What is it like to be a rep? Amy Hawksworth tell us how travelling abroad changed her views of the world
Going on tour, whether as a pupil, a teacher or even as the rep can transform your perspective on the world you know!
Amy Hawksworth started her career as a Tour Rep and has travelled extensively with school groups, sports groups, Brownie and Scout groups. She now works at a university promoting social mobility and fair access to higher education amongst underrepresented learners.
The coach rolled into the school layby and came to a halt.
“Take me home, country roads” was blaring out of the speakers and groups of anxious parents scanned the coach windows, waiting to welcome their darling sons and daughters home.
A tear rolled down my cheek as I felt something had truly changed, and the world I’d left behind just a week earlier was somehow different. Or maybe it was me who was different?
It was 2001 and I’d just returned from my first ever time away from home on the Year 10 ski trip to Austria.
The food had been terrible. I’d barely made it off the nursery slopes. I’d hardly slept a wink and it had seemingly taken longer to get there and back than we’d actually been in resort. Yet I’d loved every second!
I’d built new friendships with groups of people who I’d never spent time with before, previously known as “those girls from Form W”. I’d found new respect for my teachers, who I realised were human beings with social lives, music tastes and families and friends of their own. Most of all, I’d pushed myself out of my comfort zone and tried new foods, had a go at a new language and picked up the very basics of a new skill. I’d seen a new part of the world, without my parents – and I was hooked!
Fast forward to 2008, whilst studying for a modern foreign languages degree and having lived and studied abroad, I began working as a Tour Rep for a group travel company. At first on a part-time basis during my university holidays and then on an ad-hoc basis once I secured full time employment with them as a Tour Coordinator.
Over my 4 years as a Tour Coordinator and Tour Rep, I had some truly fantastic experiences. From trekking over the Sahara desert on the back of a camel, to skiing down the slopes that the Kennedys had once frequented in New Hampshire. I’ve eaten packed lunches on the flanks of Mount Vesuvius, Mount Etna and Iceland’s infamous Eyjafjallajökull volcano, watched a choir perform at the Florence Duomo and been part of Brownie Promise Ceremonies around the world.
But I can honestly say that my best memories of these travel experiences come from witnessing change within the groups themselves. Starting out with kids huddled beneath their hoodies and glued to their phones at airports and ending with full group selfies and dramatic, tearful goodbyes (until they meet again at school on Monday). Meeting closed and reserved group leaders in a Departures Lounge and ending in Arrivals with embraces, heartfelt thanks and the knowledge that lifetime experiences had been shared. The embarrassment of seeing endless full plates returning to Italian kitchens on day one and the joy in the chef’s eyes at the empty plates and requests for seconds by the end of the week.
I truly believe that travel and, more importantly, shared cultural experiences are transformative. Giving new perspectives on life, who you are and what’s important to you. Now with a family of my own, trekking around the world for weeks at a time is unrealistic for me. But do I regret those experiences? Absolutely not. And would I want them for my own daughter? Without question.
