Following the Equator | EF's Educational Travel Blog

15 photos of the Eiffel Tower

It's not the world's most photographed landmark for nothing.

The Eiffel Tower—which, not surprisingly, just earned that distinction in a recent Cornell University analysis of 35 million images on Flickr—rarely takes a bad picture.

The EF Tours group on Flickr certainly contributes to the iconic landmark's landmark designation. More than three dozen photos submitted to the EF Tours pool are of the Eiffel Tower, accounting for more than 6 percent of all photos in the group. And that doesn't include photos from the tower.

Group Leader Spotlight: Maria and Corey Lumpkin

Maria Lumpkin is the Director of Student Life and Engagement at Spelman College. Her husband, Corey, is the Program Manager of the Public Health Sciences Institute at Morehouse College. Together, they take students all over the world with EF College Study Tours.

Spelman and Morehouse colleges are part of the largest consortium of historically black institutions of higher learning in the world. Corey has taught courses in public health and health-care administration at the collegiate level. Maria has lectured in leadership and urban education administration.

On their next educational adventure, Maria and Corey (pictured above on their last EF tour to Egypt) are traveling with students to Japan. In the Group Leader Spotlight, Maria talks about providing travel opportunities to their students, how to recruit travelers and her ideal convention destination.

Last chance for Life on Tour auditions

Tomorrow is the deadline for students to submit audition videos for EF's reality travel series, Life on Tour.

EF Educational Tours is casting six high school students to travel on an educational tour to Europe this summer and star in the second season of Life on Tour. Students just need to submit a two-minute video introducing themselves and explaining why they want to travel abroad.

All video submissions should be uploaded to EF's Casting Call on Facebook by the end of the day tomorrow, April 30. On Facebook, you also can cast your vote for your favorites until May 31.

For more about Life on Tour, check out:

• Life on Tour's entire first season
• EF's Casting Call on Facebook
• Blog posts about Life on Tour

Double your donations with one small step

Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? But it really is that simple.

If you're raising money for your educational tour, just ask each of your donors if his or her employer has a charity matching program. If so, it usually takes only one simple form to double your donations.

Many corporations have a charitable gifts matching program, where they will match donations dollar for dollar. Check out MatchingGifts.com for a partial list of employers with a charitable-matching program. However, just because a company isn't listed doesn't mean it doesn't have one, so be sure your donors double-check with their human resources departments. This money is already allocated in the company's budget, so it is basically free money for your group!

Focus On: Vimy Ridge

Two Aprils ago, thousands of high school students from Canada converged on a sloping field to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, where a Canadian expeditionary force defeated a German defensive line in northeast France in World War I. It was an outstanding victory for allied forces fighting Germany and remains to this day a watershed event showcasing Canadian spirit and sacrifice.

I was an EF Tour Director for a group from Georgian Bay in Ontario going to Vimy. On April 9, we filed onto the battlefield and took our place in front of the Vimy Memorial, a stone structure that is at once hulking and soaring, with the best capturing of sadness that I've ever seen in a towering outdoor statue (it's Mother Canada, mourning her lost countrymen). 

Friday Fun Fact: San Marino

San Marino may be mighty small, but its history is mighty impressive.

The landlocked country—completely surrounded by Italy—comprises just 23.5 square miles, making it the third smallest country in Europe. Only Vatican City and Monaco are smaller.

However, San Marino—founded on September 3, 301—remains the world's oldest sovereign state and constitutional republic. In fact, the Constitution of San Marino, which dates back to 1600, is the world's oldest, functioning constitution.

Photo: fdecomite via Flickr (CC license)

Photo of the Week: Venice canal

There are few more picturesque locales than the canals of Venice, as this photo taken last month proves.

The colors, the water, the gondola, the gondolier, the flowers, even the bridge in the background make this photo—submitted to the EF Tours group on Flickr by SRogersPhotography—look like a Venetian postcard.

If you have your own postcard-worthy travel photos, please submit them to the EF Tours pool on Flickr. We choose a new Photo of the Week every Thursday.

Photo: SRogersPhotography via Flickr (EF Tours pool)

Submit your Life on Tour casting video now

There's one week left for students to submit casting videos for the second season of EF's reality travel series,
Life on Tour.

EF Educational Tours is looking for the next student stars of its online series, which will film in Europe this summer. Students should submit their own casting videos—two minutes in length, describing themselves and why they want to travel abroad.

All videos should be submitted through EF's fan page on Facebook. The deadline is Thursday, April 30. You also can watch other video submissions and vote for your favorites.

Once the deadline passes and voting ends, EF will cast six students to travel on a free educational tour to Europe and star in Life on Tour.

To find out more about Life on Tour, check out:

• Life on Tour's entire first season
• EF's Casting Call on Facebook
• Blog posts about Life on Tour

New look for EF College Study Tours

EF College Study Tours launched its redesigned website this week, and it's a thing of beauty.

The new-look site at efcollegestudytours.com helps college professors and students start planning their short-term study abroad tours anywhere in the world. The updated site makes it easier for professors to browse more than 30 tours by region, create customized itineraries and generate automatic price quotes. Plus, enrolled travelers can more easily access their accounts and learn more about their destinations.

The site also has a sharp new design and color palette to complement the EF College Study Tours brand.

We'd love to hear what you think about the new EF College Study Tours site. Please let us know in the comments section below.

Group Leader Spotlight: Carolyn Sanders

With 15 EF tours and nine convention tours under her belt, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Carolyn Sanders, a physical education teacher at Bill Reed Middle School in Loveland, Colorado, has visited 40 countries with EF.

Besides traveling to every continent (yes, she used her EF Global Points to take a trip to Antarctica!), she’s also met some of her closest friends through EF.

In the Group Leader Spotlight, Carolyn recaps some of her favorite travel adventures and talks about how she and some other EF Group Leaders once created their own EF convention to Thunder Bay, Canada.

Earth-friendly fundraising

Lend a helping hand while raising money for your educational tour! Seek out an opportunity to help spruce up your community's public spaces. Some ideas include:

• Clean up a local park, alongside a busy travel route or even after town celebrations.
• Help bring new life to a public outdoor space by planting flowers and trees.
• Prepare the local ball fields, especially if they need a quick turnaround between games.

There are a couple of ways to approach this type of fundraising:

• You can ask a sponsoring organization to pay your group for your time and services and put that money toward your tour.
• You also can seek pledges for hours worked or trash bags collected to supplement your earnings.

Focus On: Puerto Lápice (of Don Quixote fame)

As the name already suggests, Miguel de Cervantes' legendary book, Don Quixote de La Mancha (published in 1605) was set on the windswept and sparsely populated plateau region called Castilla-La Mancha. 

There on La Mancha, Don Quixote—a delusional old man who's lost his mind from reading too many books on chivalry—goes to battle to defend the honor of a princess called Dulcinea. But Dulcinea isn't really a princess—she's a farm girl. The enemies Don Quixote battles aren't really giants—they're windmills. And what Don Quixote thinks are castles aren't really castles—they're roadside inns.

But La Mancha is really La Mancha, even four centuries later. The landscape of La Mancha that served as Cervantes' backdrop hasn't changed all that much in 400 years. Castilla-La Mancha remains Spain's least populated region, and EF groups passing through can see authentic windmills of Cervantes' time along the horizon.