The World According to Harvard

For a modest $54,950, you could find yourself touring the wonders of China by private jet, accompanied by all-star tour guide and Dean of Harvard School of Public Health Barry R. Bloom. If this price is a little too steep, try a $19,000 tour of Antarctica’s icebergs and wildlife.

The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) offers a wide range of indulgences for the travel-hungry alumnus’ needs including a “breadth of destinations and price ranges,” according to Associate Director of Alumni Education M. Trearty Bartley, who is responsible for organizing the travel program.

HAA also travels to Egypt, South Africa, China, New Guinea, the Persian Gulf, Scotland, the Netherlands, and the Caribbean. Trips can include such Harvard-specific perks as lectures by senior faculty members or talks with local University affiliates. But like most things Harvard, these top-notch trips come with a large price tag—and forget about financial aid.

INDIRECT PROFIT

The trips are marketed to Harvard alums across the world and draw over 2,000 people per year, according to Bartley. In 2007, HAA will offer about 30 trips, some of which had sold out before the catalogue even went to the presses.

The average traveler is 67, according to Bartley, but HAA aims to widen the appeal of its travel program through shorter, more accessible tours for recent graduates.

“We are trying to create packages that are more appealing to our younger grads, between five and seven days long at affordable prices,” she says.

HAA aims to pair recent graduates with knowledgeable graduate students, closer in age, to make the trips more appealing. However, Bartley insists that the draw of a senior faculty members makes the trips unique.

Bartley also qualifies the trips’ hefty price tags.

“The average price per day is less that you would think,” she assures. Indeed, while the five-figure trips stand out the most, many programs run from $7,000 to $9,000.

The programs’ main goal is not to turn a profit for the university; rather, Bartley says, “it is about alumni engagement, and to offer a service to the alumni while creating a sense of Harvard community.”

‘ADVENTUROUS, HARDY, AND CURIOUS’

The quality of the faculty members is essential to these programs; without them, independent group travel remains less pricey and possibly more appealing.

“If we have a strong faculty member, we feel that that increases the draw of the trip,” says Bartley.

Faculty members do not receive compensation for the trips, aside from travel expenses which are taken care of by HAA.

“Other than getting to go, [for me] the incentive is to get to share my passion,” says Genney Professor of Anesthesia Warren M. Zapol, who studies human respiratory failure and will head to the Southern waters of Antarctica for the ninth time this winter.

The trip “An Antarctica Adventure: Nine Ways of Looking at Antarctica” draws a crowd of “people who are exceptionally adventurous, hardy, and curious,” according to Zapol. Advertised as an “expedition,” the trip attempts to penetrate the thought of the great minds who have been there before, through lectures by a variety of intellectual talents.

“What makes these tours so special is the people who lead them,” he says. “I am one of the crazies, the others are wonderful.”

Aside from the fact that most trips are not led by scientists with “decades of experience,” Zapol boasts, “When you go with a leader who is passionate about it, it changes the experience.”

WHEN IN ROME, DO AS THE ROMANS DO

Other travel programs propose to take a new look at a more conventional destination, yet with an insider’s insight. Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy Emeritus Marvin Kalb leads the nine-day tour “An Insider’s Rome” that offers exclusive after-hours access to a variety of religious and cultural sites, including the Sistine Chapel and Vatican museums—for a mere $7,495 (not including airfare).

Kalb, who has already gone on a number of these trips, has had a variety of positions, ranging from lecturer to University liaison. “My role depends. On some trips I was a simple lecturer,” he says. “On one trip I kind of served as a Harvard representative. If someone had a problem we’d be there to help.”

For the upcoming trip, Kalb will be lecturing on the relationship between Rome and the Vatican, focusing on the plot to kill Pope John Paul II, but insists he is “there to be a buddy.”

In the past, such tours have included some of the biggest names on campus like that of Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71. He went on one tour to Antarctica where he lectured on mathematics, while his wife lectured on biology.

He expresses an interest in going on future tours.

“That was one of the greatest trips that I have ever taken in my life,” he says. “It is an expensive trip but it was incredibly fun.”

975 PHOTOS

Many alums take the trips to mark milestones. “The trip was a way to celebrate new chapter in our lives,” says Susan C. Herzog, a 2005 graduate from the Harvard Business School, in the HAA Travels catalogue. Herzog went on the trip with two friends in honor of their 30th birthdays.

She brought back a slew of memories from the South Pole. “I took 975 photos, and kept a journal,” she told the catalogue. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I wanted to capture it all.”

The trip, both physically and mentally challenging, lives and dies with its participants’ will to have a good time.

“Parts of the trip were demanding,” she says, “But people were willing to get cold and wet and just have fun.”

—Staff writer Noah S. Bloom can be reached at nsbloom@fas.harvard.edu.