Following the Equator | EF's Educational Travel Blog

Our 10 Best of 2008

This is the 320th post of 2008 at Following the Equator, and we decided to commemorate our blog's first full calendar year with a top-10 list of favorite posts.

We had a lot of stories, videos, photos, interviews, tips and perspectives about educational travel. We launched some regular weekly features, including our Tip of the Week and Photo of the Week. We debuted Life on Tour, introduced EF on YouTube and EF on Facebook and promoted the EF Tours group on Flickr (above). And, along the way, we encountered a lot of inspiring travelers.

Following the Equator also was nominated for a Blogger's Choice Award and finished fifth out of 1,177 blogs for Best Travel Blog. Thank you to everyone who supported our blog in 2008 by voting, reading, sharing, commenting and subscribing. We're looking forward to an even more successful 2009.

Transatlantic Time Travel: 2007

This is the final edition in the Transatlantic Time Travel series.

Last week, in Transatlantic Time Travel: 1994, I wrote about my perspective as an 18-year-old student on tour and in Europe for the first time.

In 2007, I was on tour in Europe again—as a 31-year-old EF Tour Director. Below is my perspective 13 years on from my first landing.

Transatlantic Time Travel: 1994

This edition of Transatlantic Time Travel doesn't refer to a news article, because it wasn't in the news. In April 1994, I went abroad for the first time.

I was 18, a senior in high school, and one of seven students from Fitchburg High School to go on an educational tour to Spain. Our group leader was our Spanish teacher, Miss Breau. (Full disclosure: That tour was with a competitor. Since then, I've been thrilled to work with EF Educational Tours.)

So, here are the impressions of an 18-year-old being abroad for the first time, as remembered by that 18-year-old who is now 32:

Transatlantic Time Travel: 1986

Americans are not easily deterred from traveling abroad. 

September 11th was a 10.0 earthquake of a confidence-shaker, but American travel abroad rebounded, with travelers assimilating the new post-9/11 landscape to such an extent that future attacks, even those perpetrated in the heart of a European city, failed to alter American travel plans; consider as evidence the tourism numbers in the wake of the Madrid and London bombings.

Transatlantic Time Travel: 1977

In 1976, the United States turned 200, and from coinage to TV coverage, a nation pulled out all the stops for a celebration of itself.

Apparently U.S. travelers weren't in such a party mood.  When 1976 was over, they went to Europe. 

In its article of September 25, 1977, U.S. Travel Surges in Post-Bicentennial Year, the New York Times investigated the paradox.

Transatlantic Time Travel: 1971

Last week, I wrote about the tag-team of U.S. presidents that tried to curb Americans' travel to Europe.

Did it work?

Decidedly not. 

On May 26, 1968, just months after President Johnson's and former President Eisenhower's urgings (and even tax proposals) against European travel, the New York Times reported on the reverberations:

Transatlantic Time Travel: 1968

Imagine: The president of the United States gets up to the podium and says,
"I call on Americans not to travel to Europe."

Definitely imaginable coming from Woodrow Wilson (president during WWI, 1914-1918) or Franklin Roosevelt (president during WWII, 1939-1945), or George W. Bush (president during the Freedom Fries episode, 2003). Hard to imagine in other times, though.

So what in heck was going on in 1968, when not just one, but two U.S. presidents were urging Americans to avoid traveling to the Old World?

"Eisenhower Backs Johnson Call for Cut In Travel to Europe," heralded the New York Times on January 14, 1968:

Transatlantic Time Travel: 1962

Stephen Colbert's best-selling book,
I Am America (And So Can You!), appears not to have been the first instance of questionable grammar used to get attention.

On February 18, 1962, the New York Times ran the article, WHY IS A TOURIST?  Survey Seeks the Motives That Impel Americans to See Europe First, reporting on some exciting notions about American travel abroad assembled by the probably-not-so-exciting Opinion Research Corporation.

Here below are some of those notions, taken from a survey of 549 people —"255 who visited Europe in 1960 and 294 who had never visited Europe"—side by side with modern-day reflections from "Travel to Europe by Americans remains strong," a March 26, 2007, piece by the Associated Press:

Transatlantic Time Travel: 1960

1960 was a year of sea change.

On August 28, 1960, the New York Times reported on an interesting changing-of-the-guard in the travel world with a headline fit for the sports pages: 

AIR TRAVEL GAINS OVER SEA VOYAGES: Twice as Many Fly Between U.S. and Europe as Go by Ship in First Half of '60.

Other sports headlines would have done nicely, too:

Transatlantic Time Travel: 1956

If you're worried about getting third-rate treatment on your next European trip, fear not: "Third-rate" was officially abolished in 1956.

On trains, anyway.

On June 3, 1956, the New York Times breathlessly declared, "3D CLASS ON TRAIN ENDING IN EUROPE":

"Third-class railroad passage, together with whatever nostalgic stigma still clings to it, will be abolished tomorrow in Britain and the rest of Europe after 112 years of existence."

Then the article steers us all into a picture-within-a-picture—a 2008 blog post taking its readers back to a 1956 article taking its readers back to an earlier era still:

Transatlantic Time Travel: 1955

Time travel back to 1955 has famously already been done, so I'll make this brief.

On August 28, 1955, the New York Times ran a nondescript little piece reporting on a survey by the Council on Student Travel (today known as the Council on International Educational Exchange, or CIEE) of 2,500 American students returning from Europe.  Those survey results provide us with a tidy statistical summary of transatlantic student travel, by destination, from a half-century ago:

"France was visited by 92.5 per cent of the students, Germany and Austria by 80 per cent, Great Britain by 65.5 per cent.  Sixty per cent went to Italy, 22 per cent to Scandinavia, 27 per cent to Spain.  About 14.5 per cent went to one or more of these countries:  Egypt, Greece, Israel, Portugal, Turkey, Yugoslavia."

Transatlantic Time Travel: 1954

… and the Eisenhower goes to … [drumroll]

If U.S. presidents were given the red-carpet treatment for promoting the value of international travel while in office, the awards show could be called "The Eisenhowers."

Named, of course, for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the recipient of just such recognition. 

On May 11, 1954, the New York Times reported on the First (and Only) Annual Eisenhower Awards, in an article entitled, "PRESIDENT CITED FOR AID TO TRAVEL:  Group From Western Europe Gives Scroll To Eisenhower."