Looking Back on 10 Years of EdOdyssey: A Sample of Custom Program Course Themes
Over the past decade at EdOdyssey, we’ve had a lot of fun as a team developing thoughtful travel itineraries that take a creative approach to a wide variety of course themes and learning objectives. We believe that culturally-curious students (your students!) deserve immersive educational travel experiences that are far from whirlwind, cookie-cutter tours of iconic sites.
To achieve this, we focus on slow travel and tap into the knowledge and insights of the local experts on our team, our networks, and the valuable relationships we’ve honed over the years in each of our destinations.
Each time we build a program, we constantly circle back to our core values, asking ourselves:
Authenticity. Are authentic connections with the local culture and community at the heart of this program? What hands-on experiences can make these connections real and meaningful?
Kindness. Are we practicing kindness? Are we being as environmentally friendly and kind to our world as we can be?
Passion for travel. How are these experiences likely to be transformative for the students involved? Are we truly embracing the transformative power of travel?
Lifelong learning. What new insights can we gain as a team while creating this program? Are we up-to-date with recent cultural events or museum openings that align with this topic? Have we met someone new recently who could perhaps run a workshop on a topic related to our learning objectives?
The themes we work with are as diverse as civil rights, languages, STEM, religious studies, entrepreneurship, psychology, history, and nursing, to name just a few of the many areas in which we’ve created custom programs in the past. Below are examples of some of these programs in a bit more detail. A few have already been completed, a few are coming up in 2025, and there’s even one example of a program we’ve begun to envision that is still in the ideas generation stage!
ANIME, ART, AND CULTURE IN JAPAN
Group: High school students at Delbarton School led by Yaiza Dominguez
Activity examples include:
Participate in a traditional woodblock printing workshop.
Visits to Pokemon Center, Anime and Manga Museums, with guest lectures.
Explore Nara Park, an idyllic setting quintessential to many anime styles.
COMPARATIVE HEALTHCARE IN PERU
Group: College students at Nebraska Wesleyan University led by Kristi McGuire and Brittney Fritzinger
Activity examples include:
Meetings with dieticians and physicians from across the country to understand the context of historical and cultural choices and available resources that contribute to modern-day medical issues in Peru.
Visit to a Franciscan convent.
Hear from Peruvian professors at a medical school to further explore the diverse perspectives that permeate modern thoughts on health and medicine in Peru.
MUSIC AND CIVIL RIGHTS IN NEW ORLEANS
Group: College students at Curry College led by Emily Howe
Activity examples include:
Visit The Whitney Plantation, a unique experience because it offers a more holistic view of the lives of enslaved people, especially compared to nearby plantations that often romanticize the lives of white owners.
Hear from, and learn from, people who live in local communities.
Visit Frenchmen Street, known for its world-class street musicians.
Visit local community organizations like Roots of Music, which transforms lives through music education, academic support, and mentorship in New Orleans schools.
EARLY EDUCATION AND ACTIVE LIVING IN VANCOUVER
Group: College students at Auburn University led by Silvia Vilches
Activity examples include:
Visit a childcare service in Vancouver for a tour and a talk on how inclusive services are structured in British Columbia and Canada at large.
Spend some time exploring the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre and Indigenous Museum to learn from both their world-class museum and the community work that the center does to celebrate and share traditional culture.
ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALISM IN PERU
Group: College students from Michigan State University led by Bruno Takahashi
Activity examples include:
Visit various universities in Lima and Cusco to collaborate with peers and engage professionally with professors, researchers, and PhD students.
Visit Ojo Público, a media outlet focusing on digital investigative journalism.
Attend a talk at the Instituto Geofísico del Peru, to learn about communication strategies and making scientific research more accessible and attractive to the general public.
A trip to the Amazon to participate in a canopy walk, learn about biodiversity, and explore the lakes and wetlands.
A trip to Cusco to meet with, and learn from, local indigenous communities in the Sacred Valley.
EXPLORING ALAN TURING’S LEGACY IN THE UK
Group: Yours? This is an example of a program we’ve envisioned by haven’t run yet!
Activity examples include:
Participation in a hack-a-thon with an engineering organization in London.
Travel to Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes to visit sites crucial to Turing’s work. It was here that he joined the code-breaking team decrypting German military communications during World War II.
Follow the thread of Turing’s work to present-day endeavors in London and Cambridge and hear from Cambridge professors about the impact Turing had on the creation of computer science.
A few other specific program examples that show the diverse array of topics and destinations our programs are built around include:
Sustainability and STEM in London
Literature and Culture in Ireland
History and Cultural Immersion in China
Comparative Theology in Peru
Computer Science in Silicon Valley
Comparative Healthcare in Italy
When you create a custom program with us, we promise a commitment to creating an itinerary that meets your learning objectives and explores your theme authentically and meaningfully. From taking in the rich heritage of anime and art in Japan to understanding civil rights in New Orleans, we customize each program carefully to broaden your students' perspectives through immersive and memorable experiences.
Have a theme and/or one of our destinations in mind? We’d love to take on the challenge and propose an itinerary. You can be sure that it will take your students beyond the expected, deeper than textbooks and lectures could take them, engaging them with people, places, and cultures that will bring their learning to life in powerful and lasting ways.
