This is one trip we built for one school. Everything below (destination, duration, balance of activities) was set by their brief, and yours would produce something different. It is here to show the shape of a proposal.
This itinerary came from a languages department tired of the classic single-city immersion week. Their argument was good: pupils learn more about a language from crossing a border with it than from a fortnight in one classroom. So the trip follows the Rhine, German in the morning, then the same river in Alsace and in Switzerland.
Mornings are language classes with local teachers. Afternoons apply them: a market, a shipping lock, a town hall, a tram ticket bought unaided. By Friday the class has used German in three countries and heard three accents of it.
A sample day, day four
The crossing day: German class in the morning, Alsace in the afternoon, and the border as the lesson.
✏️ An example timetable, the destination, programme, duration and budget all move to suit your group.
What the group actually does
German classes
Two to three hours each morning with local teachers, in small groups set by a placement test on arrival. Not a lecture: role-play built around what the afternoon will require.
Three countries, one river
Germany, Alsace and Switzerland in a week, with the Rhine as the thread, border regions, shared vocabulary and a language that shifts as you go.
Geography fieldwork
A shipping lock, a hydroelectric station and a river-port visit, with fieldwork sheets on freight, flood management and cross-border trade.
Daily language tasks
Ordering, asking directions, buying a ticket, interviewing a market trader. Small, real, and scored, the class competes by team over the week.
Curriculum links
What this itinerary supports in the classroom, before and after the trip.
In pictures
Frequently asked questions
No. Groups are set by a placement test on arrival, so beginners and confident speakers both get a class at their level. The afternoon tasks are tiered the same way.
It is less than it sounds: the three bases sit within a short drive of each other along the river, which is exactly why this corridor works. No day has more than two hours on the coach.
Yes. The same route works with French as the target language, weighted towards Alsace and Switzerland, with German as the incidental one. Say which in the brief.