South City High history teachers Victor Becerra and Bryan Seelbach
Students at South San Francisco High School can travel to Japan and Europe in the summer of 2025 as part of a series of educational trips organized by South City High history teachers Victor Becerra and Bryan Seelbach.
View of the Swiss Alps
Seelbach is planning to take students to Austria, Switzerland, and Germany with stops in Vienna, Salzburg, Vaduz, Lucerne, Munich, Heidelberg, and Frankfurt, while Becerra is organizing a trip to Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo, and Sapporo in Japan.
The Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Japan
Becerra, who led an educational trip to the nation’s capital in 2023, said that travel is a unique educational experience.
South City High students visited Washington, DC in March 2023.
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for students to see various parts of the world and not only learn about the world but learn about themselves,” he said. “I’m kind of excited to be part of that journey with them.”
Seelbach, who spearheaded South City High’s international travel program by organizing a 10-day trip to London, Paris, and Rome in the summer of 2023, agreed.
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“It was a very positive experience for students,” he said. “They got to experience a lot of different cultural sites in these locations.”
Seelbach, who’s taught at South City High since 2016, said he was motivated to take students abroad due to his desire to combat the isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and his own experience traveling to Europe with Education First (EF) Tours as a student at Santa Clara High.
He said educational tours like these often allow students to develop a greater sense of independence.
“With these trips, it's a mix of something that's guided, and also they can go off and do whatever that interests them. . .because typically every day there's a few hours of free time where they can go experience something that they've been wanting to, which is great.”
Becerra concurred.
“I think an international trip really opens the doors to what the world is like. You can only learn so much within the United States of America.”
2024 and Beyond
Cinque Terre, Italy
This summer, Seelbach is traveling with students along the Mediterranean coast, where he will visit Milan and Cinque Terre in Italy, Monaco and Nice in France, and Barcelona in Spain.
Meanwhile, Becerra’s trip to Japan will take place from July 25 to August 2 in 2025.
He said he chose Japan because of the interesting juxtaposition between technology and tradition in the country.
“There’s lot of history there,” he said. “There’s also a huge presence there of various customs and traditions that I think would be beneficial to some of the students to be able to see and be a part of.”
While he’s never led an international trip before, Becerra said he believes that international and domestic travel provides students with many of the same lessons and life skills.
“I think that’s a very rich experience for students to have. We can oftentimes be in this bubble, but it’s only when we are taken out of it that we’re allowed to grow.”
South City High students visited Washington, DC in March 2023.
Seelbach said another benefit of participating in an educational trip is being able to meet students who live in other parts of the United States.
“When we do go on these trips, we travel with students from other parts of the country too, so they get to develop friendships, and that was a really cool way to see them grow as well.”
He said he enjoys seeing how travel impacts his students.
“A few of them—this is their first time on an airplane,” he said, recalling 2023’s educational tour, “so it was their first time traveling, not just by plane, but international travel as well.”
“A few of them—this is their first time on an airplane,” he said, recalling 2023’s educational tour, “so it was their first time traveling, not just by plane, but international travel as well.”
Travel Costs and Fundraising
The educational tours of Japan and Europe that are planned for 2025 will cost about $4,500 per student, which includes travel, accommodation, meals, and entrance to all cultural experiences.
Families who feel that the price is high can participate in a 15-monh payment plan and also engage in fundraising efforts.
“I know when I went on these trips when I was in high school, I participated in fundraisers to help supplement the trip,” said Seelbach.
He said he raised the total cost of his first high school tour and half the cost of a second trip by writing letters to different businesses to ask them to help sponsor his journey.
“With that letter writing, it's numbers,” said Seelbach, “so if you send out 100 letters to different businesses, that can easily spread out where you can get funding from different organizations and companies that like to give back to the community.”
Attendees of the April 24 informational meeting for Mr. Becerra's educational tour of Japan and the May 2 informational meeting for Mr. Seelbach's educational tour of Austria, Switzerland, and Germany can receive a $200 discount.