September Letter From the Founder: Education
Life-long learning in Venice with my group trying their hand at rowing a gondola.
Summer is fading, the air is cool, and kids are going back to school, welcome to September! In normal times, this would have been a very busy month in the travel business. Many years ago, September was considered a hidden time of year to travel, with perfect weather and few crowds. Unfortunately, everyone discovered the joy of September in Europe and it has become the highest of high seasons. This year is different, as I write you from a far-less-crowded Venice.
Our theme this month is education. As our kids return to school, some for the first time since the pandemic began, life is starting to slowly look a bit like it did before. The past year has been an education of sorts for all of us, learning about ourselves and the people we live with in both good and bad ways. In the travel biz, we’ve had an education in survival.
One of the best aspects of working in travel is the education. Most of us who call guiding our profession are consummate students. If I had been given the chance, I’d have never left university. Being a tour guide has been a sort of life-long open university. Just this week, I learned more about Venice from my brilliant local guides, tried a new coffee I didn’t know about, and learned to row a gondola. Education doesn’t have to be in a classroom, instead, the world is the traveller’s classroom. When you plan your travels in the coming months, I encourage you to look at it this way. What can you do in your travels that will enrich your education? And how can you, as a visitor, in turn teach the locals you meet a bit about your culture?
This month, our guides will look to their own cultures and share their thoughts on how their educational systems work. Each country has a different approach, and it’s interesting to see how culture affects attitudes towards education.
Guide Collective has a mission to inform and educate, bringing diverse points of view to you. We hope we can connect you to the playground of learning that our fair planet offers.
Andiamo!
Sarah