Seamless Student Travel: Avoiding Common Trip Pitfalls

After 40 years in student performance travel, we’ve learned a lot: about traveling with student musicians, working with school administration, keeping everyone safe on tour… you name it.

With over 7,000 trips under our belts, we’ve also seen plenty of mistakes and heard more than a few horror stories. Here are some common trip-planning pitfalls – but don’t worry, we’re here to help you avoid them!

1. Going It Alone

Planning a trip without an experienced trip planner is a big undertaking, with a lot of room for error. While many educators we work with initially felt they could plan a trip on their own, they found that the logistics were more than they felt prepared for. Thousands of details need to come together in harmony to pull off a memorable trip.  Our team has the experience and vendor relationships to create a seamless, value-packed trip for you and your students – often for less than you’d think.

2. Planning Too Late

Planning early really does make all the difference. The best transportation, lodging and attractions are available when you plan in the sweet spot of 12-15 months in advance. We’ve been known to pull off travel magic in shorter timeframes, but there’s not a lot we can do when vendors are booked solid. Planning early also gives your group enough time to fundraise, building relationships and excitement as the clock ticks down to your departure date.

3. Taking on Too Much Risk

Planning a trip on your own isn’t just time consuming, it’s also a bigger risk than most educators realize. As professional travel planners, we carry professional liability insurance to protect both our company and our travelers. When you plan on your own, you take on that liability yourself and that’s more risk than most folks are comfortable with.

4. Missing Out on Fundraising

Fundraising is an incredible experience for your group, as they work together to achieve a common goal and have a blast doing it. Not to mention, it makes traveling more affordable and accessible to all students, regardless of their income level. We’ve found too many groups don’t approach fundraising with a plan and a goal and often miss out on both the experience and the financial benefits. We’ve worked with hundreds of schools and have seen some amazing fundraising programs – you can take advantage of all we’ve learned here.

5. Forgetting it’s YOUR Trip

There are travel planners out there offering heavily discounted trips that initially look appealing. But the trick is that every trip they offer is exactly the same, with no option to customize or adjust itinerary elements to fit your group’s unique needs and wants. Every trip we plan is fully customized. That means we’re working to learn about you, your students, your program’s goals and your travel dreams as we walk through the trip planning process together. This is YOUR trip and should be exactly the travel experience you want it to be.   

Planning student travel is our passion and we’re so honored to partner with schools to make it a reality for student performers. Whether you’re considering a first trip or would like to see how the BRT experience might be different than trips you’ve planned in the past, we’d love to chat with you. Reach out today and let’s start the conversation.