{"id":5973,"date":"2016-02-01T09:50:58","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T14:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/?p=5973"},"modified":"2016-02-02T09:25:10","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T14:25:10","slug":"group-leader-kimberly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/group-leader-kimberly","title":{"rendered":"Group Leader Spotlight: Kimberly"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5969\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Kimberly.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5969\" class=\"wp-image-5969 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Kimberly-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Kimberly\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Kimberly-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Kimberly.jpg 604w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5969\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kimberly, chemistry &amp; biology teacher<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Kimberly wanted to give her students\u00a0the experience of educational travel, but\u00a0had many apprehensions: No one else\u00a0in her school led trips, and at just 23\u00a0years old, she worried that parents might\u00a0not take her seriously. \u201cI look like I\u2019m\u00a015,\u201d she jokes, \u201cand I\u2019d never been outside\u00a0the country.\u201d She knew she needed to find a\u00a0supportive travel company that would help her through\u00a0the process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat attracted me to Explorica was the website,\u201d\u00a0Kimberly begins. \u201cUnlike with other companies I could\u00a0see the pricing right away, and everything was clear.\u201d\u00a0Once she spoke with an Explorica program consultant,\u00a0her decision was made. \u201cLaura was great. She explained\u00a0all the different options and helped get me everything I\u00a0wanted. I was nervous about pitching it to the parents,\u00a0but she sent me a PowerPoint and other materials.\u201d\u00a0Kimberly aced the meeting, and 11 students enrolled.\u00a0Her trip was official.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce the tour began, the tour director did everything,\u201d\u00a0Kimberly says. \u201cShe was completely prepared and so\u00a0organized. We always felt safe, and she definitely had\u00a0our best interest in mind.\u201d Kimberly fondly recalls a\u00a0time when the tour director even assumed the role of a\u00a0mother figure to a homesick student. \u201cShe was firm, but\u00a0comforting, and helped the student understand that she\u00a0was going to be okay. That happened within the first\u00a0couple days, and then the student was fine. By the end\u00a0of the tour, no one wanted to go home. They were even\u00a0crying and hugging the bus driver! It\u2019s incredible what\u00a0these trips do for the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Learn more about traveling\u00a0to Latin America with your students by visiting <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.explorica.com\/teachers\/select-a-tour\/latin-american-tours.aspx\">explorica.com\/latinamerica<\/a><\/strong> or call 1.888.310.7120.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kimberly wanted to give her students\u00a0the experience of educational travel, but\u00a0had many apprehensions: No one else\u00a0in her school led trips, and at just 23\u00a0years old, she worried that parents might\u00a0not take her seriously. \u201cI look like I\u2019m\u00a015,\u201d she jokes, \u201cand I\u2019d never been outside\u00a0the country.\u201d She knew she needed to find a\u00a0supportive travel company that <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/group-leader-kimberly\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,172],"tags":[52,58,68,128,172,425],"class_list":["post-5973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-explorica-news","category-teachers","tag-costa-rica","tag-educational-travel","tag-latin-america","tag-student-travel","tag-teachers","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5973"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6184,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5973\/revisions\/6184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}