Free Travel Initiative For students
Europe has created a free travel pass for students which Im sure will create an eagerness in young people to plan trips across Europe together, and what a great idea. I can just see European students in school becoming excited at the idea of traveling as a group in a way which is now much more than affordable to them. I have a friend in Ireland who is in his senior years and lives in his own Castle, he reminises about trips he made with friends when he was just 15. They would hitch hike from the west of Ireland and would find themselves in Paris a few days later. He told me they would bring a small bag and had no idea where they might sleep or eat. The light in his eyes revealed to me the value of that particular type of travel that is only possible to do when your younger.
Listening to Micheal that day inspired me to try to think of something that I could offer through Angel Tours Europe to encourage our youth to be as curious. My friend Nacho from Spain would tell me of his plans to explore Europe with his friends but the thing that inevitably stopped their trip was lack of funds. They had the curiosity and the will but paying for trains, food and accommodation and of course alcohol made it impossible. Every year since he was 17 he talked to me about his hopes to see remote places and to have real life experiences with his friends but it still has not happened. I’m not sure why they don’t do what Micheal from Castle Ellen did back in 1945 and just get out onto the road and go, and maybe that’s not even advisable but what a true education if they did!
I travelled the coast of Ireland on my own when I was 16 years old, I took a tent and had about £200. I only had to pitch that tent about 7 nights and got taken in and fed often, but it is the memories still vivid in my eyes that make me smile even today thinking about it and it wasn’t any big events that made my first adventure special, it was small things like chatting with an old man in Dingle as we walked a!ong the road together. Or another night when I got back to my tent to find that I was camping next to a family of fox cubs in Donegal. When parents tell me that their children want to go traveling I always tell them not to let school interfere with their education and to let them go. In the age of phones maybe it’s better to get them outside.
Angel Tours is offering free walking tours in cities across Europe to students, Im hoping that this will encourage them to take that plunge into travel and into the unknown. My Cultural Historians want to do this even though we know that students don’t tip and certainly wont sign up for paid tours. I just want my company to be part of this initiative and I’m hoping that my competitors will get jealous and do the same. Another plan I’m hatching is to contact the hostels and restaurants who collaborate with Angel Tours to persuade them to make some extra generous offers to students recommended by us. Already we have camp sites in France and Italy who are willing to give a 25% discount and a tour guide in Ireland who can get them into Museums free of charge.
We are putting together a document on cities detailing all the free entry days into Museums”worth visiting” and with suggested places to eat and sleep. My approach is genuine and not self serving, I will make sure that the information I offer sn’t boring and my free walk tours will be pure history in storytelling fashion without any promotion and tip hunting, I do hope this takes off and if anyone has any good ideas to add to this initiative make sure to get in touch.
Sean T
www.angeltours.eu
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