
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.
Continue reading "15 photos of the Eiffel Tower" »

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.
Continue reading "Group Leader Spotlight: Maria and Corey Lumpkin" »
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!
Continue reading "Double your donations with one small step" »
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).
Continue reading "Focus On: Vimy Ridge" »

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.
Continue reading "Group Leader Spotlight: Carolyn Sanders" »

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.
Continue reading "Earth-friendly fundraising" »
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.
Continue reading "Focus On: Puerto Lápice (of Don Quixote fame)" »
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