Adventure Tourism students return from trip of a lifetime

Students who took part in expeditions around the world as part of their Adventure Tourism Management degree course are now back at College.

As part of the course, teams of four to six students plan a research project relevant to their studies, and travel overseas to carry it out - and this year, for the first time, they were given the chance to visit a location outside Europe.

Ollie Kerr was in a group which planned out a route through the north of Madagascar, and went out there to see whether it was feasible.

He said: "We did manage to complete the route as planned, which was the most important thing. For the first eight days, we trekked through the rainforest, which was hard work with our big packs. We then moved on to a small island, where we could relax for a short time, before taking in some of the national parks.

"The idea was to incorporate as many different aspects of Madagascar as we could - so we took in the rainforests, the beach and the wildlife, which was a good mix of environments. We could see the island was starting to develop for tourism but the rainforests were extremely remote, and in some of the villages we visited, they'd never seen people from Europe before.

"We had done a lot of work beforehand planning the trek, so it was good to put that into practice and relate it to what we’d studied on our course."

Lucy Martin's group followed the Route du Sud, also in Madagascar. The route, featured in the Lonely Planet guide, is a popular tourist destination during the slightly cooler winter months, but her group was aiming to see whether it was feasible in their summer, which had traditionally been considered too hot and humid for European tastes.

She said: "The main point of our expedition was to see if a 21-day trek was feasible in the off-season - which it generally was. A couple of the accommodation places were closed, but there was always somewhere else we could stay.

"We managed to do all the activities we had planned, and we fitted in some diving as well, which was an added bonus. We took in some trekking and visits to national parks, then we got to the coast where we did some snorkelling and diving. Most of the activities we did were supervised, but we never had any problems finding guides.

"The expedition was a chance to put into practice everything we’d learned on the course, including aspects such as finance and risk management in the planning stage. Overall it was a fantastic experience and one we’ll all remember and look back on for years to come."