Meeting a member of Parliament, journeying to the top of the Eiffel Tower, staying with a German family for three days and planting trees in the Black Forest. While all of these are activities that many aspire to take part in while visiting Europe, very few get to do them all in one trip. However, for three students, these are just a handful of activities that they will partake in during a three week trek through Europe.

Beginning June 15, sophomore Christina Cornell and juniors Katie Craven and Sydney Carnes will be embarking on a 20 day trip to seven different countries including England, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This trip, called the European Heritage trip, is a part of the People to People student ambassador program, which attempts to create young leaders by focusing on the history, art and politics of other countries.

“The [People to People] mission is to create what they call student ambassadors,” Spanish teacher Alyson Kilcoyne said. “And that is to be a good representation, not just of your country but of your state, community, yourself and your family, and to create bridges between other countries and the United States, and to help the students gain a broader perspective and sense of the world, not just thinking about their community and themselves.”

While traveling with a group of nearly 50 other students, Carnes, Cornell and Craven  will have the chance to see what each country has to offer by visiting famous sights and being immersed in the culture.

“We’re going to go to the top of the Eiffel tower, which is a bucket list kind of thing that I’ve always wanted to do, so that’ll be really cool,” Craven said. “We’re also going to learn about Parliament and how that all works from a Parliament member, and I’m pretty excited about that because how many other times will I get to do that? Not very many.”

Among other activities, the girls will also be participating in a homestay, where they will be spending three days with a German host family.

“I’m really excited about staying in Germany,” Cornell said. “We’re talking about it right now in history and everything over there’s pretty interesting. I’m a little bit nervous about the homestay though, just being with a whole family there. I do think it’ll be a good experience though -— something different.”

However, with this trip comes certain obstacles, such as being away from home for an extended period of time with people who the girls are not entirely familiar with.

“The meetings that we have are to help us get to know everyone, but those meetings are only just once a month, so it’s kind of a long time in between,” Carnes said. “I always hope that I don’t forget people’s names, stuff like that. But all of the people seem really nice and funny, so I think it’ll be good, even though I don’t know everyone very well.”

Along with the issue of not knowing all of their fellow travelers very well, Carnes and Craven are faced with the additional task of raising money to fund their trips. Carnes, who must fund the entirety of her trip, has held fundraisers at restaurants and stores including Culver’s and Sam’s. Craven has also worked to raise money, resorting to getting her first job in order to raise her portion of the cost.

“I’ve never had to raise a lot of money before, and I’ve never really been big on fundraising; my parents would rather me work for it anyway, so it’s been really stressful trying to get all the money,” Craven said. “I’m going to make it, but I feel like it’s going to be a bit of a crunch toward the end there.”

Even Cornell has been making sacrifices, such as not playing club volleyball so that she can save up money to go on a trip that she hopes will leave a lasting impact on her life.

“I’m hoping that when I come back I will be a little bit more independent and just a little bit more aware of the adult world, maturity-wise,” Cornell said. “I think it’s important to travel because it exposes you to different cultures and heritages at a young age, which is good so that you’re not close-minded when it comes to facing new things.”

Beyond creating a change in the way that she views the world, Craven believes that traveling, especially while young, can give people insight that will be important when making major life decisions.

“How can we be expected to know what we want to do with the rest of our lives when we don’t even know what’s out there?” Craven said. “We’ve only seen our society, but there’s so many other things out there that you can see and do, but you’ve never seen them. So I think it’s really important to just discover new things, and maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for.”