A Vicarious Vacation

Europe is one of the best-loved, most-traveled places in the world. Rich in art, culture, sports, and history – yet shrouded in tragedy, adventure, mystery, and intrigue – the countries of Europe offer the savvy traveler a multitude of fascinating places to visit and a plethora of exciting things to do.

Your assignment will be to plan a vicarious (that is, pretend) ten day European vacation. As you begin planning, you will need to know where in Europe you’d like to go and why.

“LIST OF TOURIST SITES”

  • The first stage of this assignment will be to list four countries with five tourist sites you’d like to see while in each of those countries (that’s a total list of 20 tourist attractions!) For each tourist site, I would like you to write one sentence describing the tourist attraction you plan to see.

DUE:______

“ITINERARY” (Schedule)

  • The next step in this project will be to make daily plans for your 10-day journey. You will probably not be able to put all of your chosen tourist sites on your itinerary but you have a good list to choose from. You are required to visit at least 3 countries and 10 tourist attractions. (So, now you need to narrow down your choices!)

DUE:______

“ILLUSTRATED MAP”

  • The second part of this assignment is to create and illustrate your 10-day tour on a map. You should indicate which route you will be taking and the order of your planned site visits by symbolizing it and indicating which days you will be there. Since I’d like you to consider travel time while planning your trip, I’d like you to look at a map and decide what will be the most efficient way of traveling between countries. For example, it would not be a good use of your time if you spent day one in Rome, then day two in Paris, then day three in Venice. You would save travel time if you went to Paris, France first, then on to Italy to visit Rome and Venice. To prove that you have considered the location of places in your planning process, please show me on the attached map where you will be on each day of your 10-day journey. Your Europe map should be labeled with country and city names as well.

DUE:______

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“BUDGET”
  • Now that you have listed and mapped out ten fascinating sites you’d like to visit while traveling in Europe, you are ready to book your trip. A budget is necessary for this and you must stick to your planned budget. Book your flight from the nearest airport, schedule/reserve transportation (such as a rental car or bus etc.), book hotels, and plan for food. You will need to get online and search travel sites for this information. Look it up as though you were really planning this trip.

DUE:______

“POSTCARDS”

  • You should consider the trip an educational tour of Europe, so you will need to send me a daily report of your activities on a postcard. Your postcard to me should tell me where you are in Europe, what you did that day, and a detailed description of what you saw.You will need to electronically create a postcard for each day of your trip containing the above described summary and “attach” them all in your final project.

DUE:______

“MEAL PLANS”
  • You will need to eat three meals per day and will be experiencing foods of other cultures, so I will ask you to research what you will be eating. I will expect you to tell me what you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day and the meals will all need to be different than the others and culturally representative of the country. Even though you could find a McDonalds in Spain, it will not be acceptable for this project. I’d like you to experience the food of the different cultures and eat three meals per day. So in other words, while in Rome, you should eat like the Romans, etc. I will expect you to research the foods of the countries you visit and tell me what it is you will eat for each meal. No repeats of food and also describe the dish, not just name it!!!!

You are responsible for electronically creating an organized “Meal plan” document, which you will attach with your final project.

This is a BIG project that encompasses the entire Geography unit on Europe and will have a HUGE impact on your grade!!! You will be given 3 weeks to work on this so DO NOT put it off. It will take a lot of time and planning so use your “work time” wisely! This project is worth 480 points with a possibility of earning 50 bonus points.