First Time Travel To Europe...And Taking 30 High School Students...HELP!

Dear Patti: Having gone with HS students on a similar trip to Europe, I know you'll have a great time but return totally exhausted. Tour companies that deal with student tours tend to want to shove you into buses, which means endless hours on the road, they usually shove all 50 into the same restaurant at the same time (which means eating food like you get at a faculty end of year party...if you've ever done that you know what I mean, it isn't pretty). On the other hand, I agree with all the posters who point out the difficulty of traveling/making reservations for a group of 50. They have had good suggestions about airlines, etc. You might consider breaking the group into 2: 15 students/10 adults each..and have them go on reverse itineraries. A group of 25 might be a lot easier to book for. In France we had excellent results buying "Ticket restaurants", restaurant vouchers widely accepted, and then taking the group to areas with tons of restaurants (like the Rue Mouffetard in Paris) and turning them loose (in pairs, never alone).
Anyway, as far as itinerary goes...I would revise it as follows (and this is only my opinion, of course)...Day 1 arrive Madrid. Day 2 Madrid. Day 3 Madrid with Toledo day trip. Day 4 High speed day train to Barcelona. Day 5 Barcelona. Day 6 Barcelona. Day 7 budget airline (like Easyjet) flight to Nice via Geneva. Day 8 Beach Day (our kids adored Nice and beach time). Day 9 excursion to Eze & Monoco. Day 10 TGV to Paris. Day 11 Paris. Day 12 Paris & night train to Munich. Day 13 Munich with Bavarian countryside excursion. Day 14 Salzburg. Day 15 to Vienna. Day 16 Vienna Day 17 fly home from Vienna.
This preserves the 3 language-areas you are after...and don't be afraid to use European discount airlines, many of which are very cheap if you buy in advance.

Have a wonderful time...I hope you will have time for a post-trip meeting in which everyone can share experiences. Make them keep journals!

Unless you have specific experience doing this it is asking for disaster to do this yourself. The travel might be possible but arranging accommodation, meals and sightseeing for 50 people seems nearly impossible for an inexperienced volunteer. I would suggest getting bids from several tour companies.

With 50 people, you will have problems booking places to stay, resturants, etc. I agree that you should look into EF and other student tour companies. Also talk with the school principal. You MUST know the school's and sytsem's policies!!A tour company will help with compliance issues. Insurance and paperwork to have parents fill out, etc. can be a BIG hassle. Get some guidance on this- and fast. Fundraising is another thing to think about.

With 50 people, you will have problems booking places to stay, resturants, etc. I agree that you should look into EF and other student tour companies. Also talk with the school principal. You MUST know the school's and sytsem's policies!!A tour company will help with compliance issues. Insurance and paperwork to have parents fill out, etc. can be a BIG hassle. Get some guidance on this- and fast. Fundraising is another thing to think about.

Hi Patti,

It's wonderful that you have volunteered to help!! Having looked at your proposed intinerary I think you are doing way too much traveling for the time allowed and the size of your group. With that many people, it is going to take longer to get between cities and countries and you won't be able to see as many things (unless you will be breaking it up in each city and have groups doing different things) and I think you will spend more time traveling than touring. I would recommend narrowing the scope of the trip - perhaps limiting it to Spain and France. As for 1 day to do Normandy it can be done but public transportation isn't the best - the area is best toured by car. In one day you won't see much and I really don't think it would be worth the time invested to get there. Given that you have such a short time in Paris, focus on Paris - there is more than enough to see there. If you haven't checked out Trip Advisor, I recommend it. The forums are great and you will get wonderful information. Good luck!

I'd look into hiring a tour service as finding housing and transport for that many people is going to be challenging

wow--you're PLANNING the trip? that's awesome. in my experience (i'm a teacher) trips like that are organized by travel companies. our foreign language trips are all done that way. additionaly, several good friends of mine chaperoned a trip with people to people back in 2006. i believe they were gone for less than three weeks, and they went to greece, italy, and france. that seems like too much for the amount of time ESPECIALLY given the large group, but they did it. they had one hell of a trip, and none of them would ever do it again. i've been told stories of literally throwing luggage onto trains, bladder-busting bus rides, and hellish overnight ferry rides. so maybe doing it on your own IS a good thing! best of luck to you!

There is a poster of Fodors - TeacherCanada - who has posted about several trips he has taken with students. He goes into a lot of detail about getting started as well as day by day details of the trips. He is quite honest about problems he has encountered and I would recommend reading his posts. There is a lot of information there.

Hi Patti,

Definitely do the Rhine cruise and stay at the hostel in Bacharach! I went with a college group when I was 20 and that was the highlight of the trip.

As others have noted, this is a huge undertaking with this many people. I would encourage you to seek out other teachers that have done this before. I went to Clark College in Vancouver, Washington and the German instructor does this kind of trip every year. Perhaps it would be good to contact him and other foreign language instructors that have first hand experience to share. The rail system alone is enough to bring a person to tears, much less with 50 people and a first timer in Europe! :)

Good luck!

You might try working with EF Tours. With that many people, they can arrange a private tour for you and will make all the arrangements. I think they will do a custom trip rather than one of their pre-planned itineraries. We found the accommodations and price to be quite good.

You could also go to Carlson Wagonlit and ask them to put together a trip quote for you. Another professor at my college has done this before.

Since you are traveling with 50 people, and have never done this before, I would suggest hiring a travel company to put this together for you. Not a local travel agent, but a company that specializes in either in large group travel or student tours.

I would also suggest is EF Tours. They can probably do it cheaper than you can and give you a professional tour director to actually run the tour.

I can see from your itinerary that you have not thought out travel times and may have overestimated what you think you can accomplish.

There are also tricks to getting the best price for a large group. Neither your local travel agent nor STA is the place to go. Either deal directly with the airline or, if you don't want to go the tour route, hire someone who is experienced in booking large group travel. (Some of the larger travel agencies have group travel departments. They are not at your local branch. You have to contact them by phone or internet.)

I have had to put together travel for large groups--I did it professionally. For a group of your size, it is not easy. You can't just use a guidebook and think traveling for 50 is the same as traveling for 2.

I would recommend trying to make them all pack carry on only or backpacks. In my opinion it would make traveling much easier. I know it would be tough to get teenager to do that but it would save so much hassle.

I just thought about it and you could probably completely take up the largest dorm in any hostel. I'm not sure how to book places like that for a 30 person group.

Good luck with your trip planning!

I would worry that instead of opening their mind to travel, that that itinerary will convince them that travel is a stressful, exhausting grind. I would pare it down by looking at the train map, figuring out what's really out of the way, and cutting it out. I'd probably skip Spain, or at least start only in Barcelona, but you might be able to keep Spain by omitting other locations. Lucerne is VERY expensive and I'm not sure would be on the top of your average teenager's list, so that seems an obvious one to cut. Rothernberg is adorable--one of those places that is absolutely touristy but still worthwhile--but you don't need two days. It really only takes a half day, tops, to see the whole town.

Patti,

I am a teacher and have taken kids on domestic trips before as a large group, but never overseas.

Trips like these with school groups traveling together are almost always handled by a tour company. They know how to handle groups that size. If you have to stay together as a group, I would strongly urge you to work with a tour company.

HOWEVER;

I, personally, don't like traveling that way. Tour companies book large, impersonal hotels away from the city centers and rush you from place to place in a way that is the complete philosophical opposite of what Rick Steve's travel philosophy is.

I think the children would have a much better experience if they did NOT travel as a large group, but rather in groups of, say, 6 kids and three adults or something similar. A group that size can book quaint lodgings in a city center and travel like a "family", more efficiently and safely. As a bonus, the kids won't be constantly thinking of themselves as a school group, but rather as a person seeing sights in Europe. It's a better frame of mind.

Travel only to where trains can take you since they drop you efficiently from city center to city center, exactly where you want to be. Trains and feet are all you need to see the major sights.

You can still arrange to meet up a few times (like "meet under the Eiffel Tower at 2PM on day 8") just to say hello to friends and swap stories & photos & such. But there is no other reason to stay together. Each "team" of adults can have a leader who is ultimately responsible for everything on that team. You don't have to worry about another group getting lost or behind. It's not your problem. It's their's. They are independent of you.

That's how I would do it in a perfect world, anyway.

One more thing; doing it this way would almost certainly have the potential for saving a great deal of money. Our family (not unlike one of the groups I described above) spent 30(!) days in France for $2800pp.

I've never worked on a car [not true] before, do you think I could get a job on an Indy car pit crew?

Take about the "deep end" approach.

But, on to your itinerary. Day 11 Luzern, Day 12 Munich. I hope Scotty is standing by to beam you from Luzern to Munich. Better make that a half day in Luzern and then travel to Munich. If you leave Luzern at 1 PM, you won't get to Munich until 7:30 PM. I'll bet people will be hungry, and you'll probably want to check in first.

In fact, I'd do just one day in Luzern and leave the next morning for Munich. Spend the extra half day there.

Note, some connections to Munich go through Austria. Be prepared to include Austria as a country or buy p-p tickets through it.

Day 12 in Munich. There is a lot to see in Munich. In a day you'll just brush to highlight. Start in Marienplatz. Avoid the pressure to do Dachau. It will take most of the day. There is more to see in Munich than Dachau.

Day 13: Munich to Rothenburg will take most of a day, but you will have the first evening for the Nightwatchman's Tour and the next day. Unless you completely run out of things to do, avoid the Christmas shop and the Crime and Punishment Museum. Make sure you walk the wall and see the Riemenschneider alter in St. Jakob's church.

Not having done a trip like this before, I stand amazed at your undertaking! I would suggest breaking the group into two groups at a minimum. Much easier to travel with 25 than 50....tickets, restaurants, hotel accommodations, etc., Unless you are with an organized tour director. A smaller group will get much more enjoyment than a large group for sure. They will get more attention, better service, etc., for sure at each place. I would also cut out the travel time by reducing the number of places. Nothing is as bad as 10 countries in 10 days or whatever...the participants will spend most of the time on the bus. Much better to concentrate on one or two countries and 'do them well' - Madrid in one day will be a blur. At least three there, and one full day and one-half in Toledo at a minimum. (Toledo is 25 minutes from Madrid on the high speed train.) And, you must alow time for jetlag to be over when arriving.

Good luck on your venture!

As others have suggested, find a business that does this and sign them up!

There are also very likely some legal issues that need to be addressed, since the students are minors. Presumably, the school knows how to deal with this. But, no matter what, you do not want to find yourself legally liable for welfare of any of the travelers.

If you haven't already, call a big meeting of every adult who is going. Find out what skills they have and coerce/sucker as many as possible into helping.

Make sure everyone -- student and adult -- carries a cellphone that works in Europe. If someone gets lost or misses the bus, at least you will be able to communicate.

You didn't mention when you are traveling. In any case, make sure that everyone has applied for a passport. Now.

Finally, take along plenty of aspirin. And have a great time! This has all the earmarks of an amazing trip.

I have done this with a smaller group, both with and without EF Tours.

What's going to happen now is that you are going to go do a search and find TONS of posts on EF that say "the hotels are in the middle of nowhere", "the food is bad" etc.... And all of them probably are true...

BUT.. You have a HUGE advantage.

1. You have 50 people. That means you can create a custom tour. Where YOU clearly define hotel locations etc.

2. Your budget is not "unrealistic" (Trust me, in another life I used to review budgets for Girl Scout trips.. "I can do two weeks in Europe for $1100" resulting in a lot of people who would get upset when I would "deny" the trip because the "budget doesn't work")

Now, I agree with others......it's too much. My second tour I took I did all the planning. And even with the "expereince" of the first I failed to realize how MUCH time it takes teens to move and to allow "30 minutes" for shopping EVERYWHERE :) Slow this thing down. IT's not a "race across Europe". Drop Switzerland. VERY VERY COSTLY (And I took both my groups there, but they were Girl Scouts, so there was a reason) Pick ONE city in Spain not both major cities.

Really get professional help

And then "Lay down teh ground rules" WE never waited on kids, it's the adults that were a PIA!

Oh and one other thing...

That part about meals on EF. They take you to places the KIDS will want to eat at... (For most kids "fine dining" is a little wasted. Took my 10 Girl Scouts to London and thier favorite meal was ...... KFC!)

My experience is with taking groups to East Asia (China, Japan and Korea), and I've done many--college students, college faculty, high school teachers, and "ordinary" people. I lived in Japan for 8 years (and speak the language) and have traveled extensively in East Asia, but I never did any of those tours without some degree of assistance from a travel agent. With that many people going, a travel agent can get discounts or free tickets (Buy x number, get one free), cheaper hotel rates, better train tickets, etc., etc. A good travel agent will let you have control of the group goals and respond to your needs, but they are the professionals who have booked groups before, and sometimes it's best to listen to what they have to say.

I didn't have room earlier to post additional info, which may help the discussion (or maybe not). All three teachers going with me are European-born or have made multiple trips, so I will have some knowledgeable travelers with me.

I have broken the group down into teams of four students to one adult chaperon. It seems easier to get doubles or quad rooms for the students that way, and chaperons can double up or sleep in singles. The remaining adults may gather together as they wish, or join student teams.

Except for travel, all teams will decide on their itinerary on any given day within a scope of choices, so we aren't looking to get 50 people into the same restaurant at the same time. The exceptions will be Toledo, Montserrat, Versailles, Mt. Pilatus, and the Rhine River Cruise (if we do it).

I am requiring students to use backpacks that meet carry on size so that we can get around easier on our transports. We will have lessons on packing during the year.

So far, many of the hostels and hotels that I have contacted said they would be able to accommodate a group our size, so that hasn't been an issue. I do realize that we are really pushing it, but the professional tour groups gave me an itinerary that rushes us through much faster and spending so many more hours on a bus, all for an additional $2000 cost! I can't see doing that to my kids. Three posters mentioned EF Tours, but I looked at independent reviews on three different websites, and half the reviews are so negative, and still costly.

There always has to be a first-time for someone to make a trip such as this, and this is mine. I am preparing as much as possible (which is why I spend every free moment reading, watching and learning about the places we are going). I definitely appreciate all of the comments!

Patti,

Thanks for the additional info. I love to plan and so I am almost jealous of how much planning you will have to do. I like the idea of breaking up the kids into groups of 4 and assigned to an adult. With potentially so many adults, I would pair up adults as well. It is always easier not being the only adult responsible for even a small group of kids. It is also much easier booking a double than a single, as well as much cheaper/pp. I like your light packing requirement, too.

Regarding your itinerary, I would definitely skip Switzerland unless the train travel somehow requires it. Best to focus on the three countries/languages you are required to hit. I don't know anything about Montpellier, but you might look into the Dordogne River area just south of Sarlat for the stop between Carcassonne and Paris (The hostel in Carcassonne is very comfortable and handy and allows you to enjoy the tourist trap at night when it really is magical). Canoeing the Dordogne river between Vitrac and Baynac is a beautiful 2 1/2 hours and perfectly safe since the water is only knee-deep. There are 4 castles in a span of about 6 miles. I would do Barcelona only in Spain to simplify things (would there be a good small town day trip from Barcelona for contrast?).

I would look into seeing if there is a decent way to get from Paris to Füssen without going through Munich first, then do Munich next, again to simplify things. I didn't bother to look up train connections. You can do that. It may be that going through Munich is the only rational choice. If that is the case, I would consider dropping Füssen to avoid that LONG day trip and to redirect that day to Munich. Rothenburg does not need two nights unless you are spending the day in between in Nürnberg (we are in July). Roth. is a good 4-6 hour stop, not more.

I am a little concerned that your trip does not end with a "bang". Would it be possible to fly home from Berlin and spend a day there?

For what it's worth, I used to be a band director. I took kids to Toronto and Chicago, but never overseas. A performing group traveling is a bit different as they all need to be together for peformances and there are instruments & equipment to haul around, too. A director friend of mine chaparoned a huge performance tour last summer that lasted just 15 days and cost $4200 per student. 250 kids & 6 coach-style busses everywhere they went.

I would agree with those who voiced reservations about sending their children on a trip like this. And this is not an indictment of you - I am sure you would plan for everything very well. What worries parents is how well the tour could deal with things that are not planned.

That is why I was so gung-ho earlier about reducing the trip to very small, mostly independent "groups". As a parent, I would feel more comfortable sending my child with a couple of adults I know and a couple of other kids my child knows - all traveling together as a "family", than with a large group. Not to mention the fact that they would have a better travel experience this way and it would be almost certainly a lot cheaper.

I don't disagree with other's suggestion to use a big tour company. But knowing how much more expensive that would be than family travel and how poor a travel experience that would be for those involved - Personally, I would bribe my own child with a trip of their choice to just about anywhere in the world to NOT go on a trip like that.

Sorry, I know that isn't very helpful to you.

By the way, Carcassonne is a waste of time as a mid-day stop. The walls look really cool from the outside, but once you are inside the walls you will be so crushed by tourists you will wonder why the place was supposed to be so special. In the evening the hoards of tourists leave and the magic is apparent. If you cannot stay overnight, don't stop there at all.

Patti...all I can say is good luck. If all you did was price out tours, and say they are more expensive so I can do this on my own, then you didn't work with a custom group travel planner.

Have you contacted airlines about group ticketing? (A group travel planner will get you a better deal because they do this all the time and have agreements with the airlines. They can also price out the cost/time/convenience factor of group train travel vs. group coach travel.

And what about dealing with your 50 people? 17 days is a long time. Both adults and students are going to be tired--very tired. You have them running ragged. Not one day of down time just to recoup? No days for the kids to just be kids and the adults to take a rest. The kids, and adults, will become sick of "culture."

And breaking up into smaller groups may be good logistically, but if one group does something that a couple of people in another group want to do--but they have a chaperone who doesn't like it, you're going to have some really ticked off students.

And what do you do when the weather turns bad, a strike is called, a kid goes missing, a kid gets sick, the chaperones are exhausted, someone losses their money, passport, etc? Or worse, you show up at a hotel/hostel and they don't have enough beds?

What do you do when the adults want time to themselves and get tired of listening to you? They're paying for a trip to Europe and they dont' want to play babysitter 24/7? Or a chaperone grabs his/her own kid to do their own thing?

And I won't even get into travel times.

Yes, it's noble to want to do this. But for someone who has never traveled, done group bookings nor led a group, you're setting yourself up for problems.

Remember the cardinal rule of travel--things go wrong. How are you going to deal with them? One or two traveling, it's easy. Fifty is a different story. And 50 is even different than 20 or 30.

May I suggest talking to the high school band director? If anyone can give you some idea of what it is like to coordinate a large group, it is the band director--assuming your band travels the way mine did. In fact, my first trip to Europe was with my high school orchestra. That involved moving a 70 piece orchestra AND all of the chaperones from place to place. We had chartered buses and in two weeks we travelled through Austria and Germany. It has been almost 30 years, so bear with my foggy memory, LOL! As I recall we went to Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Rothenburg, Freiburg, Lichtenstein and Heidelberg (not necessarily in that order) and we flew in and out of Frankfurt. We actually went to Vienna twice on the trip because we were there for a music festival and had to return as one of the winning orchestras (we came in third) which entitled us to play a concert in the Sofiensaal that was broadcast on local radio. Anyhoo, note that other than traveling to the far side of Austria, most of our travels were to places fairly close together. They also involved our playing concerts in a number of places which only added to the logistical nightmare such a trip could create.

Getting back to the point, band and orchestra directors are good resources for ideas. Also, from my foggy memories, my favorite memories from that trip don't involve very many museums (loved the music museum in Vienna and visiting Schonbrunn Palace, but really enjoyed getting away from the adults and chatting with one of the carriage drivers and going to the Prater).

If I were the parent of one of the students and found out that this was not being planned by an experienced traveler at the very least, my child would not go. So much more than you can imagine could go seriously wrong, as others have noted. I think it's significant that the "experienced travelers" in the group didn't step up to take on this project. On all of my kids' various hand trips and tours, the details (and problems - and there were problems) were handled by a professional company. The itinerary and activities were set by the band director and parents based on suggestions from the company. They had done many such tours and knew what the possibilities were. If you don't get professional help with this you are setting yourself up for a miserable experience - and a lot of ticked off parents and kids. There does have to "be a first time" but it shouldn't involve 30 of someone else's kids.

cont.

Further, the folks who have said to drop Switzerland are wise. On the trip I have been describing, there was an option for staying an extra week (which I signed up for). That is when we got to see Switzerland and consider again how limited our overall traveling was as far as distances. I really think you are being too ambitious with your itinerary. If it were me, I would drop Toledo as well as Luzern and I would do the following: Day 1 Madrid, Day 2 Madrid, Day 3 Madrid/Barcelona, Day 4 Barcelona, Day 5 Barcelona, Day 6 Montpellier, Day 7 Montpellier, Day 8 Paris, Day 9 Paris, Day 10 Paris, Day 11 Caen (Normandy), Day 12 Caen, Day 13 Bacharach, Day 14 Bacharach, Day 15 Rothenburg, Day 16-18 Munich. I haven't done the logistics as far as trains for this, but if the train schedules are good, this just seems more logical to me.

Finally, the part of the trip I hated the most--having to get up early each morning after a long day of sightseeing the day before and then waiting on the stragglers. We spent most of our time on the buses sleeping.

I forgot to add that I would fly out of Munich rather than Frankfurt and Carcassonne would be a "lunch" stop on the way to Montpellier.