Welcome!
A moment of reflection at Arlington House.
The Corps of Rediscovery has been a dream of mine for a few years now. Nearly ten years ago I started organizing our school’s Washington D.C. trip utilizing one of the many companies that do most of the work for teachers. Our students ended up paying nearly $900 for their three day trip to our nation’s capital. After crunching numbers and seeing the number of students from the area I grew up in I knew I could offer the same trip for half the price and provide a meaningful and memorable experience.
After many challenges and learning experiences I nailed down an itinerary that worked and was ready to start this business in 2019! Then Covid hit. Thankfully, I was not deeply invested and could hold off until our world settled a bit and we could return to traveling experiences.
In 2021 and 2022 I will be hosting student groups and adult groups in a variety of trips to Philadelphia to study the Constitution, Washington D.C. to experience our nation’s capital and museums, and an adult trip that has been developing for a couple years now “Battlefields and Breweries.”
Every trip has a similar intention. To “rediscover travel”. My itineraries are not set up for selfies in front of monuments and social media opportunities to simply say “I was there”. I want the groups I travel with to experience history. To see travel as an opportunity to better understand our nation’s history and how we got to where we are.
It is through travel and the social discourse that follows an experience that we can grow as individuals and as communities of interested citizens. I hope that you will enjoy our national historic sites as much as I have and we can learn something together!
Happy Travels!
Bart Smith
Bart has taught at Sheridan Middle School in Southeast Ohio since 2008. He resides near Thornville, OH with his wife Kristin Smith, a kindergarten teacher in Lancaster, and is the proud father of Amelia, William and Benjamin. Bart was fortunate growing up with parents that traveled and experienced historic sites from the Glacial Grooves on Lake Erie, to Custer’s Last Stand all the way to Denali National Park. In time Bart hopes to develop the “Corps of Rediscovery” into a small business that can provide opportunities to travel for students throughout central and southeast Ohio that may not be able to afford the overpriced trips offered by the big trip businesses.