Seniors, Take a Good Look at This Opportunity

Semester at Sea (SAS) out of the University of Virginia takes 600 students from around the world each semester.  Most people don’t know that they also take about 30 senior citizens.  You can attend classes, use the library and the internet with the students and enjoy the faculty lounge with the “grown-ups”.

This rewarding and stimulating way to travel allows you spend 5 days or so in each port and the lectures leading up to each port are geared to make the most of your stay. In port, senior students can travel independently, on ship sponsored tours or stay on the ship each night, doing day trips. Of course instructors are also on board and you can mix and mingle with them as well.

Spend Your Summer Sailing

Seniors, this may just be a real opportunity for you to stay young, join the University of Virginia SAS group and go sailing for an entire semester.  You have already missed the first boat that left on January 09 and returns April 25. The next one will leave on June 17 and returns August 22.

The 66-day voyage now spans 9 countries and 12 ports across the Mediterranean, North Africa and 3 overland ports: Italy (Livorno/Civitivecchia); France/Spain (Marseille/Barcelona), and Spain/Portugal (Cadiz/Lisbon), enabling senior participants to spend as many as 6 days exploring a country or region. How does that sound to you? Note that SAS is proud to be sponsored by the University of Virginia, one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher education.

A Senior Learning Adventure

Educational travel lies at the heart of the SAS experience. Utilizing more than 50 years of expertise in the field of international educational travel, SAS provides a host of explorations in the more than 40 destinations visited each year. Field programs, drawing on shipboard curriculum, include UNESCO World Heritage Sites, service learning visits, home stays, national park excursions, architectural walking tours, eco hikes, and on-the-ground investigations that are hard to replicate on other programs.

More Info Please and Maybe Just Hire Me

Which ship? It’s called the MVExplorer. You’ll find students from as many as 280 different colleges and universities on board. Maybe you would like to be an employee for that semester and if so, check out this employment site. You just may enjoy the experience so much that you will become an alumnus and want to join another semester as many have done.

So read up (43 pages) on the travel blog experience of others called News from the Helm and enjoy your planning.  Wikipedia fills in lots of blanks on SAS and you will not want to skip this link. Facebook adds valuable additional information.

Sounds like a bucket-list experience to me. I think my wife may jump on this one.  jeb

Phone: 800.854.0195 | Fax: 434.243.4076
PO Box 400885 Charlottesville, VA 22904-4885