Trip Tips for SAS

If the word for money tips is redundancy (see previous post), the word for trip tips is variety. It usually happens naturally but I strongly recommend that you plan to travel in a variety of ways on this glorious journey of a lifetime.

About two months before your voyage sails, the final version of the Field Program and the Pre-Sale process will be available online. In this pre-sale you will be signing up for overnight trips, usually for the first two-thirds of the voyage. These trips require SAS to book flight and hotel reservations and so are called "manifest" trips, or trips that need your name for a booking. Therefore, once you've signed up you cannot, with only very rare exceptions, change your mind and cancel these trips or sell them to someone else - think restrictions on plane tickets you buy here. You actually can cancel but you'll lose your money :(. These trips are the big ticket, multi-day ones like safaris, the Great Wall, the Taj, etc. Day trips for the first few ports will also be included in this sale.

Please be very sure you are not signing up for a field excursions that conflicts with a Field Lab for one of your classes. You will be required to go on the Lab and will lose the money you paid for a manifest trip. The Lab is just not negotiable so be careful to organize those ports well.

The trips other than manifest trips are to places near the port city and can vary from a few hours to an extremely long day to an overnight using a bus. Some of these trips are fairly standard sightseeing ventures, like orientation tours the first day in a port, and others are service visits or special experiences that SAS has been doing for a long time, like the jazz safari in Cape Town - more about these below.

In this category is a very beloved type of SAS trip, the homestay. You will sign up to go with a family to be part of their life for a day or two. On every voyage, these experiences rank at or near the top for every student who does them. On these and other popular trips, it's first come, first served so do your research well and be ready with the choices you're absolutely dying to do on the day of registration. On the Pre-Sale signup form, you will be asked for second choices if you should not get the trip. Just be sure those second choices don't conflict with any other trips on other days you're signing up for.

An aside on homestays: if you're signed up for one, please don't be a no-show. These families are very excited to meet you and have often gone to tons of trouble with special meals, taking off time from work, etc. Also, for that reason, and just because it's a nice thing to do, please bring a small gift for the family, definitely wrapped if you're in Japan. Many students bring something typical of their home or region like maple sugar candy if you're from New England - it shouldn't be expensive, rather a "just the thought that counts" type of hostess gift.

So that's SAS trips in a nutshell. Obviously there's much more to say about them and you'll be getting lots of info from the field office - use them, those folks are great. I'll say more below about choosing among your options but let's get on to independent travel or "doing it indy" as SASers like to say. The sky's the limit here and your choices and plans will be entirely driven by what your preferences are and what you are comfortable with and/or challenged by, a feeling that will definitely change as the voyage progresses - that's one big reason you're doing this, right? These adventures usually fall into three categories. The first has grown up largely as a result of the use of Facebook before the voyage and so have come to be called "Facebook trips". Some enterprising student who has either known a previous SASer or read lots of blogs will propose a trip that often closely follows a trip offered by SAS. The primary idea is usually to try to do the trip at a lower cost and that's generally possible. Tour operators in countries we always go to like China and India are now onto this market so the student organizer may get pitched by them. Again, I'll offer my views on that below but just know it will be an option if you follow Facebook before your voyage. Secondly, you can put a small trip together with a few of your friends after you get on the ship. These trips can be anything from you and your besties putting together an overnight itinerary to someplace you all think sounds cool and letting the details just happen to a more organized adventure that you've researched either in Lonely Planet or online. Just so you remember, your internet access will be metered and very limited for this type of planning, although Wikitravel is a free site on the ship. Using books to do most of your planning is wise. The Library has large collections of travel guides for every port we go to. A hint: although Lonely Planet is geared for student travel and is certainly tried and true, choosing a recommendation from another guidebook will often yield less crowds and prevent the bar you've picked from being packed with SASers instead of the locals you were hoping to mingle with. The third type of indy trip is the solo (or duo) backpacking/just-striking-out adventure. This is obviously not for everyone but definitely the strongly preferred option for a certain sort of traveler. After we leave each port, there usually is a Post Port Reflections get together in the Union where people can share their adventures. I'm constantly amazed and awed by what happens when students travel this way. I'm sure it's my grandmotherliness coming through, but safety is often not in the top five priorities for these folks and that makes me nervous - but I love hearing their stories.

OK, that's the summary of the range of options, so here's my two cents on how to choose: PLEASE travel in a variety of ways as you journey around the world. Each type of trip has its own benefits and drawbacks, which you'll never understand unless you try them.

SAS has been doing this for OVER ONE HUNDRED VOYAGES and the value added on their trips cannot be overstated. They have worked with many of these tour companies for decades and know that they can be relied upon to provide guides with excellent English, many of whom have been loved by students for years, and buses that rarely (as opposed to often, for many other tour groups) break down. Their hotels and restaurants are wonderful and you definitely do pay for that. The field office takes care of absolutely every detail, all you do is sign up and pay, then relax and enjoy the journey. Few people realize in advance that traveling on SAS trips is also a fabulous way to meet people outside your usual, tight group of friends. You will probably get to know some faculty and staff, their families, some Lifelong Learners and some students who will become your new favorite friends, especially after you've had the bonding experience of climbing the Great Wall together (with emphasis on the word climb!). One other point is that should your trip run very late getting back to the port, and s**t definitely and regularly happens when you're traveling abroad, the ship will be held for SAS trips and NOT for Facebook or other indy trips. If you are on an independent trip and are late for on-ship time, you will get dock time. If you do not make it back on the ship before the time it is scheduled to sail because of some travel delay (or for any reason actually with the possible exception of a true medical emergency), unless you are on an SAS trip you WILL be left, I promise. So, fair warning: schedule your independent travel to arrive back in the port city the day before the ship sails and do your exploring around the port that last day. All the port cities have fascinating things to do and, besides, you'll probably want to find an Internet cafe to Skype or upload photos, neither of which you'll be able to do from the ship, or buy stamps for your postcards and snacks to re-provision your stash on the ship. Planning to arrive back before noon of the last day may be tolerable, but only in countries with quite reliable and redundant transportation systems, like Spain but absolutely not India, for instance. Cutting it closer than that is a huge risk - did I mention they will leave you? You will arrive back at the dock with a big space where the ship used to be, the port agent with a small bag of your stuff that your roommate packed for you and the feeling in your gut that you are truly on your own now. In recent years, the deans have been considering all the class days that you will miss if you miss the ship and termination from the program is a real possibility.

For me, the biggest advantage to many SAS trips is that they provide opportunities that are impossible or unlikely to replicate on your own. You might be lucky enough to meet a jazz musician in Cape Town and get invited home to jam with him, but the SAS trip guarantees it. How would you like to meet a deaf child at an orphanage in Viet Nam and take her to the zoo? SAS can arrange for you to do that. Sit in the living room of a professor from a university in Chennai and chat with women, from poets to journalists, to learn about writing and the life of women in India. Visit a cosmetics factory in Casablanca and have a fascinating conversation over lunch with its Berber owners and managers. Any time during your life that you travel you can throw on your backpack and head out to meet interesting people and have great adventures - that's always available to you. So seize the unique opportunities of this special journey and let SAS offer you a gateway to experiences you just cannot have on your own. End of commercial.

Independent travel options will probably look more and more appealing as the voyage goes on. You've probably had enough of larger groups on buses and a packed schedule. BTW, while on an SAS trip, you can always opt out of the schedule and just go off on your own. You'll lose what you paid for lunch, for instance, but you may just need a break from the group and some time by yourself. Please feel free to do that, just make absolutely sure you tell your trip leader and be back in time to re-join the trip when you say you will. By the time you get to Japan, for instance, you'll find it very easy to head out on your own or with a small group of friends, probably on a train, and have a fantastic time. Everyone will go at his or her own pace but your independence will blossom - count on that. It's one of the almost universal ways that SAS changes students. So, as you think in advance about what you want to do in each port, you might plan to do more structured trips in the earlier part of the voyage and rely more on seat of the pants travel later on.

A word about budgeting. When you see that huge list from the Field Office, you will likely be pretty much overwhelmed and feel some sticker shock. Take lots of time to read it and see what's on offer. Think about your biggest dreams and schedule them in first, either as an SAS trip or independently. If you absolutely can't imagine going all the way around the world and not seeing the Great Wall, then figure that out first. BTW, another value added for SAS China trips is that many include partnerships with Chinese universities so you get to meet and hang out with students and let them show you their lifestyle. After you've budgeted your "must dos", look at the things you can only do on SAS and plan time for them. You'll want to put together a rough idea for each country of what you want to do but these plans are just an approximation and will change a lot. Don't forget you'll be doing a number of Field Labs so put them on your schedule first. Only those and your manifest trips are set in stone. Other trips can be traded or sold to a friend or through the Buy/Sell notebook on the counter in the Field Office. As a last resort, people who find that they cannot go on a trip they've signed up for can put their tickets in a box on that counter and anyone can claim them for a free trip - a wonderful bonus on a day you find yourself with plans that have just never gelled. That experience you might never have signed up for may turn out to be your favorite of the whole voyage.

The most common regret from voyagers as they look back on their travel decisions is that they signed up for too much in advance, particularly in the pre-sale. So, if you really having trouble deciding on your list, go for a smaller number and see what develops with your friends when you get on the ship.

So, plan for lots of variety and remember to be patient with yourself. Just as you will get your sea legs, you will also get your traveling pants. Don't get overwhelmed, get excited! It's a big, wide, wonderful world out there and you're about to begin the journey of a lifetime.