Spain is one of the most exciting destinations for student travel in Europe. With its rich history, vibrant culture, stunning architecture, and diverse educational opportunities, the Catalan capital city is ideal for school trips to Barcelona and youth / university group excursions.
Whether you’re organizing a high school history tour, an art-focused university trip, or a cultural exchange with a local Spanish language school, BCN offers something for every student. In this sense, here it’s a suggestion on things to do if you are visiting for 4-7 days:
- Day 1: Arrival, hotel check-in and scavenger hunt around Gotic district
- Second day: Street art tour around Raval district, and Sagrada Família or Park Güell reservation
- Day 3: Picasso Museum, and artistic trencadis workshop
- 4th day: Montjuïc/Montserrat, beach activities or bike tour, and return travel
- Fifth day: solidary picnic and sustainable tapas workshop
- Extra days: Girona city, graffiti workshop, Carmel bunkers panoramic view, flamenco show, Camp Nou…
What are the tours and workshops available for student trips to Barcelona?
There exists a variety of alternative guided visits and experiencies that provide students with unique, hands-on learning activities beyond the typical sightseeing routes. These alternative student trips to Barcelona often focus on urban culture, scavenger hunts and gastronomy related things to do.
Based on our opinion, there should be a mix of opportunities offered to students, with free time in the middle, and not packing the days with many activities. If the day is overloaded, there exists the chance for them to become tired after the first half of the journey.
That’s the reason why Cooltourspain’s activities are not just guided visits, or workshops in which there is not an educational component. Instead of that, we prefer establishing bidirectional communication with participants, integrating them from the very beginning, until the end. Moreover, workshops encourage students to express their own ideas.
Is the street art tour around Raval district the best option for alternative student trips in Barcelona?
If you’re interested in organizing something outside the traditional tourist route, Cooltourspain might be your best partner in town. Our street art tours, cultural workshops, and alternative educational experiences, offer a fresh, and creative perspective for the student trips to Barcelona.
A group of specialized guides will let you explore the urban art murals along Raval district, while learning about politics, identity, and urban transformation. However, Catalunya represents one of the most active graffiti communities in Spain, and you could also hire our services at Poble Nou, Gotic or Born neighborhoods.
Moreover, participants will receive the unique opportunity of spray-painting, using stencils, spray cans and markers, over 38x42cm totebags or DinA3 sized papers. As Barcelona council counts with several legal walls, Cooltourspain’s workshops take place either at Plaça Terenci Moix or Jardins Tres Chimeneies.
What’s a solidary picnic? Does it promote sustainable tourism and social responsibility among students?
A solidary picnic is an effective way to promote both sustainable tourism and social responsibility among the student trips to Barcelona. It introduces them to the concepts of ethical consumption, and social justice in a hands-on and engaging manner.
By participating at one of Cooltourspains’s solidary picnics, students will not only learn important values, but will also become more conscious of how their choices affect the world around them, both in their everyday lives and during their travels.
At first, participants will purchase 0 kilometer products from mercado Santa Caterina, a spot where you will find local residents doing their daily shopping list. Later, the group will visit Fundacion Comtal, an NGO which offers help and support to those who need it the most. In this sense, you will ellaborate a picnic (sandwich, fruit and canned juice) for kids 6-18 who live under certain socio-economical conditions.
Gaudí, his legacy and the modern architecture tour
Group coordinators willing to combine the cities’ architecture and history within their school curriculum, the Gaudí & modernism tour is a must. As former educators, we know that addding an educational component to the student trips to Barcelona, might be an added value to attract parents’ attention.
This two-hour walking guided visit delves into the life and works of Antoni Gaudí, and might explore iconic sites such as the Sagrada Familia, Casa Batlló, and Casa Milà (La Pedrera). The explanation also covers the modernist movement and its impact on the city. As a matter of fact, it might be an excellent opportunity to learn about Barcelona’s architectural heritage in an engaging and informative way.
FYI, Cooltourspain has transformed the typical way in which these guided visits are led, and we will provide a 7 pages colored booklet, where kids and teenagers have to answer questions in order to move into the next activity. We prefer calling it a scavenger hunt. It’s funnier for them, and definitely more engaging.
Why should you choose Cooltourspain for your student trips to Barcelona?
We started offering our services for schools in Madrid, and as we observed that they were popular among the student trips for teenagers aged 14-17, then we started organizing the same art and architecture tours in Barcelona. The same idea that was succesful to us, but in a different city.
Cooltourspain.com and cooltourspain.es were our first websites, but then it came cooltourspain.cat, with which we pretended targeting groups who travel from Paris or London (among other European capital cities) to Barcelona. We count with a multilingual team at each city, always offering an alternative touristic approach, as well as a classic point of view.
Last but not least, you should take into consideration other groups’ reviews, and what do their organizers & coordinators think about the activities. Please note that there is always room for improvement, but the overall opinion is outstanding.
Tips for organizing student trips to Barcelona
1-. Plan ahead of time: We usually receive requests for student trips to Barcelona with at least 6-12 months in advance. Those are the ones who get the best slots of time in the morning. However, you could write us and we will offer you a tour within the next 24-72 hours with no reservation.
2-. Consider group interests: School coordinators should tailor the trip based on the academic focus and the students’ age range. What’s your subject area of interest? History, art, Spanish language, sports… Let us know via email at info@cooltourspain.com or whatsapp/phone call at +34638399784
3-. Combine classic and alternative experiences: it’s easy to note when teenagers get tired. Consequently, you should offer them guided visits which are engaging, no longer than 90 minutes, and which include hands-on activities.
Street art as a way of living, and our differentiation on the student trips to Barcelona
Is graffiti art, or would you consider it as vandalism? To many of us, graffiti is more than just painting on the streets with or without permission. It’s a culture shared by thousands, if not millions of people all around the world. And the good thing is that you can travel, and enjoy the local community as if you did it in your hometown.
When you approach the youth with a topic of discussion which is of their interest, you will easily get their attention. Moreover, that’s the introduction during our street art tours. What if we brought a school bag with materials, and asked students what’s in the interior? They will have to guess, by infering from their previous knowledge.
Once the guess the bag’s interior content, we make a joke with the person who guessed it correctly, by saying “Would you like to paint right here at Plaça Catalunya?”. You should imagine the teachers’ faces. Despite the fact that they will paint with permission, at an authorized area, we get students attention from the very first moment. Let’s enjoy the activity!
To us, quality is better than quantity
Almost 10 years of experience within the educational group travel industry has proven that when you offer an outstanding service, the organizers of student trips to Barcelona will get back to you year after year. That’s what has happened to us. The commercial relationship that we have established with several companies such as EF, Go Abroad, or Intrepid has set a milestone in our project.
How do we do it? Here it’s a list of best practices followed by Cooltourspain organizers, and tour leaders:
- Offer one tour leader for every 20 students.
- Bilingual tour guides.
- There must be an adult, from the school trips to Barcelona, supervising each subgroup.
- Meeting points near a metro station, or easy accesible for a coach.
- If the group coordinator/agency plans other activities any given day, do not plan museums the last thing of the day.
Cooltourspain’s opinion about the student trips to Barcelona
We are those lucky professionals who quit their daily job in order to work within the educational field, but in a non formal environment. The group of tour leaders and workshop instructs who lead Cooltourspain’s student trips to Barcelona are still linked to methodology and didactics, but away from the classroom setting.
It’s been a great pleasure sharing our level of expertise with over 3500 participants per year, whether they join any of the alternative guided visits, or the history tours. We hope receiving your booking request soon.
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