At SEAIF we strongly believe in the transformative power of international travel. Our study tours, although closely integrated with seminar series we plan to offer, can be joined on a stand-alone basis, just contact the SEAIF team.

SEAIF study tours are designed explicitly to enable participants to expand their historic and cultural insights while making important connections. Unfortunately most tours, even other study tours, become commodified (typical tourist experience) and trivialized – a mere producer of cultural products, such as food, dance, and art, for our consumption. It is the SEAIF team’s belief that this typical “tourist” approach robs participants of the chance to gain significant cross-cultural understanding. Our study tours are carefully planned so that participants gain insights into the importance of

Attitudes: curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one’s own

Knowledge: of social groups and their products and practices

Skills of interpreting and relating: ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents or events from one’s own.

Skills of discovery and interaction: ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices

Critical cultural awareness: ability to evaluate, critically and on the basis of explicit criteria, particular perspectives, practices and products in one’s own and other cultures and countries.

As an example, Tim Douglas, H-SS teacher and Department Chair at McClatchy High School, Sacramento, and Summer 2002 Laos Study Tour participant wrote, “Where do I begin to sing the praises of an educational journey
 of a lifetime? The SEAIF Study Tour opened my eyes up to a world that I had little
 knowledge of and even less understanding. As an educator in 
California I feel that it is my duty to become better versed in the
 cultures that fill my classroom. Laotian students, mainly Hmong and 
Mien, are an integral part of the student population here at C.K. 
McClatchy High School in Sacramento. Finding myself basically ignorant of the history
 of these two groups, I jumped at the opportunity to learn more. I had
 the good fortune of having Peter Whittlesey, SEAIF team member as both teacher and guide
 to the complex reality of 21st century Laos, and embarked on the 
adventure of a lifetime last summer.

Experiencing Laos and its culture and history has allowed me a much
 better appreciation of the culture from which my Laotian students have
 come. In my teaching I am able to relate things to my South East Asian
 students which I never would have been able to before this trip. 
Talking about democracy and the freedoms we enjoy here, it is easy for 
me to compare our country to Laos and the freedoms that they lack.
 Discussing tribal culture and power structure, I can easily rattle off
 analogies gathered on my adventure to Laos. Immersion in Laos has also
 given me an understanding of my own culture and some of the advantages 
of being born in North America. This trip is one that I will continue
 to mine in my memories for the rest of my life. This is travel at its 
finest: educational, adventurous and most of all enlightening.”

SEAIF study tours will also appeal to digital photographers. Laos study tour leader, Peter Whittlesey, has extensive digital photographic experience and is always ready to work with participants to enhance their photographic experience. He carries portable multimedia storage viewers so participants can quickly download their compact flash or SD cards so they can take almost endless images. The photographic opportunities are endless and inspiring and if you check out our previous study tour websites we believe our photographs will speak for themselves.

Link to previous study tour reports and photo galleries