- Spring Break
- Switzerland Skiing & Snowboarding
- Session I
- Discover Europe
- Greece
- Paris
- Paris Language
- Sicily Community Service
- South Africa Community Service
- Spain & Portugal I
- West Coast Explorer
- Session II
- Backpacking For Teens I
- Classic Italy
- East Coast Explorer & Service
- Eastern Europe
- Greece & Italy
- Paris & The South Of France
- Spain & Portugal II
- Thailand
- Session III
- Amsterdam, Belgium & Paris
- Australia & New Zealand
- Backpacking For Teens II
- Barcelona & Mallorca Language
- Cinque Terre Service
- Costa Rica Service & Spanish
- London & Scotland
- Thailand Photography & Service
- Session IV
- Costa Rica Adventure & Service
- Fiji
- Ireland Adventure
- Italy Photography
- South Africa Safari Photography
- Sweden & Denmark
FAQs
Mary Anne, Thank you so much for writing back. All the kind things you had to say about me brought tears to my eyes. I'm glad you had fun traveling and I hope to see you again! I've already started talking to my parents about a TFT trip next summer. Where do you recommend? I was really lucky to meet someone as great as you. I've told everyone in Yellow Springs, Ohio about you and now, they are all dying to meet you. Thanks again for making my summer of 2007 the best one of my life!
We’re glad you’ve found your way to our website! If you’re interested in discussing our trips, please give us a ring at 1-888-457-4534 and speak to either our president, Pat Maloney, or our vice president, Ned Clark. We’ll be happy to discuss all aspects of any trip with you. You could also send us an e-mail any time at info@travelforteens.com.
Detailed individual trip descriptions can be found right here on our website. Many common questions regarding our trips and way of traveling are answered right here in this FAQ.
We provide a totally unique mix of fun, learning, and cultural immersion on every one of our trips. We go far beyond a superficial tourist itinerary and live as locals, always seeking out the most authentic experiences. We also demonstrate an outstanding level of service and support that is unmatched by any other teen travel company.
Our attention to detail in the planning stages of the trip is especially important for your child to have a first-rate experience. The same people who are planning your trip will also be leading it. Furthermore, our Trip Directors have all lived or worked abroad in the places your teen is going. Once the trip is on the ground, our experienced team of counselors makes sure that the trip runs smoothly and that everybody is having a great time. We pride ourselves on our personal approach, something that we know you and your children appreciate.
Teenagers from 13-18 years old may participate in our trips. While this is a broad age range, our groups are large enough that everyone is able to find a group of friends. A remarkable amount of spontaneous interaction and acceptance across all ages does occur.
Any teenager who speaks English and is physically and mentally fit may apply! The majority of our participants come from the United States, but we also travel with participants from all around the world.
We price all of our trips to be inclusive of accommodations, transportation, 3 meals a day, admissions to all sights and monuments, guides, taxes and tips. Our trip prices do not include airfare, trip insurance, medical visits, souvenirs, shopping, snacks, bottled water or soda, internet, phone calls home or laundry.
We are co-ed, and boys and girls sleep in separate quarters on all of our trips. Our average ratio of boys to girls is around 40/60.
The participants are with our counselors almost all of the time. There are certain exceptions to this rule: When we deem it to be safe, small groups can go to the corner to a store, or shop within a prescribed area for a limited amount of time with a counselor nearby. In certain areas, primarily small towns or in regions like the south of France, they may go unsupervised in small groups, however they primarily remain with a counselor in training (CIT).
The participants are never allowed to go out on their own at night.
Our participants have a lot of choice in how their time is spent, but our program does not embrace the notion of no supervision (with the exception of certain situations which counselors deem safe enough to allow an hour to an hour and a half of shopping). We do not allow kids to leave the hotel without a counselor nor do we give them an afternoon of unsupervised freedom to roam a town/city.
Our minimum camper to counselor ratio is 7:1, although typically our trips have a 6:1 or 5:1 ratio.
Our team is made up of experienced, mature adults. All counselors are re-certified annually in First Aid and CPR. In addition, we run background checks and put candidates through an extensive interview process before they are considered for employment with us. All of our staff participates in an annual staff training workshop, and our Trip Leaders undergo further training.
The counselors we choose are experienced, responsible and hip, so our participants enjoy sharing experiences with them. Our Trip Leaders have lived and studied or worked in their destination country and are extremely knowledgeable about the history and culture involved. The vast majority of them are also fluent in the language of that country.
It is the job of the counselors to keep the fun clean and happening, the learning and the laughter in good balance, and most importantly to oversee the safety of the participants. Minimum ratios are one staff member to every seven participants, but usually the ratio is actually 1 to 5. Trip Leaders and Senior Counselors account for most staff. Trips may also include one or two Junior Counselors, who are college students with a history of TFT travel, and one or more Counselors in Training (CIT’s) with limited responsibility. CIT’s are not counted in staff-participant rations.
Our staff is trained to be very sensitive to the physical conditions of the students traveling with us, and we take their health and safety extremely seriously. Our counselors carry medicine kits with over the counter medicines in them to treat common sicknesses, and our policy is always to check with the parents of the child before administering any type of medicine.
If a child becomes seriously ill, we will not hesitate to visit a doctor or the local hospital, all while maintaining regular contact with the parents of the student.
Safety is absolutely our number one concern at all times. We do everything in our power to render every trip as safe as it can possibly be. We analyze every aspect of every trip in detail before setting out with a group, going over contingency plans and emergency numbers for each country. We visit each and every hotel, sight, and activity that we do in person before going there with a group. We carry first aid kits and are aware of the emergency numbers and procedures in each country that we visit. The safety of our participants is constantly on our mind.
Our team is made up of experienced, mature adults who are trained to think proactively about safety in every type of situation. All counselors are re-certified annually in First Aid and CPR. In addition, we run background checks and put candidates through an extensive interview process before they are considered for employment with us. All of our staff participates in an annual staff training workshop, and our Trip Leaders undergo further training.
Please bear in mind that the act of traveling itself will always include inherent risks. We may travel on airplanes, trains, buses, boats, and bicycles – and accidents can happen. If someone is injured, we will assess the situation, contact the parents of the participant, and seek appropriate medical attention. We have access to English-speaking doctors most of the time, and when we do not, our bilingual counselors function as translators.
Our two most important criteria for our accommodations are that they are safe and clean. We never take groups to accommodations that we have not stayed in before. We look for hotels in good parts of town, centrally located, and we tend to stay away from large, impersonal hotels on the outskirts of cities. We also take into consideration the physical lay out of the accommodation to help ease our ability to supervise when we are choosing hotels for our groups.
We do not use hotel chains. Instead we primarily stay in small hotels. On occasion we do stay in hostels, but this is rare and we only stay in hostels when we find it to be of particularly exceptional quality.
Our trips are not loaded with tons of confining rules, however we do have four unbending and unbreakable rules, which can result in a participant being sent home at their parent’s expense:
1. No leaving the group without permission of a staff member
2. No drugs
3. No alcohol – (That is, none that is unsupervised by TFT staff and that exceeds one drink-see more info about this below
4. No sexual activity
Parents should make sure their teens know that any rule infractions or disrespect of the rules may result in being sent home early at your expense. In the event that a participant becomes separated from the group we have a clear set of procedures we follow. Our trips are not appropriate for those travelers who have trouble functioning within group guidelines or who expect or require complete lack of structure. Sadly, every year we DO send kids home for rule infractions and we are very serious about enforcing these rules for the safety of the group.
We offer group travel on all of our trips but it is also possible to meet us abroad if this is more convenient for you. Our flights coordinator will work with you to make sure the best plan is made for having your child join the group. All group flights and flights between sessions for combination trips are chaperoned by TFT staff.
Please contact us for trip-specific flight details.
The vast majority of our participants come from the USA, we get about 40% of our students from the East Coast from Miami to Maine and 30% from the West coasts from San Diego to Seattle, 25% of our students are from the Midwest and the south and we about 5% of our students reside outside the United States.
Non-American participants are more than welcome to join us on our trips!
Our age range goes from 13-18 years old, and the average age of participants on our trips is about 16.
The majority of our participants sign up by themselves, and others sign up with one or two friends. Bonding happens very quickly on our trips, and participants who sign up alone tend to make lasting friendships while traveling with us.
Friends who sign up together will be allowed to room together for the duration of the trip, but should be aware that we expect everyone to integrate themselves into the larger group and make friendships beyond their already-established relationships.
Dinner, the main meal of the day is taken in a restaurant, café or the like. Lunch is typically a sandwich, breakfast is consistent with the culture being visited. Meals range from very high end and expensive to charming and ethnic, and often there is a choice. We discourage bottled water and encourage use of refillable water bottles to save you money as well as wasteful plastic.
We know that many teenagers can be a little bit picky. We encourage participants to try new things and broaden their horizons, as eating is always a central part of our cultural immersion experience. In any case, we can always work with the restaurant to find something that will work for everyone.
Parents have the choice to permit tasting of local beer and wine under our supervision for participants 16 years of age or older. Responsible wine consumption is considered part of the local culture in many of our destinations. A taste is considered half of a normal glass. No other alcohol consumption is permitted.
We can accommodate special diets with advance notice and communication. We have vegetarians and food allergies on virtually every trip.
Travel for Teens STRONGLY recommends all participants purchase traveler's insurance for protection against trip cancellation due to medical/family emergencies, lost baggage situations, full medical coverage abroad, and more. We have found STA Travel and TravMark Insurance to be the most comprehensive coverage available. We can provide you with contact information upon request.
Travel For Teens, LLC is a fully insured company belonging to the International Association of Travel Agents.
We feel that people learn best when they are having a great time, so our trips feature activities designed to meet the teens’ desire to have a great time and the parents’ desire for more than a typical or superficial tourist-trip. We do not conduct teen tours!
We strive to make sure our trips are carried out in an atmosphere of acceptance and respect. Consideration for others, personal responsibility, teamwork and kindness are virtues we embrace at all levels every day and at all times. We consider the intangible aspects of travel to be very important. Bonding, friendships, respect and feeling cared for and valued are fundamental to our philosophy. Our participants are treated like adults and are expected to behave in an adult-like manner.
Most participants do not travel with a friend, but some do. We do not permit the formation of cliques or the exclusion of anyone, and bullying is never acceptable.
We travel in large groups which then break apart into smaller groups with a counselor to accommodate different choices of activities. We tend to keep a late schedule, departing mid morning and often returning to the hotel around midnight. We do not herd our participants around, over schedule them or, conversely, permit sitting around doing nothing. There is, however, down time and time for reflection, plus time for laundry and stocking up on personal necessities.
We do have itineraries but our structure permits plenty of opportunity for spontaneous, off-the-beaten-path fun. Days are divided into units with choices of activities for each unit. Our model provides structure without rigidity. Teens have told us time and again they do not like being forced to conform to inflexible schedules. Participants do not have to be athletic but there are sports opportunities for those who like them on every trip. Our Ireland and Italy Community Service trips do require more physical fitness, and all of our trips involve walking up to 5 miles a day.
We do not have homestays on any of our trips. While we recognize the value that some homestay experiences can provide, we do not feel the safety of participants can be assured 100% of the time.
The Internet is the preferred method of communication between parents and participants, however bringing laptop computer is prohibited (with the exception of our Italy Photography Trip). Time will be given to the group to be able to use the Internet in public Internet points.
All counselors carry cell phones with e-mail access at all times. Parents may contact us at any time day or night, in case of emergency. Trip Leaders will send update e-mails to parents every 3 days or so to give information on the progress of the group.
Participants have a list of counselor phone numbers and a phone card, which they are taught to use in case they get separated from the group. While we like the participants to have a US cell phone with them for ease in US airport coordination, we discourage the use of cell phones abroad. We do not forbid them, however they are not permitted to be turned on outside the hotel room for anything other than emergencies. We expect participants to be willing and able to avoid non-emergency cell phone call to or from home, as we cannot accomplish an immersion experience with distractions.
Our participants are carefully coached in the habits and cultural signals of the host countries, and we tend to be treated very well by our host countries. We require appropriate attire and we teach respect for the countries we are in.
Therefore, we do not generally experience any sort of anti-American sentiment.
We do offer need based, reduced tuition aid though of course there is a limit to what we can give each year. If interested in applying for reduced tuition please write an email to info@travelforteens.com explaining why you need it and where you would like to go. Please keep in mind, the more open you are to where you will be going, the more likely you are to be awarded assistance. Your parents will be asked to forward the top page of their income tax return should you be selected as a finalist for aid in March or April when the applications are reviewed.
For a detailed description of how the registration process works and our monthly payment plan option, please see our TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR ENROLLMENT (link).
Teenagers from 13-18 years old may participate in our trips. While this is a broad age range, our groups are large enough that everyone is able to find a tight group of friends. A remarkable amount of spontaneous interaction and acceptance across all ages does occur.
The majority of our participants come from the United States, but we also travel with participants from around the world.
This totally depends on which trip you choose – you can find details about what we do on each individual trip right here on our website.
In general, Travel for Teens is a cultural experience with lots of flexibility built in to each itinerary (see more about this in the next question). We seek to immerse ourselves in the culture and traditions of the country that we travel to, going far beyond a typical and superficial touristy experience. In Italy this may mean visiting a gondola workshop in Venice, while in Paris taking a behind the scenes tour of a Paris fashion house, while in Thailand this could include visiting a monastery and holding a question-and-answer session with a monk.
Some trips are more adventure oriented while others focus on community service, cultural exploration, or language learning. On ALL of our trips you can count on actively learning about the culture you find yourself in, eating authentic food, and meeting great people.
We believe in flexibility - Any seasoned traveler will tell you that the best experiences on the road happen when you’re least expecting them. While we do create a day-by-day itinerary for all of our trips, we build in choices and flexibility so that we can easily change our schedule based on weather, fickle opening hours, or new opportunities that present themselves on the ground. That said, certain important sights and activities are guaranteed – you WILL see the Eiffel Tower in Paris and you WILL go to the Coliseum in Rome, for example.
Another basic concept of the TFT way of traveling is having choices. We often divide our group into smaller groups and split up for the morning or afternoon so that you can choose the activity that interests you most. For example, one group might go to a modern art museum while a second group will go to a cooking lesson and a third goes to check out a cathedral – once again, the choice is yours.
We are co-ed, and boys and girls sleep in separate quarters on all of our trips. Our average ratio of boys to girls is around 40/60.
The participants are with our counselors most of the time, whether we’re together as a large group or split up into smaller groups. There are some exceptions, though – when we know that an area is particularly safe and not easy to get lost in, we’ll let you guys explore and shop on your own for a few hours, as long as you stay in groups of four.
We tend to stick together at night – sometimes we go to a flamenco show or a disco or whatever else happens to be going on that night, but we can’t let you go off on your own after dark.
Our two most important criteria for hotels is that they are safe and clean. We never take groups to hotels where we have not stayed. We look for hotels in good parts of town, centrally located, and we tend to stay away from large, impersonal hotels on the outskirts of cities.
We do not use hotel chains, instead we primarily stay in small hotels. On occasion we do stay in hostels, but this is rare and we only stay in hostels when we find a hostel of particularly exceptional quality.
If you come on a trip with a friend, we will do everything in our power to give you guys a room together. Depending on the hotel, you might find that you have 1 or 2 other roommates from our group as well, but 99% of the time you will be able to room with your friend!
Our trips are not loaded with tons of confining rules, however we do have four unbending and unbreakable rules, which can result in being sent home at your family’s expense:
1. No leaving the group without permission of a staff member
2. No drugs
3. No alcohol not dispensed by TFT staff
4. No sexual activity
Guys, you do not want to mess with these rules – we take them seriously and we enforce them for your safety and the safety of the group. Unfortunately, every year we do have to send kids home.
The vast majority of our participants come from the USA. We get about 40% of our students from the East Coast - from Miami to Maine - and 30% from the West coasts - from San Diego to Seattle - 25% of our students are from the Midwest and the South and about 5% of our students reside outside the United States.
Non-American participants are more than welcome to join us on our trips!
Our age range goes from 13-18 years old, and the average age of participants on our trips is about 16.
We can accommodate special diets with advance notice and communication. We have vegetarians and food allergies on virtually every trip.
The Internet is the preferred method of communication between you and your parents or friends, however bringing laptop computers is prohibited (except for on our Italy Photography trip). Time will be given to the group to be able to use the Internet in public Internet points.
You are allowed to bring cell phones, but please note that they are not permitted to be turned on outside the hotel room for anything other than emergencies. This is important so that you can be focused on the trip and not on texting your friends back home. You can call/text your friends or parents when you’re back in your hotel room.
Understandably, parents often have concerns about sending their child away to a foreign country, especially if it’s the first time. There are a few things that might change their mind – request a copy of our brochure and go over it with them in detail, and watch our DVD with them. If that’s not enough, just have them give us a call any time at 1-888-457-4534 or write us an email at info@travelforteens.com so that they can talk to us directly about their concerns. We talk to lots and lots of parents and they usually come away feeling much better!
In addition to leading the best teen travel programs in the world, we also organize custom-built trips for private clients of all ages. Drawing upon our extensive knowledge of the regions that we visit (including Europe, South Africa, Thailand, Australia & New Zealand, and Fiji), we will work with you to customize your trip of a lifetime. The advantages of working with us to organize your trip are many – you'll get insider access to sights, events, and people that you would never have known about. Our personal service is unparalleled—we can plan any and every detail of your trip, and our prices can't be beat.
Don't hesitate to contact us if you'd like to speak to some of our previous clients.
Our custom trips are an incredible value. We offer you a half-hour free consultation so that you can learn about what we are able to do for you. After this consultation if you decide you’d like us to plan your trip, we ask for a deposit of $500 so that we may begin making reservations and doing research for you. Our rate is a mere $40/hour. On average, a ten-day trip for a family of four requires between 10-15 hours of planning time.
It's very simple - you have as much or as little control as you want to have over the planning of your trip. Our task is to listen to what you would like us to do. For example, if you only know that you want a great vacation in Italy, we'll create your entire itinerary including hotels, restaurants, sights, ticket reservations, and country-specific tips and suggestions.
On the other hand, if you know that you want to spend 3 nights in Rome, 2 nights in a Tuscan B&B, and 3 nights in Bologna and you already have your hotels picked out, that's great too. We'll work with you to fill in the blanks.
Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and South Africa, among others!
It all depends on where you want to go! Each member of our staff specializes in a different area of the world. We will assign a team to your project with a trip designer as the lead person. The person who will plan your trip will have spent a significant amount of time in your destination and therefore can give you firsthand advice.
Of course – you can give us a call any time day or night. You will have the personal contact number for your trip designer, in addition to the following numbers:
Toll Free: 888-457-4534
From outside the US: +1 484-802-7515
or e-mail us at info@travelforteens.com
Given our continuing collaboration with a wide variety of accommodations in many different countries, we often enjoy (and pass on to you) discounted rates for our clients.
Of course - we'd be happy to provide you with a list of references.
Considering its relatively low cost, we STRONGLY recommend that you purchase traveler's insurance for protection against trip cancellation due to medical/family emergencies, strikes and flight cancellations, lost baggage situations, full medical coverage abroad, and more. We have found TravMark Insurance to be one company that is sometimes a good choice. Please contact us for more details.
You can call us any time, seven days a week, at 1-888-457-4534. Shoot us an e-mail at info@travelforteens.com.
Our trip planning process, from start to finish, permits you the teacher to completely customize your itinerary and goals in order to give your students an authentic experience that incorporates cultural and educational life lessons. Travel for Teens believes the same people who help you craft your ideal trip should also lead it with you, simplifying your contact with us and invariably resulting in a smoother travel experience with a staff you already know and trust. We pride ourselves on our unmatched personal approach and flexibility. Above all these qualities are what past/current teachers, students and parents have commented on time and again.
As the teacher, you are welcome to be as involved or disengaged as you please. We will ask you to contribute whatever you like or have time for in the planning process. However, we do need your help reaching out to students and their parents to help recruit enough kids for your trip. We will provide you with promotional materials and whatever other tools you need to make the trip a success.
Travel For Teens always provides a Travel For Teens Trip Director to lead your trip in the destination country. Additionally, we offer one free chaperone for every ‘x’ number of students based on the budget of the trip. The ratio of free chaperones to students ranges from 6:1 to 10:1 depending on the budget per student.
Our motto for custom trips is “If You Can Dream It, We Can Plan It.” We will work with you to customize the trip as much as you would like. We know that every group or class has unique priorities, and your trip will deliver an experience that will provide tangible signs of personal growth in students as well as very satisfied parents.
We are able to revise itineraries several times before the trip leaves for the summer. Once the trip has begun, we are able to offer some degree of flexibility of when the activities on a trip may occur. We understand that travel is not always predictable but to the best of our abilities we offer a comfortable amount of flexibility on the trip to accommodate unforeseen itinerary complications such as inclement weather.
We strongly encourage all participants to purchase trip cancellation insurance. In the event that there is flight cancellation, delay or strike, Travel For Teens will do all that we can to reschedule our itinerary to prevent or minimize any itinerary disruptions. Additional costs relating to a trip delay are covered by the trip cancellation policies that we recommend.
Travel For Teens has carefully scouted all of the locations where we bring our participants and invests considerable resources in our vendor quality control year to year. All counselors are CPR and First Aid certified. We have a lengthy and thorough hiring process which includes background checks, face to face interviews and weekend long training sessions. We have local contacts in all of the places we go in case of a medical or other emergency.
Travel for Teens STRONGLY recommends all participants purchase traveler's insurance for protection against trip cancellation due to medical/family emergencies, lost baggage situations, full medical coverage abroad, and more. We have found STA Travel and TravMark Insurance to be the most comprehensive coverage available. We can provide you with contact information upon request.
Travel For Teens, LLC is a fully insured company belonging to the International Association of Travel Agents.
Absolutely not! Our Trip Directors have either lived or currently live in the area you are traveling and are fluent in the native language. Accompanying counselors are also either fluent or proficient in the language.
Our staff is trained to be very sensitive to the physical conditions of the students traveling with us, and we take their health and safety extremely seriously. Our counselors carry medicine kits with over-the-counter medicines to treat common sicknesses, and our policy is always to check with the parents of the student before administering any type of medicine.
If a student becomes seriously ill, we will not hesitate to visit a doctor or the local hospital and maintain regular contact with the student’s parents.
Safety is our absolute first priority. Our counselors carry first aid kits to treat minor injuries, are American Red Cross certified in First Aid and CPR, and if water is involved in an activity, we have a certified lifeguard present.
In case of a more serious injury, our Trip Leader and counselors are familiar with the emergency numbers and procedures to follow in each country that we visit. All of our counselors carry cell phones at all times.
We have four major rules on our trips, and we take them very seriously: No drinking, no drugs, no sex, and no leaving the group without specific permission. Breaking these four main rules will result in a participant being sent home. For lesser infractions, teachers and the Travel For Teens staff will discuss the situation and decide together on an appropriate punishment. All disciplinary infractions on school trips are handled jointly between the chaperones and the Travel For Teens staff.
All of our trips are designed to be all inclusive. Our school trip packages range from $2500 to $5000 depending on the destination, chaperone to student ratio, length of the trip and choices of activities.
We price all of our school trips to be inclusive of airfare, accommodations, transportation, 3 meals a day, admissions to all sights and monuments, guides, taxes and tips. Our trip prices do not include money for trip insurance, medical visits, souvenirs, shopping, snacks, bottled water or soda, internet, phone calls home or laundry.
We price our school trips to be all inclusive of airfare whereas our regular trips do not include airfare.
Teachers never have to handle any funds. Travel For Teens handles all payments directly so that teachers do not need to be responsible at all for any financial payments. Payments schedules are custom designed for each trip by the teachers and Travel for Teens.
We strongly encourage all parents to purchase trip cancellation insurance in order to protect against unforeseen circumstances which are the common reason for students to have to cancel their plans with us. All payments to Travel for Teens are non-refundable.
You are welcome to contact other teachers who have traveled with us. Please contact us at 1-888-457-4534 or info@travelforteens.com for a list of references.
Travel for Teens was founded in 2003 upon the model of providing the opportunity for students to live as a local in all of the places that we visit. We have achieved great success with schools as we have a particular aptitude for listening to the vision of a teacher and delivering incredible life changing cultural exploration trips.
We are glad you have found your way to our website. If you are interested in the possibility of Travel For Teens designing a custom school trip for you and your students, the first step is to give us a ring on our toll free number at 888-457-4534 and speak with either our President, Pat Maloney, or our Vice President, Ned Clark. We are happy to brainstorm with you until your ideal itinerary is worked out.
