Student travel tours to New York City are once again popular. There is so much to see in New York City, that a three to four day educational tour needs to include the highlights. Naturally, educators are interested in visiting sites with historical, cultural, economic and social significance.

Students are thrilled by the opportunity to see the famous sites such as the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, Harlem, and The Empire State Building.� Yet they are also seeking deeper experiences in New York City, too.

For many students traveling from other areas of the country besides the East Coast this may be their only chance to visit New York City, and they want to see a Broadway musical on this trip. To order Broadway musical tickets for a large group who must be seated close together, advance planning is required. Student travel trips with a Broadway musical on the itinerary should be planning already for 2008 trips.

Educators planning student tours of New York City through Educational Travel Consultants can focus the trip on specific subjects and activities:

An Art Tour of New York City is a great idea for a class interested in creative endeavors.� This tour would include a visit to the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as a visit to other prominent art collections housed in New York City, a visit to Greenwich Village, and a guided tour of Manhattan.

A Performance Tour would include a performance by the group at an adjudicated music festival or at Carnegie Hall or another venue, an NBC Studios Tour, a Broadway Show, and guided tours of New York City and the Statue of Liberty.

Educational Travel Consultants also has a special trip to the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City.� Advance application is required for this student travel experience.� � Please contact a member of our professional team here at Educational Travel Consultants to request a form.

Educators and other individuals may also inquire about another type of educational travel trip to New York City — a standard package that includes many of the historical highlights.� Educational Travel Consultants provides security at night for students, professional tour guides, and great affordable trips to make the student travel experience, safe, unique and fun.
Technorati Profile

Nothing makes a student in orchestra, high school band, dance, or drama happier than the opportunity to perform in front of a live audience.� The great news about scheduling a performance tour to Orlando Florida is that student performers may have the once in a lifetime opportunity of performing in front of an international audience.

The prospect of a performance tour with this opportunity gets children fired up about the educational travel experience. Their practice sessions become more focused leading up to the Florida field trip.� Students care about polishing their technique and style for performance tours, and the collaboration leading towards the goal of performing at Disney World is good for them, too.

When visiting Orlando Florida with student travel groups, the most exciting part for me to watch is when students interact with professional Disney World performers in the workshops.� Not only are students in awe of the professionals at Disney World, they begin to have a keen understanding that performers have jobs in the real world. They are inspired to consider the possibility of becoming a professional performer.

Educational Travel Consultants has a special focus in providing the highest quality student performance tours to educational travel groups.� We have been developing student performance tours for 24 years and we know what gets students excited.

To inquire about a special performance tour or an adjudicated festival performance in Orlando Florida, simply call 800-247-7969 and ask one of our professional staff at Educational Travel Consultants for more information.� Or, email info@educationaltravelconsultants.com to request a quote for your student travel group.

There are many criteria that can be imposed on a student travel company to evaluate effectiveness. I will outline the characteristics that I feel are most important to a quality student travel experience, no matter what the destination.

Experience in Educational Student Tours
Educational group travel is a special field. It is unlike other niches in the travel industry for many reasons. Students must be chaperoned, supervised, kept on schedule, and provided fun and entertaining things to do that are age appropriate. Educational Travel Consultants have 24 years of experience in booking student tours. We understand parent’s concerns. We know how to create itineraries that are in sync with educator’s objectives. Most importantly, ETC associates understand that the educational experiences students receive on visits to Washington D.C., Orlando, Florida, New York City and other destinations must be balanced with social opportunities and chances to dine, shop, and visit interesting sites.

A Background in Education
An excellent student travel company will have owners or members of the management team who have spent some years in the field of education. This is an excellent professional foundation for creating an exciting student travel experience. If key players in the student travel company have spent years in education, they will not only understand the teacher’s and parent’s perspectives of student travel, but will also know how to appeal to students while developing and executing student tours. I started out in the field of teaching and moved into educational travel, because I enjoy student travel so much more.

Security for Students While Traveling
For many parents, the thought of letting a child go away on a school field trip is a bit disconcerting. There are many things parents have to fear in the age of terrorism and child abductions. The unforeseen, such as accidents, travel delays, and miscommunications are possibilities as well. A qualified student travel company with excellent customer service will have liability insurance for unforeseen events, good communications about travel delays and other challenges, and be available to answer questions.

Keeping students secure is a challenge in some urban areas. Educational Travel Consultants selects safe suburban hotels for accommodations. The hotels selected have indoor hallways. An experienced educational travel company will make certain that children are supervised around the clock. In the evenings, after meals, Educational Travel Consultants provides private security for its groups.

In conclusion, an educational travel company should have an extensive background in student travel, some background in education, excellent communication and customer relations, and security procedures in place for student safety. Feel free to contact us at info@educationaltravelconsultants.com.

I always heard that the Tampa Bay area of Florida was the lightening capital of the United States. More days of lightening per year than any other place. Well, lately it’s our home office in Hendersonville, North Carolina. It may be hot from Washington, DC to Florida across to Arizona, but the active weather seems to be in my town. What’s really strange was that we didn’t get a drop of rain from the last storm, yet the lightening strikes (about 2 miles away) reached our office and “popped” our surge protectors, blew out 2 computers, and a router which took us off the internet. I now know how far lightening can travel (pretty darn far). This handicap lasted about 2 days. I never knew I was so dependent on the internet till I had no internet. All is well now.

My wife and I were in Mexico this past week (as we do mission work across the border in Matamoros, Mexico). We were to board our flight at 4:00pm yesterday for a simple 1 hour flight to Houston to then connect to our last flight to Asheville, NC. Our incoming plane was delayed because of mechanical problems. By the time it got to Brownsville (over 2 hours late) we would now miss our connection (which was the final flight of the day) back home. We decided to still go on to Houston and get one flight out of the way, spend the night in a Houston hotel, and fly the final leg today.

So we boarded the plane and left Brownsville at 6:30pm. Just before landing in Houston, our pilot informed us that a severe thunder storm decided to sit over the airport, and the airport was now closed. The pilot said we had extra fuel so we could circle for awhile. Well, after an hour of circling (and the airport still closed) we were running low on fuel, and now had to be diverted to San Antonio to take on fuel. We landed in San Antonio at 9:30pm. As we were fueling, our pilot got on the speaker and said, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Houston airport is now open. The bad news is that this flight crew has now exceeded our legal flying time for the day. So we will have to have you deplane here and get on another jet. (There were already about a dozen other jets that also had to divert to San Antonio because they were also low on fuel). So we got on another jet and finally 5 hours after leaving Brownsville, we got to Houston. We were supposed to be home last night by 10:30pm. We got home today around 9:00pm. Oh yeah, we also had to fly into another airport (Greenville) and get a ride home (65 miles) instead of the 10 miles it would have been from Asheville airport. The end result is we got home about 24 hours late and with more flights and stops then we had ever planned on.

After about one week of having to adjust to Orange Level restrictions (nuisances), most everyone has adjusted to not being able to take drinks onboard a plane or bringing things on like liquids or gels, or chap stick, or make up. Even in the toughest airport, Washington, DC Reagan National Airport (because of the proximity to government sensitive areas), things are pretty much normal again. A poll was recently conducted after the latest terrorist scare and the question was, ” Are you very scared to travel/fly?” 23% of the respondents said yes. What is interesting to note is that that is the same identical percentage that responded the same way one year after the 9/11 terrorist attack. This means we are not letting scare tactics bother us the way they used to (at least in this case.).