Traveling School Style

Throughout the semester many trips are made and gone on.  Harlaxton College offers many unique opportunities for us students.  I have taken five trips with the school and they were to London, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Ireland, North Wales and Paris.  It is nice to travel independently yes but at times it is also nice for everything to be planned out for you.  The school trips cover the cost of transportation to your destination, lodging, and some sites to visit while at your destination.  

My favorite school trip had to be to North Wales.  I loved the mountains and the overall beauty of this magical place.  If you were to have one painting in your home and it could be from any place in the world?  I would say paint me a scene from North Wales.  Having a hotel right along the coast was inspiring.  It took on a new form of life to see what people do on a coast compared to a city format.  If you were doing independent traveling it would have been difficult to have a good deal on a coast line hotel.

The school can offer students some great experiences since we have a large group going.  Discounts are made on groups, and they may offer a bonus since we have so many people.  There would be no way independent travelers could be offered those deals.  An example of this was when the school went to Liverpool for a day.  We were able to get into the Beatles museum before a large sum of individual travelers.  This was very nice for us since we were taken out of the equation to wait in line for about an hour. 

Transportation is not cheap anywhere.  When you have a bus with 50 other people it becomes fairly cheap.  I know on a good day a trip to London and another destination could be about 25 pounds compared to 7.5 pounds on a bus.  

There are flaws as well.  People might not be able to go to everywhere they would like or spend how much time they want in a particular place due to what the school has scheduled.  

With every trip there are good times and bad times.  Traveling with the school I believe is an equal opportunity for students to take advantage of having a lot of planning done for them.  The school costs are not that bad either.  In my opinion they make it simple for a student to get on bus, plane or train and arrive at their destination with little worries. 

-Justin Lang