thing for art – not just pieces on a wall but the whole experience of creating or experiencing beautiful creativity. I think travel is a great inspiration for it, which makes art one of the most obvious of our  educational theme tours.

Art lovers would travel almost any distance for a famous art museum. And they wouldn’t really need any other attraction beyond the beautiful pieces they love. New York City is one of our favorite choices for all kinds of student travel, including art tours. Visitors to Manhattan could easily spend more than one day in the breathtaking Metropolitan Museum of Art. This attraction displays art from all over the world, from many different cultures, and from many different historical eras. You’ll find larger-than-life modern pieces on the terrace, temporary exhibits on fashion, pop culture, and more, plus the class pieces you’ve come to expect and many that will surprise and move you. The Met also has restaurants inside and everything you need to spend hours studying the magnificent pieces – from paintings and drawings to musical instruments, costumes, and so much more.

Beyond this attraction, New York City offers still more. The Museum of Modern Art, or MoMa, is another popular art museum in the city. Its focus is on modern and contemporary art, and some of the exhibits here will truly astound you. And then there’s the Guggenheim, which is as much a wonder on the outside as in. The building spirals from its wide bottom to its narrower top. To view the displays, you ride an elevator to the top, then descend the spiraling walkway through the amazing exhibits.

You can see what I mean about New York City’s environment for art. A tour there could include at least these three museums, and there are many other attractions to round out your itinerary. But there are art museums throughout the country that will surround you with beautiful pieces as well. All of them were founded with the same goals in mind – to connect people to art for education, inspiration, and to develop a better understanding of our world.

The St. Louis Art Museum embraces this purpose so thoroughly that they want any person to be able to enjoy the experience they offer. Designed as part of the 1904 World’s Fair, this museum is free to all its guests. It offers displays and exhibitions, plus a variety of educational tours. If this museum could give every person in the world an understanding of the gift of art, I’m sure they would do it. St. Louis is a fascinating city, the Gateway to the West and marked as such by the sleek, familiar Arch – a beautiful St. Louis attraction in its own right, resting on a peaceful park. A tour of St. Louis might include any number of fascinating attractions besides the Art Museum, and it’s a great choice for student travel because of it.

Of course, there are many other cities with art museums. Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles all have popular art museums, as well as MANY cities in between. Find one near you, and consider a theme in art for your next educational tour. The inspiration is priceless.

We’re headed into baseball season for my little leaguers, which I guess explains the on-deck analogy – the point being that I wanted to give you a heads up on what the blog will highlight next week.

This is a picture (by Boobooo on Flickr) of the amazing Guggenheim art museum in New York City.  This building is a masterpiece in and of itself.  You begin your tour on the elevator that takes you to the top.  From there you descend this spiraling hallway to view the various galleries.  As you read our blog, you’ll notice over and over again how different creative and scientific teams work together to create the places we all love to see.  I can just imagine the artistic bent in the designer and architect of this building – it probably rivals that of the artists featured inside.

There are so many fields in which you can excel if you find interest in them, grow in knowledge about them, and pursue them with all your heart.  Student tours are a great way to get out there and discover what it is about the world that excites and inspires you.  in which glorious corner of it do you want to play a part?  Will you paint or write songs?  Will you invent tomorrow’s greatest innovation or make awesome scientific discoveries in medical research?  When you travel you open your mind to it all, leaving room for all kinds of inspirational magic.

Next week on the blog we’ll highlight some of the most inspirational museums in the country.  They’ll span several great cities for educational tours.  You’ll soon discover there are very few things you can’t learn more about in some museum somewhere.  Hopefully, we’ll change your entire perspective on them!