Learning vacations for singles and couples

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Learning vacations

How to plan your trip?

By Lisa Kramer

These are one of the growing segments of vacations. Learning vacations can be taken to most places around the world. If you enjoy getting to know other cultures or have a dream of living in other places and experiencing the local culture, then learning vacations are for you. Perhaps you dream of having an afternoon coffee in Paris and picking up a fresh loaf of bread before heading home, where your husband/wife/friend and you will cook a simple meal with fresh ingredients, or perhaps you dream of faraway exotic places where you can take yoga lessons on the beach.

There is a place for most dreams and you can take it at a fraction of the price if you take it as a learning vacation. Generally speaking learning vacations are not luxury vacations, but they can be, if you stay at a resort instead of the usual quarters. In most places the schools offer accommodation or arrangements with outside vendors. The schools have many choices, such as staying with a family, renting an apartment, hotel rooms or dormitories. Depending on your taste, objectives and budget, you can choose. If you want to get to know the culture intimately, you can stay with a family. If you want less learning and more vacation, you may prefer a hotel, and in between you have the short-stay apartments where you can even cook. If you stay with a family, you can often choose to have meals with them. If you do so, you can be lucky and get a great cook, or otherwise you might be stuck with food that you dislike. So it is best to ask if you can try the food for a day or two and then make up your mind.

Originally these vacations were designed for young people or students, but that has now changed, and you will find all age groups, including adults and senior citizens taking learning vacations. During summer, more students will be your classmates; they can be high school student (rarely) or college students, but there are also professionals and mature people. It is generally a good mix and it can be lots of fun.

Remember that a learning vacation is a vacation and not a boot camp; so you have a lot of time to explore the destination and even take day trips. You will also meet a lot of people from different countries, particularly if you are in Europe. Of course, most people on a learning vacation are in a different mood and much more friendly. So you can hook up with some of them to do certain activities together or get group discounts if you go to a museum together or rent a taxi.

These vacations can sometimes be very cheap. For example, a trip to Italy for 2-weeks including airfare, great home-made Italian food, plus the cost of tuition cost me about $2,000 in the summer of 1998. The accommodations can be as comfortable as you want; the more comfortable they are, the more expensive, of course. If you are traveling as a couple, a more intimate place, like a bed-and-breakfast or country inn, might be better.

Usually learning vacations last two weeks. In big cities such as Paris or London, they tend to be more expensive than in remote places such as Kerala (India). If you have an adventurous spirit and need different type of vacations then a learning vacation is for you.

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Have you ever taken a learning vacation?