Friday, November 2, 2012

GEEO Travel

A few years ago one of my students gave me a camel silly band, it was about a month before school ended.  I was interested in traveling so I did a few google searches for summer travel for teachers.  What I found was an organization that I have traveled with for the past 3 summers and absolutely have loved it.  I have met teachers from all across the country and have made international connections with teachers abroad.

So what is GEEO - it is Global Exploration for Educators Organization.  It is a non profit organization that helps organize teachers to travel with other teachers.  The first summer that I traveled with GEEO, I traveled to Tunisia.  I had absolutely no clue where it was when I booked the trip - I had to do a few google searches to learn about it.  Some highlights of that trip were riding a camel in the Sahara Desert, swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, visiting the many ruins and shopping in the souks.

Last summer I traveled to Costa Rica where I went white water rafting, zip lining and hiking in the rain forest, watched a sea turtle laying her eggs and basked in the beautiful scenery.  With each of the tours, you always have a tour guide with you helping to tell you what activities are the best and historical information about all of the places you are traveling to.  GEEO uses GAdventure Tours which is a highly respectable tour company.

This past summer I went on my longest trip yet - I did the Trans Mongolian Adventure and China tour.  This involved me going completely around the world in 26 days.  We landed in St. Petersburg, Russia and traveled through Mongolia to Beijing, China, and then I picked up the China tour that took us the entire way down to Shanghai.  During this trip, we visited 2 schools which is one of the best parts about traveling with GEEO.  We visited a school in Russia and one in Xi'an, China.  We were able to see some of the school aged kids in China who were very eager to speak English with us.  It is amazing the difference in educational standards between the US, Russia and China.

This upcoming summer I will be traveling to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands - anyone interested???

~Michelle

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