Let me begin by stating the obvious: it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. Like… years? Whoops. A lot has happened since then – Jeremy and I bought a house and began an endless stream of DIY projects and remodels, I taught high school English for a couple more years, and we are now about to have our first baby. I’ve decided to stay at home with my little one this year, and before baby comes, I wanted to try to catch up on a little blogging. I still hope to post here more regularly someday, whether that be about our home, our travels, or our family.
So in today’s long and detailed travel-focused post, I’ll be looking back on a trip that was truly a bucket list experience for me. In August of 2016, my friend and fellow English department member, Heathyr, told me that she was interested in arranging a trip abroad with some of our students. This was something that I had always desperately wanted to do, but I’d never really looked into myself. Heathyr kindly asked me to join her as a trip leader and chaperone (technically, she was the official leader, but I helped!). She had already selected a tour from the educational travel company EF (Education First) – a nine-day journey around England and Scotland. As a true anglophile, I thought it sounded great – and, since we were both young teachers and this would be our first experience taking students abroad, it would be more manageable to travel to a familiar English-speaking country that we would explore at length than to do too much globe-trotting or fast-paced touring.
Fair warning, this post is long. But if you’re an educator thinking about traveling abroad with students, with EF or with another organization, I thought it might be helpful to do an in-depth review of our experience, from the initial organization to the last flight home. So let’s get started at the beginning!
