Our Travel Programs: Take Advantage

A message from our President, Paul Gunther

Amidst the many academic and public programs we offer increasingly across the country via the 15 chapters alongside New York, it is important not to lose sight of and celebrate the constant calendar of travel opportunities we foster domestically and abroad. They often fill rapidly. They constitute one of our most beloved and long-lasting educational offerings rich and dense in content as they are.

If you do not see the e-campaigns we send for them, then let us know and we can rectify.  Participation is limited to current contributing members and always includes a tax-deductible share for the general educational benefit of the ICAA. They sell on a first-come, first-served basis as fairness dictates. We work hard to keep costs down while still providing due comfort and logistical ease.  Similar travel programs frankly cost many times more. Sign up sooner rather than later to assure your place. Plus the camaraderie of like-mined fellow travelers is precious beyond measure.

The Travel Committee functioning under the watch of chair William Brockschmidt, ICAA Fellow and New York-based designer, works tirelessly throughout the year to conceive a destination wish list diverse in both architectural and artistic content and geographical spread whether domestic or abroad.  These plans now extend out in some cases for as far as three years. We welcome your recommendations of possible itineraries especially when accompanied by researched reasons of why and contacts with prospective local guides including but not limited to well-versed scholars.

Once a destination is approved we generally work with Classical Excursions and its able stewards, Tom Hayes and Lani Summerville, who share in the shaping of ground details and precise curatorial content, with one or the other of them always part of the trip as group leader. More recently we have extended this travel partnership to Pamela Darling and her Paris-based firm Exclusive Cultural Travel Programs, especially in the Francophone world, which applies most imminently to upcoming trips to Paris and to Lebanon/Jordon (She will soon guide as well a trip to the Veneto and Venice, exceptionally in this case, as it is a well trod path also trodden by Classical Excursions given Palladio’s centrality to modern classical studies and appreciation.)

The trips now available can be found online here. Never hesitate to visit the Web site to learn of others as they become final and are then added.   Besides Pamela’s trips, Denmark; the Hamptons of Eastern Long Island, New York; Cuba; Hawaii; Boston, Cleveland; Rome; and San Diego are all taking shape among many others in various states of gestation and review. Again if not yet posted they will soon be with alerts informing you of their advent. During uncertain times, travel can help inform and inspire for the better days to follow when the marketplace favors refreshed minds.

In light of past client demand, the uncertainties in today’s world, and the richness of sites yet to be explored, domestic trips are now preeminently (although never exclusively) at the planning forefront. The Travel Committee is framing plans for the next few years with that guiding preference.

Meanwhile take stock and take advantage. We do it all with you in mind.

Cheers for August’s drawdown.

P.S. The Forum newsletter will arrive next month for Fall 2011 and all continuing education and public programs likewise are posted on the Web beginning next week, August 15. Heads up.