Trips that teach

Spice up your trips abroad by learning something new, taking a class you won't find at home.

By TIM LEFFEL
Published December 26, 2004

Many travelers will tell you they learned far more on the road than they ever did in college: History comes alive and is finally placed in context; all those vague blobs on a map start to make sense; religions are no longer just esoteric theories in a book.

Travel also offers the chance to take part in learning opportunities you could never find at home. Many students take courses for credit abroad, but tourists can find plenty of short courses, too.

When Jim Wilbrot of Chicago went to Thailand, he spent 10 days in a Buddhist meditation course. "Despite the 4:45 a.m. wakeup bell, a total ban on talking and sleeping on what was essentially a concrete slab," Wilbrot says, "it was one of the most rewarding parts of my travels."

Travelers will find that as little as a day spent in class breaks up the sightseeing and adventure treadmill. It also provides a different view of local traditions or handicrafts.

During the first trip my wife and I took to Southeast Asia, we stumbled upon a batik workshop in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, that offered classes several times a week. We spent one particularly rainy day learning how to create a batik painting, and we left with our own crude works of art. After hours of going through the multiple steps required, we gained great appreciation for the paintings and other craft items we found later in markets and museums.

When Dimitri Munkirs left her Portland, Ore., home to travel around the world, she spent time in Bali taking a cooking class run through a local restaurant. "The amount of manual grinding of spices to mix the flavors was unbelievable," Munkirs recalls.

Another day she took part in a group "herb walk" through the rice fields and woods around the village of Ubud, seeing what plants people traditionally used for medicine and grooming.

"The one we liked best was the "shampoo plant.' You crushed the leaves in your hands and mixed water to make a slimy mixture like a creme rinse."

Travelers to Japan who budget the time can learn intricate origami or how to conduct a proper tea ceremony. Anyone visiting Buenos Aires should take tango lessons.

When Lindsay Kassof went to South Korea to teach English, she took advantage of the relatively inexpensive tae kwon do classes. "For $30 a month, I got semiprivate instruction five nights a week. Where I live in Manhattan, $30 will get you one session at a martial arts studio and a smoothie."

The classes also helped with her language skills, and more: "In studying tae kwon do, I learned all of the body parts in Korean - and how to hurt them."

Many people travel to spend at least a week taking language immersion classes in a foreign country. For instance, it is easy to find a Spanish immersion course for $200 to $500 per week, typically including room and board with a local host.

Trudie Helmke from Halifax, Nova Scotia, decided to spend two months studying life drawing at an art school in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. "The cost was $95 dollars per month, and that included nine hours of instruction per week," she says. "I was surrounded by Mexican people, had Mexican instructors and watched Mexican students work."

Tim Leffel is the author of "The World's Cheapest Destinations: 21 Countries Where Your Dollars Are Worth a Fortune."

Search online for classes on cooking, language, art or other topics, but remember that many of the smaller schools won't have a Web site. So, also search for specific Web sites by refining the search to your desired destination; consult the sites of tourism bureaus and libraries, and sites maintained by and for expatriates.

The following Web sites are good jumping-off points to online listings: www.shawguides.com: extensive lists of learning vacations around the world.

www.TransitionsAbroad.com: more serious study opportunities and language classes, plus good articles on living overseas.

www.PlanetEdu.com: good resource for interesting learning vacations and language courses.

www.expatexchange.com: to find local resources and people in the know.

Some guidebooks offer at least a passing mention of cultural classes, but you likely will have to leaf through several guides at a bookstore or library to see which one is right for your needs.

[Last modified December 23, 2004, 15:52:05]