Destination Spotlight

Stories from the Road: Program Leader Erik Anderson Takes us to D.C.

Most Recent Trip:  Washington D.C., October 20-24, 2022

Welcome back to our second post from our newest series: Stories from the Road where we spotlight WorldStrides program leaders who take us on a ride—start to finish—through their journey of taking students on the trip of a lifetime.

Today’s spotlight program leader is Mr. Erik Anderson, a history teacher from Edina High School in Minnesota. Erik has been traveling with his students for the past 21 years. He began teaching at Edina High School in 2001 and kicked off his first trip with students in 2002. Traveling with his students was a perfect tie into their school curriculum as they normally take 9^th graders who are involved in US Government. Due to the COVID delay, this year’s group of students to Washington D.C. were 11^th graders.

Over the years, Erik and his students have experienced a lot of impactful moments while traveling. They’ve met veterans participating in honor flights, heard Holocaust survivor’s stories, met and interacted with congressmen, and bonded with one another outside of the classroom. Here’s a fun look inside the day-to-day activities and inspirational insights of their recent trip in October of 2022 written by Erik himself:

Day 1: Thursday

The weather on Thursday in D.C. confirmed again that Fall is a wonderful time to travel. We met at the MSP airport around 5:45 a.m. Upon arrival, we immediately went to the Holocaust Museum. This is probably not ideally where a trip would begin, but we were just so happy to give kids the opportunity to get back in the building after it had been closed to large groups for so long due to COVID. The Holocaust Museum, in my mind, is a place that every person should visit. It’s always very impactful for our students. Our group of 80 then moved to the Air and Space Museum. Air and Space is another place that is recently reopened after renovation. Though it is not complete, it’s still a hit with kids of all ages. After dinner, Day one wrapped up with the Old Town Alexandria Ghost Tour and then back to the hotel. We love staying close to D.C. at the Sheraton in Pentagon City.

Day 2: Friday

Wake up came…early. After an 18+ hour day on Thursday, we eventually got rolling and certainly got our student’s attention with a visit to the White House. From there we visited one of my favorite sites—the National WWII Memorial. A few years ago, we came up with a good activity for our trips: have a day where kids can eat lunch on the mall and visit the various food trucks. They love it! After the food trucks, we proceeded to the US Capitol. The Capitol is always special and to be back in it this year after several years away made it even more special. It gave me chills to help introduce our students to the building. After the Capitol, students had the choice of what museum to visit: the US History Museum, Natural History Museum, Museum of the American Indian, and more. The students were very happy to have some choice in where they could visit, and this has become something we’ve tried to do more and more on our trips. Then came the end of the day. Monuments at night can’t be beat. We saw the unforgettable Lincoln and Korean Memorials before heading back to the hotel after another great day.

Day 3: Saturday

Saturday began bright and early with a wholesome hotel breakfast. WorldStrides does a great job at the hotel coordinating everything, including security and breakfast. I feel very confident that everything is going to be in order when we arrive. After breakfast we proceeded to the Spy Museum and this museum received a big thumbs up from our students. After a while, they were voting on which of the chaperones was most likely to be a spy—this gave us a laugh. The day continued with a visit to the Museum of the Army. This is a new stop on our itinerary and we love it. We had a special treat as Lt. Gen Robert Foley talked to our students. Lt. Gen Foley is a winner of the Congressional Medal of honor, awarded by Pres. Johnson for heroism in Vietnam. This was truly a great honor to hear from Lt. Gen. Foley. We then toured Mt. Vernon, an annual stop. Many of our students commented that this was their favorite stop because it’s a great combination of history, nature, views, and still very serious topics such as slavery. We had many discussions about the various themes at Mt. Vernon and the conflict between the greatness of George Washington and his ownership of enslaved people. Mt. Vernon is truly a great place to consider the deeper meaning of American history. Towards the end of the evening, we visited more monuments including the Jefferson, FDR and MLK. We finished the night off at the Kennedy Center with some great views of the city.

Day 4: Sunday

Sunday was Arlington. I LOVE doing Arlington to end the trip. This year we arranged for a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I was very proud of our students and our school in this moment. Another stop Sunday was the Pentagon 9-11 memorial. Our WorldStrides guide Mike Fowler-Crews does an OUTSTANDING job at this memorial in telling the story. This is a very emotional stop for students and a lot of that is owed to Mike’s ability to make it real for kids. After some lunch and more Smithsonian time we were off to BWI, then home! 

We love the experience that travel provides—learning and experiencing the world outside of the textbook. We will certainly continue the trip as the number of positive comments we hear from students, sometimes years later, tells me that it is an impactful part of their high school experience.