Learning vacations: getting smarter while traveling

We all know that traveling educates, but learning from simply being exposed to other cultures is one thing, and learning from an expert is another. A good guide can make a tremendous difference to your trip, especially if you have specific interests, like for instance: architecture, archeology, history, cuisine, theology, art or music.

If you are a regular reader here, you might have gorged that I’m against planning on trips, I don’t use a guidebook, and a guided tour of anything is out of the question — except if it is a tour from which I will be profoundly enlightened in a subject of my interest. With that in mind, I came across a few websites that cater to these desires of getting a crash course on a topic from an expert while traveling. In fact, the whole purpose of the tours these companies provide is intellectual stimulation with respect to the place you are visiting, on the subject of your choice. Here’s a list of them:

• Context Travel: Offers walking tours for the intellectually curious in the fields of archeology, art, theology, architecture, city ambiance and cuisine. Most tours are a day long and are currently available in: Florence, Rome, Paris, Naples, Venice, New York and London.
• Martin Randall: Here they offer 200 itineraries in 35 countries, in categories: architecture, archeology, art, gastronomy, history, houses and gardens, music (with special focus on music festivals!), and simple walking tours as well. The tours range from 4-15 days.
• Classical Pursuits: Provide vacations in the categories of: Learning Vacations, Educational Travel, Literary Travel, and Cultural Travel. Programs are normally for 5-7 nights, in culturally rich places all over the world.
• StudioSus: One of the largest groups of educational tours, StudioSus provides tours on a general level — educating its customers on the city in general. They offer a 1000 educational city routes over 100 countries.