Educational travel is no longer a simple school trip or organised tour, but a journey that promises transformation and generates questions instead of souvenirs. Imagine a group of students disembarking at dawn in a mountain valley, among rocks sculpted by glaciers, under a sky that still holds the cold colours of the night. They carry backpacks, digital notebooks and curiosity, but this is not a simple school trip. It is a journey that promises transformation. A journey that does not purchase souvenirs, but generates questions.
In another part of the world, adults who have left their routine for a week follow a marine biologist along a coral reef to understand what it truly means to participate in the life of the Planet. This is “educating through travel”: not just moving, but learning and leaving a mark.
This article explores how, today, educational travel within school curricula and lifelong learning becomes a device for cultural, social and territorial transformation. We will analyse two converging dimensions: school-based learning journeys and, more broadly, experiential learning experiences for adults, designed to leave a meaningful imprint on the places they cross. All of this is framed through a global perspective, while also focusing on the European approach, where education through travel becomes citizenship, sustainability, and territorial regeneration.
A woman using a city map and pointing to the Ruins St.Paul Church in Macau City
The Meaning of Educational Travel Today
When we talk about “educational travel,” it is important to distinguish it from traditional tourism. In many cases, a school trip amounts to a visit + bus + photos. But today, the educational dimension takes on a different depth: learning in real, immersive contexts, often guided by experts or local communities; the idea that travel is not only seeing, but understanding and acting.
A recent study on experiential learning applied to education for sustainable development highlights how the “learning by doing” approach in educational tourism can strengthen environmental and social awareness. Another study notes that “study-travel” experiences may produce changes even in students’ academic motivation, meaning not only do these journeys take students on the road, but they also reshape their relationship with learning.
In the European context, schools and travel agencies reinterpret these trips as opportunities for active citizenship: not merely memorising monuments or landscapes, but reflecting on cultures, environment, and responsibility. For example, a “Sustainable Living in Germany and Switzerland” tour proposes visits to renewable energy models, urban agriculture projects, and green cities, offering a concrete reading of applied sustainability.
Educational travel, therefore, takes on three essential dimensions: cognitive (knowledge, data, contexts), affective (empathy with different cultures/environments), and active (engagement, behaviour, citizenship). The place is not just a setting but a vector of meaning. It is there that “traces are left.”
School Travel Programs: From Outings to Active Citizenship
In the school world, the word “travel” carries strategic weight. Schools that design well-structured itineraries in educational, logistical, and reflective terms transform the traditional outing into an opening toward the world.
In Europe, for example, many school initiatives are aligned with the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (quality education) or Sustainable Development Goal 12 (responsible consumption and production). One emerging approach is: “travel + digital documentation + experiential assessment” as part of the curriculum.
Let me share a concrete example: a German high school organises a tour through the Swiss and German Alps, visiting renewable energy centres, recycling plants, and sustainability-focused “laboratory cities.” The journey does not end with the return home: students produce a multimedia project, collaborate with a local community, and reflect on how their own city could evolve. This model embraces active citizenship: the school becomes a bridge between the local territory and the global world.
The territorial dimension is crucial. When a school group visits a lesser-known area, it not only observes: it has the opportunity to interact with host communities, discover local initiatives, and engage perhaps through a reuse workshop, a reforestation project, or a guided visit with local naturalists. This transforms the “trip” into a “shared experience.”
However, one challenge must be highlighted: not all school trips are designed with educational rigour. Research on “experiential learning through academic field trips” shows that, to be truly formative, these journeys require planning, reflection, and a meaningful connection among students, context, and the host community.
In summary: the school-based dimension of educational travel requires a meta-narrative (what is its meaning? what is the theme?) and a plan for restitution (what do I do with what I learned?). When this happens, the territory is not just a stage: it becomes an accomplice.
Experiential Learning Through Travel and Transformative Tourism
The concept of “educational tourism” extends far beyond school: it is a hybrid space where formal and non-formal education meet. Here, the dimension of experiential learning comes into play: learning through experience situated in the real world. One study defines it as “an educational environment in which travel becomes a tool for situated learning: knowledge of oneself, of others, and of the territory.”
But what does this mean in practice? It means that the traveller is not simply a spectator but a participant: collaborating with researchers, naturalists, geologists, anthropologists; walking alongside local communities; engaging with cultural, environmental and economic practices. In this perspective, we also speak of “transformative tourism”: the experience produces a change in the traveller and ideally creates an impact on the places visited.
An emblematic case: the Students on Ice Foundation, which organises polar expeditions with students, researchers and Inuit communities. Participants experience the impact of climate change firsthand, dialogue with scientists, and reflect on their own role on the planet. This is an extreme and spectacular example, but its structure can be replicated at smaller scales.
In the educational/experiential travel experience, three key figures emerge:
• The specialist-guide (anthropologist, naturalist, geologist) who does not replace the traditional tour guide but opens windows of knowledge.
• The host community, which is not a passive backdrop but a living part of the journey: it speaks, welcomes, asks.
• The participant-traveller, who adopts the posture of an active learner, engages with the context and gives something back.
In many academic projects, the value of experiential learning is highlighted as a factor that increases environmental awareness, a sense of responsibility, and interest in lifelong learning.
In the European context, sustainability becomes central: the experience is not only observation but reflection on how our choices influence the world. An example: biodiversity workshops in national parks, visits to reuse initiatives in rural communities, and exchanges between schools and territories. Here, experience acquires civic meaning.
Lifelong Learning on the Move: Adults Who Travel to Learn
Educational travel is not reserved for school students: adult life, professional or personal, can include learning experiences while travelling. The concept of “lifelong learning” applied to travel opens alternative landscapes: adults who choose to learn, rethink themselves, and regenerate through territory.
In this view, a tour guided by a geologist in a volcanic zone or by a marine biologist on a coral reef is not just an excursion: it is formative immersion. For example, a program for adults participating in an environmental expedition includes field lessons, workshops and restitution activities. The effect? A triple outcome: for the individual (new skills, new passions), for the network (participants sharing reflections), and for the territory (awareness-raising, local collaborations).
The study “Educational Travel Programs, Sustainability, and the Host-Destination” notes that the dynamics of formative travel for adults must take sustainability into account: destination choice, timing, and local impact.
Another aspect: adults who travel to learn transform their perception of leisure time, turning it into “growth time.” This reinforces the idea of travel as an “investment” in oneself and in the community.
Let us consider a real case: a program organised by a European university offering a week of volcanic fieldwork in Iceland, led by academic geologists. Participants collect data, interact with researchers, and visit active sites. Upon return, they prepare a report and apply one lesson within their professional context. The journey leaves a trace: it was not merely a “vacation,” but a catalyst for personal development.
The network dimension grows stronger: universities, tourism operators, local authorities, and host communities collaborate. Travel becomes a node of sharing and regeneration. Adult participants carry home not only memories, but skills and new relationships. And the educational-tourism ecosystem becomes richer.
Territories that leave traces: regeneration and responsibility
One of today’s major themes is how to ensure that these journeys leave traces not only in travellers but also in territories. We can no longer conceive “educating through travel” as a simple arrival and departure: we must consider the impact on place.
Studies on sustainable tourism experience underline that destination choice and program design affect the social, economic and environmental sustainability of the experience.
In practice: a school that brings students into a fragile natural environment must include protocols, reflection, and restitution, not only “we visit and return.” A well-designed multi-year program allows the host community to participate and benefit, and travellers to engage in continuous dialogue.
Here are some key elements to ensure that traces remain:
• Local partnership: communities, associations and local authorities involved from the design stage.
• Reflectivity: moments of restitution and sharing with the host community; students or adults present projects, collaborate, and leave skills.
• Duration and continuity: one visit is not enough. A multi-step path ensures deeper outcomes.
• Sustainable practices: use of digital tools, documentation, monitoring, and responsible behaviour during travel (environmental impact, social respect).
• Territorial valorisation: the place visited is not simply “to be seen,” but to be known, understood, perhaps supported.
A virtuous example: a school program in Italy involving 36,000 students through the “Scuole Viaggianti” initiative by Estra. It combines creativity, ecological reflection and local community engagement. (Note: this data comes from the article brief)
These initiatives generate tangible benefits: students acquire skills, host territories receive new energies, and programs create impacts beyond the visit.
This is the paradigm: educational travel as regeneration of skills and territories. The educational-tourism ecosystem takes on a civic, not merely recreational, function.
International Examples of Educational Travel and School Programs
To make this discussion more concrete, here are some international examples illustrating how to structure an educational program with real impact.
Example A World Expeditions Schools
This organisation offers more than 400 service-learning programs in developing countries, focused on social justice, the environment and volunteering. Students not only visit but also collaborate in local projects, for example, with Indigenous communities, contributing actively while learning.
Example B – School programs in Europe (for example, through ETA Adventures)
A U.S. operator that organises school trips across all continents with various modes: STEM, history, and environment. Though not exclusively European, these examples illustrate the variety of educational travel.
Example C – University field-trip studies
A case study of an academic excursion in the Copper Canyon, Mexico, highlighted how fieldwork fosters learning and territorial sustainability: “the professionalisation of tourism education through experiential learning by fieldwork should be a key aspect…”
These cases show that models differ but converge around certain elements: immersion, reflection, collaboration, and impact.
In the European context, school travel itineraries are reinterpreted through a sustainable, civic and territorial lens, often connected to the 2030 Agenda and global citizenship education.
The Role of Facilitators in Experiential Learning Through Travel
One of the key elements distinguishing a simple trip from a deep educational experience is the presence of a specialist-facilitator. Let us see how this figure works and why it is so crucial.
Imagine a journey to a national park. The group not only visits but is accompanied by a naturalist who explains fauna, leads hikes, inspires questions; or a geologist who conducts a sample collection phase and explains rock formation; or an anthropologist who introduces the local community, culture and traditional practices. In these cases, travel becomes a laboratory in situ.
Academic analysis on experiential learning shows that interaction with context, mediated by a facilitator, multiplies educational effectiveness: “learning takes place in the relationship between person, context and action.”
This figure transforms the visit into discovery, the passive into active, the visitor into collaborator.
In lifelong education, a marine biologist who engages adults on a coral reef and involves them in field activities rebuilds a learning dynamic that unites emotion, competence and commitment. Travel becomes “doing together.”
The outcome is twofold: the individual learns, and the host territory benefits from a richer interaction (not just consumptive tourism). The risk it must be stressed, is that without proper planning, the facilitator becomes merely a “guide” and the experience remains superficial.
Challenges and Quality Conditions in Educational Tourism
For these journeys to truly leave traces, we must also look at quality conditions and critical issues. Sending a group on a trip is not enough: planning, participation and evaluation are needed.
Among the main challenges:
• Impact on the territory: Educational travel can generate pressure on host communities or environments if not calibrated. Research notes that benefits for students must not come “at the cost” of the place visited.
• Continuity and restitution: If the journey remains an isolated event, its formative effect may fade. The connection between departure and return, between experience and application, is crucial.
• Curricular or personal integration: For schools, travel must be part of the curriculum; for adults, it must be embedded in a continuous learning pathway.
• Economic sustainability and accessibility: Not only for those who can afford it. The risk of social exclusion is real. Policies that ensure inclusion are needed.
• Quality of facilitation: The presence of professionals, collaboration with local communities, and the ability to manage complexity are fundamental.
• Impact assessment: Not just photos and feedback, but digital tools for documentation and experiential evaluation as referenced in the school section.
When these conditions are met, educational travel can become a moment of transformation for the traveller, for the territory, and for the community.
Towards a Strategic Vision: Educational Travel and Sustainability
In light of what we have seen, a new paradigm emerges: educational tourism is not a mere “add-on” to tourism, but a model that places relationship, transformation and impact at the center. In Europe today, this paradigm is being reinterpreted in terms of active citizenship and territorial regeneration.
Some strategic directions I would outline:
• Integrated sustainability: Not simply “we go talk about the environment,” but “we travel sustainably,” choosing destinations and operators that adopt responsible practices.
• Global citizenship: Travel as a school of global citizenship: the other, the territory, nature become interlocutors.
• Co-design with territories: Host communities are not spectators but co-protagonists of the educational project.
• Digitisation and documentation: Digital tools that facilitate monitoring, restitution and evaluation of experiences.
• Lifelong learning as a norm: Educational travel is not only for students but for all of life: adults, communities, professionals travelling to learn and innovate.
• Lasting traces: Travel becomes a node in an educational territorial network: what is learned and lived “echoes” through the place and the individual.
Education through travel, in this sense, has strategic value: not only for those who travel but for educational systems, tourism and territories. It creates bridges between schools, universities, tourism operators, local communities and global networks.
A journey that leaves traces
When I look to the future of educating through travel, I see a map still evolving but full of promising directions. I imagine schools designing international pathways in dialogue with host communities, operators placing training and sustainability at the center, and adults choosing travel as an opportunity for discovery, growth and engagement.
I see territories welcoming these programs as opportunities not only for visitors, but of new relationships and regeneration. I see continuous learning and global citizenship becoming tangible in itineraries crossing mountains, coasts, cities, Indigenous communities, and natural laboratories.
Educating through travel does not mean merely moving from point A to point B: it means entering into a deep relationship with the world, being shaped by the landscape, reflecting with others, and returning transformed. And leaving traces not only in our journals, but in the fabric of the places visited.
To you, schools, educators, and adult travellers, I extend an invitation: when choosing a journey, ask yourself: Will I leave traces? In my learning? In the territory I will visit? In the community, I will meet? If the answer is yes, then you are opening the door to an experience that transcends the beauty of the destination: you are becoming part of a rite, a shared pathway, responsible development.
Because, ultimately, travelling to educate is perhaps one of the most civic acts we can undertake today: cultivating curiosity, responsibility and knowledge while the world changes around us. It is an investment in human capital, yes, but also in territorial capital, in collective memory, in sustainable coexistence.
And so, the journey does not end upon return: it continues to germinate, to build bridges, to regenerate.
Safe travels, and may your education through travel be meaningful.
Sources
• Lo WS, Experiential Learning Applied to the Tourism Industry and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), 2022. PMC
• Wee D., Generation Z Talking: Transformative Experience in Educational Field Trips, 2019. emerald.com
• Hale BW, Educational Travel Programs, Sustainability, and the Host-Destination, Sustainability, 2022. MDPI
• Sustainable Living in Germany and Switzerland – Educational Tour, Eftours.
