The School Trip That Changed My Life by James Wylie

It’s a big year for us here at Halsbury, as we are celebrating our 30th anniversary! To celebrate this huge milestone, we thought we would ask some of our team members about the school trips that changed their lives. Here, James Wylie, one of our expert Itinerary Coordinators, explains how a school trip to the USA inspired his passion for travel.

During my time in sixth form, I was lucky enough to visit New York and Washington D.C. on a school history and politics trip. I’d always wanted to visit New York and it’s not somewhere we would ever have gone on a family holiday, so to have the opportunity to go on an educational trip there was brilliant. I paid for the trip myself, saving all my money from my weekend job at the local supermarket.

*During the trip, we visited a great mix of interesting places, including the UN and Ellis Island in New York, and Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. We even got the chance to watch the Knicks at Madison Square Gardens, which was a dream come true!

This trip taught me that there is only so much you can get out of a textbook and that to understand a subject properly, you really do need to go and see things for yourself, in person. It was also a great opportunity to experience travelling independently from my family, as we were given quite a bit of freedom to explore the cities on our own.This trip certainly helped me to make the decision to study history and politics at university, which turned out to be a great decision. I had always wanted to travel and since this trip I have never looked back. Travel is my absolute passion.

I really do believe that school trips benefit students enormously. Whether it’s a language trip to Montpellier that allows you to stay with a French host family, a geography trip to Naples to explore Vesuvius National Park or a science trip to Geneva, to visit CERN and experience physics in action, nothing can spark a passion to learn and understand more than actually visiting these places.*

If you’d like to inspire your students as much as James was inspired by his school trip, contact our team of school travel specialists who will be pleased to provide you with any information or advice you require.