Resource of the Week
by Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor
Educational Travel–Directory
ShawGuides
So what are you planning to do on your vacation? Tired of that same old beach/mountains/visiting relatives routine? Completely turned off by the idea of one of those “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” whirlwind tours? This year, perhaps you should do something different. Learn a foreign language. Perfect your golf game. Attend a writers conference. Study cooking in France or painting in Italy? If you need an idea, try poking around in ShawGuides, a voluminous directory of educational and cultural travel programs.

Now this site is not gorgeous by any means, but the content is rich and deep. The database contains information on more than 5,300 different programs, organized into 11 categories:
+ Cultural Travel
+ Art & Craft Workshops
+ Cooking & Wine Schools-Career
+ Cooking & Wine Schools-Recreational
+ Golf Schools & Camps
+ Photography, Film & New Media Schools
+ Photography, Film & New Media Workshops
+ Language Vacations
+ Writers Conferences & Workshops
+ Tennis Schools & Camps
+ High Performance Programs

Although there is no search box on the home page, at the top level of the directory, you’ll find one near the top of each page when you click through to one of the main headings. You can do a simple keyword search or click the search by date link, which actually gives you more options than a simple calendar search. Dropdown menus allow you to choose an area of focus — e.g., art, sports, world affairs, etc. — and/or a geographic location, either U.S. states or other countries. On the same page, under the advanced search form, is an option to sign up for e-mail notification when activities matching your search criteria are added to the database.

If you look under the keyword search box at the top of the page, you’ll see an array of clickable links to months, topics, states and countries — all different ways of browsing through the database.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 31st, 2005 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.