Early flights, trips with a full itinerary and a exploring new places are just a few activities several Rouse students had the chance to be a part of over the summer.

   Junior Edna Rotich was one student who traveled to Italy with a group from Rouse.

    “It was a really fun experience,” Rotich said. “The architecture and the way people interacted with each other was cool. I liked the designs of the buildings. They were older and different from what we see here, and it was really pretty.”

    Rotich experienced different cities and popular sites while in Italy.

    “The people there treated everyone well,” Rotich said. “They were nice when they had guests. It was pretty easy to understand them because we were in larger cities, so they were used to tourists.”

    Due to the fact that so many students wanted to go on a summer trip with the school, English teacher Katie Ann Prescott decided to sponsor two trips this past summer. One group of students traveled to Costa Rica in June, right after the previous school year ended, and another group of students left for Italy July 8.

    Prescott made sure each student had a memorable experience by doing a lot of research before each trip.

    “I basically just learned from my experiences by taking a lot of groups of kids on trips,” Prescott said. “If I went to one place and the kids did not like it, I did not plan it again.”

    Another way Prescott planned for the trips was by purchasing a lot of guidebooks and reading about different locations and itineraries.

    “If I saw something cool in a guidebook, I usually asked to add that to our trip,” Prescott said. “It was basically researching and filling out forms online and asking questions about different places or reading the newspaper. For instance, in France there was an art museum that used black lights to show the artwork. I like to look for things you can’t find in the U.S.”

    Students who went to Costa Rica said they experienced more adventures than those who took the Italy trip.

    “We hiked through at least three different rainforests,” senior Robert Mount said. “We went through the cloud forest, we went on an aerial tram through the rainforest, we ziplined across 1,000 yards of rainforest, and we went white water rafting down one of the base rivers with level three and four rapids, which are higher ones. We saw a lot of countryside.”

   Even though the Italy trip had less adventures, students still learned about their unique culture and experienced smaller cities.

    “One of my favorite places we visited was Cagliari,” senior Blake Carpenter said. “It was  home to little towns on the coast, and we got to hike in between them.”

    In Italy, the group’s tour guide took students on tours through some of the country’s most renowned churches, whereas in Costa Rica, students and teachers discovered more education about the environment.

    “I learned a lot about nature and the animals, and how that all played a part in their country’s ecosystem,” Mount said. “It was a big part of our tour because it showed how the rainforests were and how well the people used their resources. [In the States] trips always seem more about sightseeing, whereas there, it was more about experiences and taking in the culture through the environment.”

    Mount said in Costa Rica the food was more focused on the products found within their environment.

    “We had rice and beans with every meal,” Mount said. “By the third meal I was tired of it, but I still ate it. I just wished there was more variety to it. It was always rice and beans with chicken or sausage or fruit. There was a lot of fruit, too.”

    Students will have another opportunity to travel with their peers next summer, as Prescott plans on taking a group to Spain. She’s also planned a trip for 2020, which will be to France.

    “If a student has an opportunity to go on one of these trips, they should go,” history teacher Michael Hjort said. “These trips will get you out of your comfort zone, and it will challenge you, because you have to be independent.”