Campus & Beyond Big Red, Big World: How Alumni Travel Curates Varied Voyages Stories You May Like A CAU Trip Sparks a Look Back at Cornell’s Ties to Cuba I’m a Wheelchair User—and Despite the Obstacles, I Love to Travel MD Keeps Adventure Travelers Healthy on the High Seas For six decades, the popular programs have helped Cornellians hit the road—and the skies, rails, and water—with fellow Cornellians By Joe Wilensky & Beth Saulnier On August 12, 2026, a total solar eclipse—the first to be viewable in parts of mainland Europe since 1999—will pass over the Arctic, Greenland, Iceland, the Atlantic Ocean, northern Spain, and the northeastern edge of Portugal. And among the millions experiencing it will be voyagers with Cornell Alumni Travel, which is offering its first-ever “eclipse tours.” Founded nearly six decades ago, the Alumni Travel program is aimed at fostering Big Red connections through trips with fellow Cornellians. Its small-group tours—open to alumni, faculty, staff, and friends of the University, as well as to their families and guests—generally comprise about two dozen people. About 1,000 travelers take some 50 trips through the program each year, including a number of faculty-led study tours run by Cornell’s Adult University (CAU). Viewing an Egyptian pyramid. Destinations and experiences range from the Silk Road of Central Asia to a Tanzanian safari; a rail trip through Canada to a theater seminar in NYC; a food and wine tour of the Spanish coast to a sampling of New Zealand’s natural splendor. “We have trips on every continent,” says Beal St. George, the program’s associate director. “If there’s somewhere you want to go, it’s likely we’re headed there.” Richard Williamson ’66 embarked on his first Cornell trip—to Cuba—several years ago with his freshman roommate; he and his wife have since taken numerous others, including to Ireland, New Zealand, Patagonia, and Japan, plus a tour of England and France focused on World War II and D-Day history. “I’ve really enjoyed the added bonus of having classmates who coincidentally signed up for some of the same trips; it gave us a chance to catch up on what we’ve been doing since graduation,” says Williamson, an Arts & Sciences alum who’s an attorney in NYC. “Of course, I’ve also gotten to meet many other alumni—an impressive group, I might add—and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to converse with them.” I’ve really enjoyed the added bonus of having classmates who coincidentally signed up for some of the same trips. Richard Williamson ’66 (Among Williamson’s favorites: a journey to Ethiopia. “Its history—with its rock churches everywhere—was awesome, as was hiking among the terrain,” he recalls, “and the people were friendly and welcoming.”) So, who organizes the myriad logistics of such varied and far-flung voyages, from itineraries to meals to accommodations and beyond? Not the University itself, but rather established tour companies—including Odysseys Unlimited, Lindblad Expeditions–National Geographic, Orbridge, Royal Adventures, and Arrangements Abroad—with whom travelers book directly. An in-home cooking lesson in Sicily. As Travel Program director Anna Pollock ’94 notes, the journeys are aimed to be culturally immersive: they feature local cuisine, meaningful interactions with residents, and accommodations that are authentic to the place (rather than U.S. chain hotels). Additionally, she says, tours are designed to benefit the visited areas economically, and to spark a deeper understanding of the local culture. Stories You May Like A CAU Trip Sparks a Look Back at Cornell’s Ties to Cuba I’m a Wheelchair User—and Despite the Obstacles, I Love to Travel “Time and again, we hear stories about the life-changing impact of these travel experiences,” says Pollock, an Arts & Sciences grad who also directs CAU and the Alumni Wine program. Journeys are aimed to be culturally immersive, featuring local cuisine, meaningful interactions with residents, and accommodations that are authentic to the place. “For instance, a 2023 tour to Morocco inspired an alumna to conduct graduate-level research on the implications of American tourism on medinas, the labyrinthine bazaars featuring kiosks offering local wares and crafts.” In addition to the conventional trips, a small number of offerings—run in conjunction with CAU under the slogan “learning on location”—are study tours led by faculty from Cornell (and occasionally, from other peer institutions). For example, a trip to Chile in January 2026 will feature Raymond Craib—the Marie Underhill Noll Professor of History and author of The Cry of the Renegade: Politics and Poetry in Interwar Chile—who’ll teach about the nation’s 20th century politics and culture. Floating by glaciers in Alaska. And on top of two conventional trips to view the 2026 eclipse (one to Iceland, another to Spain), a third will be a CAU study tour featuring Heather Huson ’97, an associate professor of animal genetics in CALS; the itinerary, to Iceland and Greenland, includes a cruise tracing the path of totality. In terms of the costs of Alumni Travel trips: per-person pricing—which is set by the tour operators themselves—varies widely according to destination, timing, departure city, category of accommodation, and myriad other factors. But to give a rough sense of the range: a 15-day Odysseys Unlimited tour to Vietnam is around $5,300, with deluxe-level accommodations and airfare from several West Coast cities; a small-ship river voyage in Colombia, run by the boutique operator Arrangements Abroad, is around $16,000 (not including airfare) for a balcony cabin. Time and again, we hear stories about the life-changing impact of these travel experiences. Anna Pollock ’94, Alumni Travel Program director “We have been known to sing the ‘Alma Mater’ on the top of a Saharan sand dune while sipping Champagne at sunset, and we might play Cornell trivia on the ride from Grand Canyon National Park to Lake Powell,” Pollock says, “but each journey is unique, shaped by the people who come along.” And, she stresses, travelers comprise a wide Cornellian circle that encompasses not only alumni, but family and friends. Big Red pride at Kyoto's Nijō Castle. Big Red dad Premjit Halarnkar, for instance, has taken numerous tours—including to Tanzania, Vietnam, and Croatia—with his wife and daughter, mechanical engineering alum Natasha Halarnkar ’16. “We have always enjoyed traveling with other Cornellians,” he says. “They are very pleasant, broad-minded, well-educated, and eager to learn about other people and cultures.” Top: A tour group in the Galápagos Islands. (All photos provided) Published April 17, 2025 Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Campus & Beyond Institute of Politics and Global Affairs Wrestles with Today’s Thorniest Issues Quizzes & Puzzles Cornellian Crossword: ‘Happy New Year!’ Alumni From Meet-Cutes to a Single Rose, Alums Recall Romance on the Hill