Have you ever dreamt of traveling to a faraway land?  Is the Eiffel Tower on your bucket list? Do you wish you could visit a castle in Scotland? Karen Conrad, Program Officer for Hoosier Travelers, is here to share her thoughts and experiences being a host of one of our many Hoosier Traveler trips we offer every year.

In early December of last year, Karen accompanied a dozen IU alumni on a tour of Cuba. Although US citizens are not allowed to travel to Cuba as tourists, they may travel there under a People to People license issued to the IU Alumni Association.

Karen has hosted many trips in her 15 years of working with our alumni travel program. She indicated “I found this trip as one of the most fascinating because we were seeing a part of the world that few Americans have visited and none of us quite knew what to expect.”  Travelers visited both Havana and Cienfuegos and did excursions to a number of other cities, including the historic city of Trinidad. The week was busy with activity including: musical performances, lectures on the Cuban economy and Havana architecture, a visit to a family pottery workshop, a Santarai temple, dance studios, schools, a cigar factory, an old sugar plant, Havana University, a Jewish Center, a farmers’ market, a “model socialist community” in the countryside, Old Havana, a retirement home, and the list continues. They were kept busy, but Karen says “we were pleased that we had a chance to see so many facets of contemporary Cuban life.”

Hoosier Travelers not only takes you to places that you could only dream of, but group travel surrounds you with intellectually curious IU alumni while on a trip, a much added bonus. So, if Cuba is on your list, you want to take a safari to Africa, wish to take a trip around the world, go to our Travel website and explore our 2014-2015 trips. I am positive you will find a trip to check off your bucket list!