The emotional life of today’s teens is revealed in the thousands of compelling travel blogs submitted to the 3rd annual FTF Teen Travel Writing Scholarship.
(New York, November 13, 2009) – Family Travel Forum (FTF), the award-winning family vacation publisher, is proud to announce the winners of its 3rd annual Teen Travel Writing Scholarship competition. More than 8,500 student travel blogs – a 30% increase over 2008 – were submitted by Americans ages 13 to 18 hoping to win a merit scholarship.
Students wrote on an extraordinary range of topics — from family reunions with clueless relatives and making friends at the local bookstore to manning health clinics on tropical islands and searching for rare flowers in a rain forest. The 28 winners traveled near and far with their family, friends, or student travel groups, and shared stories about Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and the United States.
The young travelers’ compassion was one remarkable aspect of this year’s travel blogs, as more than 10% wrote about their community service or mission trips. While most students found helping others fulfilling, many of the 2009 applicants reflected with despair and anger about the pervasive poverty in many of the destination countries – including their own. The travel experience revealed other common threads in the teen zeitgeist: Appreciation of the great outdoors; fear and respect for other cultures; love of family; relentless stress; and the joy of logging off their connected life back home.
2009 FTF Teen Travel Writing Scholarship Winners
Congratulations to the recipients of 2009 Family Travel Forum Teen Travel Writing Scholarships, who will also enjoy a two-night stay at any of the 265 Homewood Suites Hotels in the US, Canada and Mexico.
1st Place ($1,000)
“African Field of Dreams” By Emily Mulder; Glen Ellyn, Illinois
2nd Place ($500)
“Beautiful Nepal” By Christine Anderson; San Ramon, California
3rd Place ($200)
“The Pennsylvania Hills ” By Kassandra Caudell; Cascade, Maryland
2009 FTF Teen Travel Writing Scholarship Honorable Mention Winners
The 2009 Teen Travel Writing Scholarship Honorable Mentions will receive a Certificate of Commendation, two tickets to any of the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museums or aquariums worldwide and a “Rand McNally 2010 Atlas.”
“A French Connection” By Yining Lu; Solana Beach, California
“A Golden Pause – A Life-Changing 2 Weeks” By Samantha Falewee; Huntersville, North Carolina
“A Perfect Tiramisu” By Jenna Ewald; Aurora, Colorado
“A Trip to Germany: The Privilege of Duty” By Carmen Gott; Goddard, Kansas
“Bienvenue En Haiti ” By Alexandra Mutty; Whitinsville Massachusetts
“Campeneac, France” By Lily Martin; Titusville, New Jersey
“Edgeware” By Samantha Karas; Lincoln, Nebraska
“Haiti” By Lindsey Cagney; Byfield, Massachusetts
“Heart of Italy” By Ben Lilly; Los Altos, California
“Heat, Heart, Teeth and Tears” By Melissa Gibby; Scotsboro, Alabama
“Journey into the Unknown in a Mega City” By Hetali Jokhakar; Glen Oaks, New York
“Language Barrier in Thailand” By Caitlin Camfield; Seattle, Washington
“Living Boldly in Dobrovnik” By Katie Senf; Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
“Machu Picchu” By Nathan Radakovich; Pullman, Washington
“Moby Dick Mudslide” By Kimberly Wogahn; Eau Claire, Wisconsin
“My Motherland, My Home, My Story” By Stella Thomas; New Hyde, New York
“Nature Does it Best” By Sydney Brown; Fort Wayne, Indiana
“Prairie Memories“ By Michelle Stone; Santa Rosa, California
“Rafflesia” By Elliot Brown; Okanogan, Washington
“Seoul, Korea” By Nelson Auner; Madison, Wisconsin
“Shooting for the Stars” By Colleen Swingle; Virgina Beach, Virginia
“Teaching in Sichuan, China” By Alice Lu; Oakton, Virgina
“The Shortest Trip but the Longest Journey” By Jacara Gillard; Bronx, New York
“The von Tresspass Family” By Katie Furr; Baton Rouge, Louisiana
“Vacation to Home” By Junia Zhang; San Diego, California
The Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) and Homewood Suites Hotels sponsored the top awards. Scholarship winners were selected by five professional travel journalists from SATW. Commented Kit Bernardi of the SATW Geography Education Committee, “These young writers achieved standards that define quality travel writing — whether their travel experiences took them across the globe, on a bus ride or to a family farm. Our judges were impressed by their essays that expressed a strong sense of place, touching human connections and a desire to explore the world.”
The work of the 2009 Teen Travel Writing Scholarship winners and thousands of other great student travel blogs can be seen at www.familytravelforum.com. The 2010 FTF Teen Travel Writing Scholarship will begin accepting applications on June 15, 2010.
About FTF
Family Travel Forum Inc (FTF) has provided vacation planning resources to millions of families who “Have Kids, Still Travel”® since 1996. The independent media company’s publications, acknowledged “best of breed” by Condé Nast Traveler, Forbes and others, received Travel Weekly’s Magellan Award in the Online Guides category for 2009.
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Nice and informative post, thank you such a nice sharing, we can hope find more from you on this thank you.
This is absolutely first class
phenomenal
very informative article Travel forums provide first hand experience and advice to travelers and are a great source of information and travel tips.
for travel permissions in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh in India you can contact palaholidays.com a leading tour operator and travel guide exclusive for Jammu and Kashmir Tourism
Have you ever actually traveled with kids? It doesn’t seem like it by the tone of this article.
Hello Dr Ramesh,
If both legal guardians or birth parents of the child are traveling with the child, you will not need any other documentation, except everyone’s visas and passports. Check with your employer about medical insurance. If they will not provide medical coverage overseas, you can inquire with your U.S. based insurance company about what they provide. Some travel insurance companies sell one-year policies to cover students studying overseas and that might be another option. Safe Travels!
Sir, we both are going Europe with work visa on base of permit. Taking our 3year old child with us. Any letter or medical form/ paper we need to carry with us?
A Great Family Activity and one that will bring the family back together in the future when they all grow up!!
Take a look at our adventures. https://www.youtube.com/user/00Shaddow00 . We just started doing this to bring the family together and stop wasting our time setting in front of the television. We are filming our trips to document our adventures to remember and to share with family and friends. Maybe to motivate others to get out there with there family.
good article..
thanks for sharing the wonderful and informative details. Love this blog post. Next month coming to san francisco and looking for best hotel.
Dubai is such a nice place to stay and famous for its wonderful sightseeing’s attractions. The best trip is Dubai sightseeing’s tour and desert safari in Dubai. We had great time couple of years ago.
Everything is very open with a precise clarification of the challenges. It was really informative. Your site is extremely helpful. Many thanks for sharing
Let me add http://www.babyquip.com to the list.
With over 300 locations to serve you in North America, we help tens of thousands of families enjoy more restful and memorable outings near and far.
YAY THAT’S MY TWIN! So proud of you Tali!
Your blog helped me to plan my family trip to Bangkok and Pattaya. Just made a video blog out if it, https://youtu.be/tok17yOR1W8 please watch ang give feedback.
Ranch Vacation with family is a real fun. Here we spent quality time with each other. Truly said, we eat a lot and on-time as well. Riding is also a fun in ranch vacation, Created a perfect picture.
For great prices on water rafting, cruise, zip line, and horseback riding activities, you can check out: http://www.mauiticketsforless.com
We have actually done the ATV tour in Cozumel Mexico, and had an amazing time. We booked with Cozumel Cruise Excursions. Net which is a family business and we had an amazing time. Theres nothing better than going to another country and getting great customer service and amazing people as guides. I would highly recommend checking them out next time your in Cozumel http://cozumelcruiseexcursions.net
This sounds like so much fun! From the haunted houses to the different drinks offered. I didn’t know HHN was such a major part for Universal Orlando. Good to know! Thanks for the article!
Hello Annetta,
Yes, one Permission to Travel or Consent Letter can list more than one child on it, if the contact information for the legal guardians/birth parents is the same.
Safe travels!
Can I use one concept form to apply for two sibling from the same father
Hey, very nice site. I came across this on Google, and I am stoked that I did. I will definitely be coming back here more often. Wish I could add to the conversation and bring a bit more to the table,but am just taking in as much info as I can at the moment. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for all of these suggestions.
Chicago is a wonderful place to visit.
Excellent very nice! No doubt Dubai is very famous for more activities but desert safari is very unique activity.i love this one…
This is important topic for travel insurance for family and luggage on holiday and if you want to explore more destination you can visit here:- http://www.yourvitalventures.com
Thanks, recommendation cheap hotels is very useful for the preparation of our vacation that will not be soon. Really nice!
Nice article
Nice Travel Tips…
It’s amazing. I hope i can visit it soon T.T
Beautiful article
Our family of 3 adults booked a tour with Kalka Travels in April 2018. Our tour included transportation and accommodation in Delhi, Pushkar, Udaipur, Bundi, Jaipur and Agra. We then caught an overnight train to Varanasi where we met up with a third party contracted by Kalka Travel. Overall we were very happy with the tour company as they delivered on what we had pre-arranged with them. We upgraded our vehicle to a SUV rather than just a sedan, and added an elephant ride to Agra Fort, tickets to traditional dance show in Udaipur, a movie at the Raj Mandir theatre in Jaipur as well as water was supplied each day to us. All breakfasts were included. Our driver Ravinder was exceptional in that he was always on time and patient with us sometimes being late; the vehicle was always cleaned that morning and comfortable. He was highly attentive to our needs, very reliable, polite, and humorous, and told us what to expect at each stop. We always felt very safe with him as he was an excellent driver. His English was good in that we were able to ask many questions of him. Kalka Travels was flexible with our itinerary and our driver stopped at a few places that were not on our list of stops, unlike the other company we had considered booking who told us the drivers could not be flexible.Our wonderful driver, Ravinder, made our trip very special. Kalka Travels also only asked for a $100 deposit in advance and the remainder when we arrived in India, which put us at ease. Bobby Thakur was very quick to respond to any concerns we had. All in all, a wonderful vacation and experience with Kalka Travels.
Nice article! Wanted to point out another license plate app that has a map view showing all your plates, calculates points based on current location and includes US, Canada, Mexico and Australia plates.
For iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/plates-family-travel-game/id1335335602?mt=8
For Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ebrydobby.app.plates.free
Great article & very practical. Thanks for all the tips – I’ll be thinking about them for a while as we work on our website redesign.
Great vacation ideas and post too..!!!
There are many famous forts and palaces along with wildlife sanctuaries and other monuments which has attracted thousands of visitors and some of them have become a part of UNESCO World Heritage Site as well.
We are completely in accord with these ‘not to miss 5 experiences in Dubai.’ We experienced them on a family trip last year. The one thing we missed out was the charter yacht. Now we have taken it as a priority for our next trip after reading your post.
Look like you had a great adventure trip. The ship looks awesome.
Dubai is amazing. I really enjoyed reading your article! 🙂
I just found a website that lists apple festivals all over the country! So you can find something in your area. They all seem a little bit different, which is fun. http://pickyourown.org/applefestivals.php
St john is more quite than other Caribbean islands. St John accessible only by ferry from the other U.S. Virgin Islands, St. John is a true gem in the Caribbean with crystal clear waters, lush green mountains and gorgeous white sand beaches. Though it is the smallest of the three U.S. Virgin Islands, St. John’s unspoiled beauty is perhaps the greatest found anywhere in the Caribbean.
Rajasthan is one of the most vibrant and colorful states in India with its rich culture and traditions since ancient times. It is known as the land of warriors and beautiful princess who even chose to die for saving their chastity and had a great affinity with their motherland. Whether it is the cuisine or the dress sense everything is unique about Rajasthan’s culture. There are many famous forts and palaces along with wildlife sanctuaries and other monuments which has attracted thousands of visitors and some of them have become a part of UNESCO World Heritage Site as well. The famous sites are described in this blog which is good for the history lovers and for those people who want to explore more about the diversity of Rajasthan.
Being in the city of Royal Tents in Jaisalmer of moving sand ridges, you can’t get away from the seat travel. A rough ride on a camel in the Thar Desert is one of the energizing things to do in Jaisalmer Royal Camps. It enables you to investigate the remote and segregated spots tucked amidst the abandon. Absolutely, the additional time you give on your safari, the more remote spots you are probably going to see and the more you may acclimate to and appreciate the abandon serenity.
I am going to Dubai next month thanks for sharing this information will come in handy
Nice post…
Thank you so much for sharing a great information. I appreciate your time and effort in your work. Keep posting.
Thanks, for posting such and Informatic blog. I had been to Amer Fort in Jaipur and it was an amazing experience.
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A rough ride on a camel in the Thar Desert is one of the energizing things to do in Jaisalmer Royal Camps. It enables you to investigate the remote and segregated spots tucked amidst the abandon.
I think that is a wonderful experience at Dubai. I’ve been to Dubai and it’s pretty