Spring Break Past, Campus Buzz Turns to Trips Abroad

Right about now, on campuses across the country, teachers and teenagers are making final arrangements for a life-changing adventure: a school trip abroad that will introduce students to the world outside the United States.

More than 140,000 high-school students make such journeys every year, often on tours that feature teachers as chaperons for busloads of 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds.

If you are a parent, you may or may not be encouraged by this idea. On the downside, there is the price and the idea of your teenager wandering a strange nation without you. On the upside, there’s nothing like a foreign experience to stimulate an interest in the world beyond high school.

Even if that exciting prospect overpowers a family’s concerns about money and distance, there’s still a key question: Whom can you trust to run such a trip?

There are many reliable companies in the business of student tours, but several industry veterans say the following three stand out as the largest and most experienced. (In each case, the company generally enlists teachers to recruit students and organize trips and doesn’t deal directly with students’ families.)

The American Council for International Studies (Southern California office: 2811 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 707, Santa Monica, 90403; telephone [800] 325-1293) is a Boston-based company that has handled school-group travel since 1978. Booking an estimated 35,000 students yearly, the company stages most of its tours in Europe, but it also goes to Central America and Australia, among other destinations.

One of the most popular ACIS tours is “Bell’ Italia,” a voyage to Rome (three nights), Florence (two nights) and Venice (two nights). The summer price, including round-trip fare from LAX, lodging (three to a room), ground transportation, breakfasts and dinners, is $1,839 to $1,879.

Peter Jones, managing director of ACIS, notes that Italy, always popular, has been getting even more so, and that fewer students are taking trips longer than two weeks. Nine-day itineraries are the most common, Jones says. The company’s Internet address is https://www.acis.com.

The Cultural Heritage Alliance (107-115 S. 2nd St., Philadelphia, PA 19106) is a 29-year-old company that was founded by two foreign-language teachers in Philadelphia’s public schools. Now booking more than 45,000 American students yearly and maintaining offices in London, Paris and Rome, the firm sends groups to Europe, Mexico, Central America and Asia. It also arranges some educational cruises.

“We’re getting more interest in China now,” says sales manager Mort O’Shea. “And Australia has come up very big in the last couple of years.”

One of the company’s most popular tours is a 10-day London and the Theater itinerary that includes round-trip air fare, land transportation, lodging, breakfasts, dinners, three shows and side trips to Stratford-upon-Avon, Windsor Castle, Canterbury and Dover. Summer prices run $1,549 to $1,619 for departures from Los Angeles.

EF Educational Tours, a division of a for-profit, Swedish-owned parent company, has been specializing in high-school tour groups since 1980. Headquartered in Massachusetts (EF Institute for Cultural Exchange, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142; tel. [800] 637-8222), Educational Tours offers about 100 different itineraries to Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Phil Simon, a Santa Barbara-based regional director for the company, estimates that it booked about 60,000 American and Canadian students in 1996. Some tours serve clients as old as 25.

One of the company’s most popular itineraries is a 12-day England-France-Italy package that this summer runs about $1,875 per person, including air fare, lodging, ground transportation, breakfast and dinners; taxes are extra. Students spend two nights in London, two nights in Paris, ride an overnight train to Florence, spend a night in Florence, a night in Sorrento and three nights in Rome. Lodgings are in hotels, where students typically sleep three or four beds to a room.

EF Educational Tours also has a sibling company that specializes in trips for school performing arts groups, another specializing in sports groups, and yet another that runs tours within the U.S., most often to Washington, D.C., New York and Boston. The company’s Internet address is https://www.eftours.com.

Though Europe remains the company’s most popular destination, horizons have been widening in recent years.

“A couple of years ago, very few people traveled to Costa Rica. But Costa Rica is now a very common destination for student groups,” Simon says. “And this year, for the first time, we had a South Africa tour in our brochure.”

Another useful resource for student travelers is the annual advisory list of international educational travel and exchange programs published by the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel. The council, a nonprofit group founded in 1984, focuses on programs lasting one semester or a year. (The council’s current address is 3 Loudoun St. S.E., Leesburg, VA 22075; tel. [703] 771-2040. But the group plans a move to Alexandria in June.) Its 1996-’97 directory, which costs $10, includes about 60 organizations in 138 pages.

Reynolds travels anonymously at the newspaper’s expense, accepting no special discounts or subsidized trips. He welcomes comments and suggestions, but cannot respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053 or e-mail chris.reynolds@latimes.com.