Following the Equator | EF's Educational Travel Blog

EF Group Leader Spotlight: Gail Ingram

High school history teacher Gail Ingram has made a career out of bringing the world to her small South Carolina town of Cheraw—and, more importantly, of showing her students the world on her educational tours.

Gail is a longtime EF Group Leader, a frequent mentor to new group leaders and a regular presenter on EF's Free International Training Tours. Gail also has won two national teaching award from National History Day, including the Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year Award this year.

Now, we are honored to have Gail join us here as a regular contributor to Following the Equator. Gail—pictured above with her daughter, Ruth, on tour this summer in Scotland—has a lot of wonderful stories and valuable advice to share, plus she's got a terrific sense of humor. So, in recognition of her joining our blog team, we'd like to introduce her in the Group Leader Spotlight.

Finding new favorites in Europe

By Christina Harsanyi | EF copywriter

One of the most enjoyable parts of my job has always been researching all of the interesting destinations students can travel on an EF educational tour, so when it came time to plan my own European tour, I had plenty of ideas. And finally, I had the time to do some exploring.

Six countries and three-and-a-half weeks later, I’ve returned home with a few new favorite places and a strong desire to pack my life’s possessions into a backpack and live a nomadic life for the next few years.

Split, Croatia

By the time we made it to the charming coastal city of Split, Croatia (above), we had a sightseeing system in place: read about our next destination while in transit and then hit the ground running. So I was a little surprised that despite looking in a couple of guidebooks, I couldn’t find any opening hours for Diocletian’s Palace. I also couldn’t quite figure out why the lady running our guesthouse gave me a funny look when I asked her what time the palace closed. When we did venture to Diocletian’s Palace (right), I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was not a palace in the traditional sense at all.

Emperor Diocletian built the palace in preparation for his retirement in the 3rd century. After his death, the palace remained empty for a few centuries, but since then the residents of Split have created an entire community out of its remains. Although the basement is preserved as a museum, other sections have been converted into apartments, restaurants, businesses and even a church. The dichotomy of old and new was ever present between the Roman artifacts scattered around the palace and the clothing stores selling the latest European fashions. For the first time ever, I checked my email at an Internet café housed in an old palace room.

Mostar, Bosnia

One of the benefits of traveling to Croatia (besides the historical sites, gorgeous beaches, delicious seafood and friendly people) is the ease of traveling to nearby countries. And as someone who aspires one day to be part of the Travelers’ Century Club, I took advantage of the opportunity to take a day-trip to Mostar, Bosnia. The main attraction of the town is the Old Bridge (Stari Most), which was built by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. The bridge (right) connected the two parts of the city, divided by the Neretva River, for more than 400 years before it was destroyed during the war in 1993. Restored by UNESCO, the Old Bridge is a symbol of the coexistence of religious, cultural and ethnic communities.

A Muslim Bosnian woman (married to a Catholic man) explained the significance of the bridge as such: Prior to the war, the Old City was a melting pot of different religious and ethnic groups. After the war, groups were divided by religious lines and depending on your religion, you were often forced to move to one side of the river or the other. The destruction of the bridge symbolized the destruction of the multicultural community. She described the sadness of being prevented from visiting family members practicing different religions and the slow process of reconciliation as the area tries to rebuild after the war. Listening to her experiences was one of the most poignant history lessons I have had in a long time, and a good reminder that one of the most educational aspects of traveling is simply interacting with and learning from the local people.

Stonehenge, England

You’ll find Stonehenge on many EF tours to the United Kingdom, which convinced me that I should check it out, too. Conveniently enough, I have a friend who lives nearby so a free place to stay certainly sealed the deal. The circle of stones, which evolved between 3,000 B.C. and 1,600 B.C., is shrouded in mystery. Stonehenge could have been a place for sun worship, a burial site, a healing center or even a large calendar. Even more mysterious is how the stones, the largest of which weighs 45 tons, were transported to their current location from Wales. Archaeologists agree that it would have been very difficult to transport such large stones more than 100 miles. As a result, some theorists believe it was constructed by the Wizard Merlin or even the devil.

Budapest, Hungary

Like our resident expert tour director, Paul Mattesini, who wrote about students traveling to Central Europe, I too recommend a visit, especially to Hungary. Given, I may be a bit biased because my family is from Budapest. My visit to Hungary, the final stop on my trip, was all too short, but I did manage to canvas the city in the few days that I was there.

I will leave you with a few recommendations: Make sure to visit the neoclassical St. Stephen’s Basilica. Besides being quite pretty, the church holds the right hand of King Stephen, the first Christian king of Hungary and patron saint of the basilica. Those who like classical music may enjoy a visit to the Béla Bartók house. The museum is the final Hungarian home of the composer and displays a variety of artifacts from his career. Ask your EF Tour Director to help you arrange a visit here during your free time. Finally, for great views of the city at night, visit the Fisherman’s Bastion. It’s free to climb to the top in the evening.

Back in Boston, as I am sifting through photos from my trip, I’m reminded of a sign I saw in Croatia. Posted near the house of Marco Polo, it read: "Old is nice" (perhaps, the European equivalent of America’s "Bigger is better"). Many of the "old" places I saw were indeed quite nice, and having been home for a few weeks, I’m ready to hit the road again. After all, if I’m going to make it to the Travelers' Century Club, I have many more countries to explore.

How to navigate three exceptional art galleries

By Paul Mattesini | EF Tour Director

A tour director friend of mine just finished a London, Paris and Madrid tour. Quite a super trip to go on, and one that offers a chance to visit three exceptional galleries. EF tours are busy places; sometimes a visit to a sight can be limited in scope due to the huge range of other great places to get to in a city. It seems a shame to lose some time coming to terms with what a museum has to offer and what you might want to see while standing, clutching your ticket, in the doorway.

Fortunately, the British Museum, Louvre and Prado all offer some great online help for you to do a little pre-tour planning.

Although not included in the actual tour, London’s British Museum is free of charge to enter (great price) and open until 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays, making it an outstanding choice for free time. In 2010, BBC Radio 4 has been running a superb "History of the World in 100 Objects" series in conjunction with the museum, and this offers a chance to get a great overview of the range and depth of exhibits on offer. Maximize your time and make use of the museum’s sheets offering the best way to spend one or three hours at the museum. Make sure to have a look inside the reading room, restored in the late 20th century and now available for all to visit. Around the museum, the neighborhood of Bloomsbury is a relaxing place to get lunch or just enjoy the atmosphere.

Meanwhile in Paris, one of the great ways to enter the Louvre is via the Carrousel. Your EF Tour Director can lead you to this point, having first given you some time to see the large glass pyramid (above) and courtyard as well as views of Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe through the small arch. Heading down some stairs, you immediately see some of the original fortification walls and the inverted pyramid. Your tour director can point you toward the information desk (free floor plans available) and entrance to the three main galleries. I would suggest heading up the stairs toward Sully and all the way to the end of the corridor. Going down some steps, you will walk through parts of the old fortifications. Where do you go from here? Well, the Louvre website offers some great self-guided routes that you can follow, each of them 90 minutes.

The Prado in Madrid, located close to the Ritz hotel, was originally designed to be a natural history museum, so you will find plenty of animal sculptures around the exterior. The museum website has a choice of three self-guided routes to follow around the gallery. Featuring some of the great European art and sculpture, this easily accessible art gallery can be a relaxing treat after the overwhelming size of the Louvre. Also, if you are in the mood, it is only half a mile or so to walk from the Prado to the excellent Reina Sofia gallery (featuring Picasso’s Guernica and so much more).

Photo: Al Ianni via Flickr (CC license)

Summer European Events: Sports, Music and More

Travel, quite often, is about being in any one place at any one time. If you are in any of these places, you might enjoy partaking in some of the following this summer.

Fete de la Musique (Paris, 21st June): This day of free concerts is shared across many cities worldwide, but the idea originated in Paris in the early 1980's. 

Barcelona (Grec) Festival (13th June to 1st August): Enjoy music, theatre and dance performances at a variety of places in the city, but principally at the Grec Theatre (a Greek style amphitheatre), which is located on the side of the Montjuic Hill. The nearby Olympic Stadium will also host the European Athletic Championships in the last week of July, with tickets from as little as $15.

All England Tennis Championships (Wimbledon, London, 21st June to 4th July): One of the four Grand Slams, these matches are the only ones played on grass. Tickets for the main courts in the second week require a lot of luck or cash, or both. However, get there early and line up (queue) for tickets on the outside courts and you will see some top action for sure.

Calcio Storico (Florence, June 24th to 26th): Played on a sand pit in front of the Church of Sante Croce, this annual event is a brutal recreation of the earliest form of soccer. It is a kind of ultimate fighting with a ball in the middle and smoke bombs in the bleachers. If you cannot watch it live, just be around the spectacle to share some of the atmosphere.

Open Air Cinema in Athens: Throughout June and July, almost every neighbourhood will have an open air cinema, showing films in the original language (with Greek subtitles). Most films are shown at 9 p.m., and it is a great way to join some locals for a night out. Your tour director can help you discover what’s showing and where.

A personal favourite, which takes place at the end of May, has been cancelled due to crowd concerns. There will be no (legal) cheese rolling in our part of the world this year. Come back in 2011.

One of my own

In my time with EF, I have been lucky enough to attend many conventions and events where I meet staff from other EF offices. Talking to current staff, I have often heard the opener, "I went on an EF tour in high school." I always asked who the tour director was; it was fun to hear about.

People on tour always say they will stay in touch, and they often do. It is much rarer to run into people outside of another tour. Back in 2000 when I was working in our London office, someone buzzed to come in. She had been on a tour with me in 1993 and now worked for Northwest Airlines and was visiting London. She had found the EF office by chance and was meaning to ask if anyone knew me. In 1998 an ex-participant from a tour was in London working for a year. We met a few times; she developed her support for Arsenal football club and was able to enjoy them winning the championship that season.

Despite such marvellous meetings, none of my own was working for EF, until April of last year. I received an email from Kevin Lynch. He was on tour with me (A Capital Connection) as a student in 2003. I remember his group well. The group leader, Doug Tieszen, was one of the most engaging I have travelled with; few others will spend their first jet-lagged evening in Europe chatting about Kurt Vonnegut with me. A small group (seven plus Doug), they were superb together and so much fun to be around. Kevin sent me a photo with his email, taken outside our London hotel. I remember the hotel, the Blakemore, and the photo. I had, fortunately, forgotten my haircut.

Kevin had left high school and made his way to Denver and EF via college in Idaho and is now working as a regional accounts coordinator. He genuinely shared how travel with EF had made such a difference to him. I am lucky to have been part of it. One of mine, working for EF. I am so proud! Get him on as many conventions as possible; I want Kevin to share his tale with the world!

Helping cheats prosper

I heard a report on English radio last week that said more students than ever are cheating in exams (I took this to mean that more than ever have been caught.). Anyway, I seem to stand alone in seeing this cheating as a good thing. Students are taking electronic devices into exams and using them to call up the facts required. I would like to think they are saying, “I don’t need to memorise all of this stuff; I will always have the facts at hand. Let’s spend more time on concepts.” There is always a place in education for stuffing the well with basic facts; perhaps we don’t need to stuff them so deeply any more.

I thought about this when I sat down to write my first posting for this blog. My first tour was in March 1993. I had a general idea of what was expected, but I had one overriding concern: What do I talk about?

Of course, I could babble on about the sites in as much as I knew them and punctuate the day with nuggets of advice on food, public transport and currencies. But what would I actually talk about? How could I be educational? I stumbled across an idea that has served me well ever since: Talk about what you enjoy. My early tours were littered with commentaries that were not much more than lists of historical events padded out with a few hilarious tales. Subsequently, I realised that I was not offering too much more than could be found in any good history book (and a few bad ones).

So, I adapted. I began to talk less about what I had learned and more of what interests me.  Suddenly, I found myself discussing writers I enjoy and their views on travel. I played classical music to groups, read poetry and went through local newspapers with them. I know most tour directors bring their own interests to the microphone; it is a wonderful liberty we are granted. On tour, local city guides do a first-class job of stuffing the wells of knowledge; I am there to concentrate on concepts. I am excited to introduce new ideas on how we look at the world around us, what it means to be somewhere else, who we are when we travel and why we are that way.

A good friend used to introduce the role of the tour director to potential new recruits as someone who is “different.” Not a teacher, parent, sports coach, employee or any member of an association from home, but a whole new person for students to prod and ask questions of. I revel in that role.

So, if students on my tour take a quiz on the bus, they are welcome to cheat and look up facts. However, they won’t find the answers online to many of the other questions we ask each other during a tour.

Staff Spotlight: Paul Mattesini

Starting next week, Paul Mattesini, one of EF’s best-loved tour directors, will begin posting weekly to Following the Equator. Look for his advice and musings on everything travel-related. In anticipation of his blogging debut, a little bit about Paul:


The early years: I was born and raised in the UK. At the age of 15 I took a break from school and traveled throughout Europe for five years, before returning home and completing night-school leading to the University of London, where I studied history.  


EF career path: I joined EF in 1992, and have since led more than 200 tours to 50 countries. I spent a year in Boston working in the Customized Department and I still check most customized itineraries each year. These days, I lead several tours a year, but I also work with product development, designing and adjusting tours, and look after the tour director website.

The EF family: I spent two years managing the London regional office (1999-2001), where I was responsible for allocating tours and hiring and training tour directors. I liked Michelle McHale so much as a new tour director that we married in 2004! We have a 2-year-old daughter, Izzy, and another daughter due April 25th.

Living the good life: Having lived in Spain for a few years, we are now back in rural England with a growing collection of chicken, sheep and rabbits.


Hobbies: Love backgammon, dancing with my daughter, keeping bees and cooking. As the son of an Italian chef, I was cooking from the age of six on.

Favorite sport: Arsenal football (soccer). I was a former season ticket holder, and once bought a flat so I could live less than a mile from the stadium.


Best travel destination: Thailand, without a doubt. I love it.


Favorite tour destination: Iceland was superb. Prague is a favorite city.

Around the world with EF staff: Recollections from Dublin, London and Paris

By Catherine Henkels, EF Tour Consultant

In October, I embarked on my first EF Educational Tour. I had traveled to Europe before on my own and with a group, but never on an EF tour and I was excited to find out what it was all about. The tour I went on was Dublin, London and Paris, a tour that visits three countries in only 10 days. The advantages of traveling with a group became evident pretty quickly, as it would be difficult to see as much as we did in such a short time.

I traveled with a group from Indianapolis, Indiana, and there was at least one person on the tour who had never left the state before.  The EF staff greeted the Hoosiers at the airport in Dublin, and despite many hours of travel, they were happy to be there. In what I soon learned would be a recurring theme throughout this tour, we didn’t let jetlag slow us down.

The first day in Dublin we took a walking tour to gain our bearings, and after dinner, most of the group ventured out to see what Dublin was like at night. The group leader decided that boys and girls should split up for the adventure into the city. My colleague, Emily, and I accompanied the girls to explore Dublin by night. We walked around the Temple Bar area, where street performers drew crowds. The students got a kick out of seeing the human statues and the different styles of the locals. Dublin was definitely a nice introduction to Europe for this group, which was comprised of many new travelers. There was very little in the way of language barriers and there was no need to use public transportation, as Dublin is a smaller city and easily walkable. We could gain our bearings and adjust to our new surroundings, without adding the additional maze of mass transit systems.

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.

Focus On: Royal Observatory, Greenwich

Every once in a while, political leadership and science come together to advance man's transportation possibilities, and end up leaving some truly lasting marks.

Forty years ago today, efforts by scientists and astronauts at NASA, coupled with the inspiring will of the late President Kennedy, placed the first men on the moon. That day in 1969 left us with a quote for the ages, an enduring image and a lasting marker (OK, maybe not so lasting, but the sentiment surely is).

More than 300 years ago and across the ocean in England, King Charles II commissioned the Royal Observatory at Greenwich to better chart the night skies as a way to improve navigation. The lasting marks that Charles & Co. left behind: the Prime Meridian (i.e., 0° longitude, the arbitrary place chosen to divide the world vertically); and growing out of the Prime Meridan, Greenwich Mean Time ("GMT"), the world's "official" time, from which all the world's time zones are calculated (e.g., my time zone is GMT –5). 

Groups traveling on certain EF Educational Tours itineraries to the United Kingdom will visit the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.

Although EF offers no tours to the moon (yet), there are domestic itineraries that include the Kenendy Space Center. And, of course, EF offers tours all over the world, any of which are great for seeing the moon—and your world—from new angles!

Photo: neiljs via Flickr (CC license)

Focus On: Lake District

About halfway up Great Britain, in the upper reaches of England and just before the border with Scotland, lies the Lake District.

It is a stunningly beautiful landscape of lakes and "fells" (mountains), old stone walls and rolling green countryside. It's a rural paradise, like Switzerland with lower mountains and (charmingly) lower levels of perfectionism. 

William Wordsworth, one of the premier poets of the English language, is a product of the Lake District. This is one of his most famous poems. Wordsworth's residences—Dove Cottage in the village of Grasmere (his home from 1799 to 1808) and the nearby Rydal Mount (1813-1850)—are both open to visitors.

Photo of the Week: Stonehenge

The mysterious origins of Stonehenge give it an aura that has marveled visitors for millenniums. That aura gives nearly all photos of the legendary stone structure a magical, mystical quality.

This photo of Stonehenge—taken by Running_Machina, who submitted it to the EF Tours group on Flickr—is no different.

If you have your own travel photos, please add them to the EF Tours pool on Flickr. We select a new Photo of the Week every Thursday.

Photo: Running_Machina via Flickr (EF Tours pool)