Castles, cathedrals, cobblestone streets: this is what’s in store for the 86 travelers who will be travelling through Europe this summer, visiting five different countries in total. They leave on June 16 and their first stop is London, England. They then travel to Paris, France; Lucerne, Switzerland; Munich, Germany; and end the trip in Prague, Czech Republic, returning the 27. The trip is being led by counselor Ann Ragus, English teacher Erika Crowley, and tech and engineering teacher Bret Steffen with the help of EF Tours, a company that specializes in educational trips for students.
“Mrs. Crowley and I went on the Europe trip with the FFA four years ago, and we were always saying ‘we should do a trip,’ and we finally got the mojo to do it,” Ragus said.
After getting permission from the school board they began planning. With so much interest in the trip and a large number of students signing up, the decision was made to have two buses on the trip instead of one, allowing for more students to join. Steffen was then asked to join the trip and lead the second bus, as he has much experience with travel.
“They approached me and said ‘hey, you’ve done this before, would you lead one of the buses for us?’” Steffen said. “Since then it’s been a lot of us just thinking through logistical concerns, like booking buses to get us from here to Chicago and back, and planning through student needs.”
With such a large group, many inevitable hiccups will be had along the road, like homesickness, car sickness, dehydration, etc., and having chaperones with travel experience will help immensely in both dealing with those issues as they arise and preventing them. Traveling to a whole other continent can be intimidating, as this will be the furthest many of the students will have ever been from Wisconsin.
“I’m worried about being far away from home,” sophomore Ariana Rozek said.
But the distance is also an exciting factor of the trip, as it is a chance to have new experiences.
“I’m excited to see the sights and enjoy being somewhere I’ve never been,” Rozek said. “This trip is a good opportunity, I’ve never been outside the country before.”
Trips like these help students to learn more about the world they live in and open themselves up to important growth that helps adolescents to mature.
“There’s more to this world than just Berlin, or just Wisconsin, or just the Midwest, or just the United States,” Ragus said. “Being able to just see the world is, in my opinion, some of the best growth and exploration for kids. There are billions of things I’m hoping the kids are going to learn on this 12 day trip.”
The last trip to Europe was through the FFA and had an agricultural focus, but this trip does not have a specific focus on one topic, instead being about the different cultures and histories of the countries being visited.
“This is more of a general cultural, historical minded trip because there’s nobody tied to a particular department,” Steffen said. “We all just believed that the historical and cultural things that you’ll learn make the whole thing educational.”
