Following the Equator | EF's Educational Travel Blog

Top 10 tips to get Life on Tour votes

There’s less than a week left to audition (bit.ly/EFcasting) for the third season of EF’s reality travel series, Life on Tour. Jeruska Lugo, the winner of last year’s Life on Tour Facebook vote-off, has some tips on how she was able to win a huge majority of votes. If you’re looking to guarantee a casting interview with producers, check out Jeru's advice:

I remember how stressed out I was when I was auditioning for Life on Tour. Yes, it was such a stress; I needed to get a certain amount of votes in an indicated time. So, I want to help those auditioning for Season 3 and give you guys the top 10 tips to get votes:

1. Post the link to your video on your Facebook status.
2. Tell ALL of your Facebook friends online on the chat to vote, and make sure they vote. (Don’t be shy—stalk their profile and check if they really voted! lol)
3. Tell the friends of your friends to vote.
4. If you really, really want to win, take your laptop to your school and tell people to vote from your computer. That way, you really make sure they voted. ;)
5. Tell people from your mommy and daddy’s work to VOTE FOR YOU.
6. Involve your entire family in this.
7. Don’t limit yourself to Facebook—post it on your Skype, MySpace, Twitter, etc.
8. Add everyone you know on Facebook and make them vote. If you want to win, SPREAD THE WORD!
9. Stay on your computer day and night … literally! lol
10. JUST BELIEVE IN YOU!!!!!

Submit your audition video for Life on Tour casting at bit.ly/EFcasting, and be sure to get the word out about voting. But, remember, EF is considering all submissions, regardless of vote totals.

Apply for EF's Global Citizen Scholarship by March 1

Are you prepared for the demands of the 21^st century?

Do you want to travel on a free educational tour to China with other students from across the globe?

EF’s Global Citizen Scholarship program unites students around the world by breaking down language, cultural and geographical barriers. Our scholarship recipients enjoy the opportunity of a lifetime: a free educational tour to China designed to develop cross-cultural communication and promote cultural exchange.

EF is giving away 10 scholarships to current sophomores and juniors. All you have to do is watch a video on our website and prepare an essay response to the following prompt:

“As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, cross-cultural skills, communication, innovation and critical thinking are becoming more important than ever before. How could spending 14,000 minutes of your life on a  tour to China equip you with these skills or others? By refining these skills, what future opportunities could become available to you?”

Enter by March 1, 2010.

For more information, visit 
eftours.com/GlobalCitizen or call 1.800.665.5364.

Our 10 Best of 2009

Thank you to everyone for reading, sharing and supporting Following the Equator in 2009. We sure enjoyed posting great stories, facts, tips and profiles about educational travel and the group leaders who make it possible.

We're already planning some exciting new things for 2010. Most of all, though, we want to hear from you. What do you want to read and see on this blog—more interviews with teachers, more amazing travel photos, more fundraising and recruiting ideas, more tidbits about the things to see and do on tour? Let us know at equator@ef.com.

As we look ahead to an exciting year of travel in 2010, we thought we'd take a quick look back at a successful 2009 and our 10 favorite blog posts of the year. Feel free to post your own comments below.

So you think you can dance?

Imagine 400 dancers in four countries choreographed to the same song at the same time on the same day. That's what EF Education First accomplished Saturday.

Working with Ambra Succi from Bounce Streetdance Company, a popular Swedish dance company, EF coordinated dancers in Copenhagen, Denmark; Helsinki, Finland; Oslo, Norway; and Stockholm, Sweden, to simultaneously break into the same dance routine at precisely 1 p.m. December 19.

So you think you can dance like that? The flashmob performance is promoting the EF Dance Off contest, sponsored by the EF Language Travel division of EF Education First, the world leader in international education. To learn more, visit the official site at www.ef.com/dance.

To see more videos, visit the official EF Dance Off channel on YouTube.

What are you doing next summer?

EF's experienced group leaders will be cruising the Norwegian fjords, swimming in the Dead Sea, experimenting in a Tuscan cooking class and exploring the Great Barrier Reef. And it's not too late to join them.

There is still time for EF Group Leaders* to enroll on EF's Teacher Convention Tours for next summer.

EF's Teacher Convention Tours, offered through our Global Rewards program, give experienced EF Group Leaders unprecedented opportunities to explore the world's most amazing destinations with fellow educators.

The summer 2010 tours still open for enrollment are:

$200 discount on 2011 tours with EF

It's not too early to begin planning a 2011 educational tour, and EF is giving student travelers a huge reason to get started now.

We don't normally post promotional offers on this blog, but this one is just too big to pass up:

All participants who enroll on a 2011 tour with EF Educational Tours by December 15, 2009, will receive a $200 discount on their tour's Program Fee.^*

That's right: $200 off! Just for signing up now for your 2011 tour.

Here's how to start taking advantage of EF's biggest discount ever:

• If you're a teacher, you can call an EF Tour Consultant at 1-800-637-8222, or you can start planning online.
• If you're a student, find out if there's a teacher at your school who travels with EF, or you can start a tour at your school.

For more information about EF Educational Tours, visit eftours.com or call 1-800-637-8222. Or post your questions or comments below.

* Terms and conditions apply.

EF Teacher Convention Tours

Imagine celebrating New Year's with the Moai on Easter Island or floating in the Dead Sea or snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef.

Many of EF's experienced group leaders won't just be imagining those dream travel experiences in 2010, they'll be living them.

EF's Teacher Convention Tours—offered through our Global Rewards program—give experienced EF Group Leaders unprecedented opportunities to explore the world's most amazing destinations with fellow educators.

There is still plenty of time for EF Group Leaders* to enroll on our 2010 convention tours. There are 10 different tours, including three over this New Year's, one in January and six next July:

Focus On: Ted Kennedy's visit to EF

Senator Edward M. Kennedy's passing last week made the selection of this week's post an easy one.

On September 26, 2000, Senator Kennedy visited EF Education to take part in the dedication ceremony of a huge, 12-foot-high slab of the Berlin Wall placed just outside the doors of EF's U.S. headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts (local news accounts of it are here and here). Kennedy spoke of his brother's reaction in 1961 to the construction of the wall, and, of course, of the famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech that his brother delivered in Berlin in 1963.

I was working in EF's European headquarters in Amsterdam at the time, so I could not be among the hundreds of EF staff in attendance on that sunny day. But all of us in the Amsterdam office — Americans and Europeans alike — huddled around a projector to see a live (if not very "streaming" — this was only 2000) webcast of the event.

Thanks, Ted, for dedicating our piece of the Berlin Wall, and lending your heft to establishing it as an everlasting symbol of EF's mission to break down barriers of language, culture and geography.

And thanks for your decades of perseverance, achievement, public service and concern for others. They make for a fine formula to pursue both before and after barriers fall. Godspeed.

Life on Tour on Twitter

The highly anticipated second season of Life on Tour—EF's reality travel series—begins filming tomorrow in Spain, and you can follow along on Twitter.

Life on Tour follows the adventures of seven high school students on their educational tour throughout Spain and Morocco. The tour itinerary was specially created for the group by EF Tour Director Steve Hart and is sure to include several surprises along the way.

The reality series will debut online this fall, but you can follow filming for the next week and a half on Twitter. EF staff members will be posting behind-the-scenes update on the official Life on Tour page at @LifeOnTourTV, and Steve Hart will be tweeting at @stevehart2.

There also may be tweets from the student cast members. To catch all of the action on Twitter (and even participate in the conversations), be sure to search for (and use) the hashtag #LOTtv on Twitter.

For more about Life on Tour, check out the LOT fan page on Facebook and watch the entire first season. Also, be sure to follow @EFtours on Twitter and become a fan of EF Tours on Faceook.

The Best of May and June

It's been a busy couple of months, resulting in fewer posts than normal. But May and June were particularly exciting months because we announced the winners of EF's photo and video contests and we followed EF's Global Citizens tour on Twitter.

Thanks for reading our educational travel blog. As always, I encourage you to comment on any post, share posts on Facebook or any social-media site and subscribe to our RSS feed. Plus, if you're on Twitter, be sure to follow us @EFtours.

Follow EF's Global Citizens on Twitter

EF's Global Citizens become world travelers next week.

Ten inspiring U.S. high school students were selected to receive tour scholarships through EF's annual Global Citizens essay contest. These outstanding Global Citizens depart this weekend on an incredible educational tour to Berlin, Prague, Munich and Lucerne.

The best part is that you can follow along on Twitter. Each day on tour, a different Global Citizen will tweet about their experiences. You can follow them at twitter.com/efglobalcitizen.

EF Tour Director Alex Luther—a Germany native and good friend of Following the Equator—may occasionally be tweeting during the tour, as well. You can follow Alex at twitter.com/AlexLuther.

Video contest winner

Sean Briare has been a world traveler since age 6, which has given him not only a lifetime of experiences but also a ton of video footage.

For his creativity, effort and enthusiasm, Sean—a high school junior from Clackamas, Oregon—was selected as the winner of EF's student video contest. As the grand-prize winner, Sean will receive an iPod Touch. Check out EF's student photo contest winners: Donnie Morrow, who won the destination competition; and Kayla Bess, who won the friends competition.

Sean first heard about EF's video contest from his father, William, who is a longtime EF Group Leader. Sean always joins his father on tour, so he knew he had a lot of experiences to draw upon.