Win $2000 Toward Elderhostel Trip
Tell newbie friends about its tours and you're enrolled in raffle
Elderhostel and its boomer-oriented Road Scholar program will enter you in contest when you refer new friends and family members. Hurry -- deadline is March 31
Elderhostel, the well-known educational travel organization, and its newer companion program Road Scholar will hold a raffle at the end of March that could win you a $2,000 voucher toward payment for any trip in their catalogs.
The contest is a way of getting enthusiastic travelers to refer friends to the Elderhostel and Road Scholar collection of tours, educational vacations and adventures.
Among the most popular adventures in the U.S. this year from Elderhostel are tours through the Southwest's "color country" national parks, including Bryce, Zion and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Internationally, its most popular programs include a cultural visit to Montreal and Quebec, and a voyage to the Galapagos.
The Boston-based not-for-profit organization is designed for adults 55 and over. It was founded in 1975 by Marty Knowlton, a globe-trotting, social activist and former educator, and David Bianco, a university administrator.
Knowlton was inspired by so-called "folk schools" in Scandinavia, in which older adults handed down traditions in such areas as folk art, music and dance - to younger generations. He shared what he had learned on his travels with Bianco, then director of residential life at the University of New Hampshire. The first Elderhostel programs were offered during the summer on several college campuses in that state, and soon spread to a worldwide selection of experiential learning and active travel. Now, more than three decades later, Elderhostel offers 8,000 programs each year in about 90 countries.
Road Scholar programs include journeys to such exotic locales as Bhutan and India, an African safari, and a photo expedition in the footsteps of Ansel Adams to Yosemite National Park and Mono Lake in California with a former Adams student and assistant.
To continue to spread the word, the outfit is asking those who have taken Elderhostel or Road Scholar trips, or who have looked through their offerings either online or in their snail-mailed catalogs, to send in names and addresses of friends and family members who might be interested in enjoying a similar experience.
For each newbie name you send in, you are automatically be entered in a raffle for a $2,000 voucher toward any Road Scholar or Elderhostel program. The deadline for entering names is March 31. The persons whose names you submit must not be currently on either the Elderhostel or Road Scholar mailing list.
Details about the raffle can be found by clicking 'Introduce a Friend' on the Elderhostel Web site.
