Have you tried planning a DiscoverEU route around a theme?
Quote from SUMA on 2026-09-15, 10:55In SUMA’s DiscoverEU Inclusion projects, groups have travelled around themes such as film, sport, nature and European institutions.
The film route included Kraków, where the group connected a visit to Schindler’s Factory Museum with “Schindler’s List” and the history behind it. The sports route included stadiums and places connected with the Olympic Games.
A theme gives the group a starting point when choosing where to go and what to do. It also raises a question: how much of the route should be planned around it, and how much space should remain for other interests?
Our groups’ travel accounts include changes from the initial routes.
Have you used this approach? How did participants decide what to keep and what to change?
In SUMA’s DiscoverEU Inclusion projects, groups have travelled around themes such as film, sport, nature and European institutions.
The film route included Kraków, where the group connected a visit to Schindler’s Factory Museum with “Schindler’s List” and the history behind it. The sports route included stadiums and places connected with the Olympic Games.
A theme gives the group a starting point when choosing where to go and what to do. It also raises a question: how much of the route should be planned around it, and how much space should remain for other interests?
Our groups’ travel accounts include changes from the initial routes.
Have you used this approach? How did participants decide what to keep and what to change?
Quote from AdminTravelLearn on 2026-09-22, 13:25We think that, as an organisation, we can and should prepare the overall framework of a DiscoverEU Inclusion project – one that is realistic and safe for young people aged 18–21. However, if we genuinely want to develop their planning, creativity, time management, problem-solving and ability to deal with change, we also need to give them real space to make their own decisions.
For us, the project framework should provide direction, but it should not prescribe every detail of the journey. A DiscoverEU project also needs to remain flexible enough to respond to participants’ needs and circumstances “here and now”. Quite often, almost a year can pass between submitting the project and the actual journey, and during that time many things can change – participants’ interests, transport options, prices, local circumstances or even the composition of the group. One of the best DiscoverEU Inclusion projects we have implemented was actually our first one "discover it youself". Instead of designing complete routes for the participants, we defined key destinations or points that should be included, while the young people planned how they wanted to travel between them and what else they wanted to explore.
The creativity of their travel plans genuinely exceeded our expectations. Different groups interpreted the same general framework in completely different ways, and participants told us that they really appreciated having this freedom and responsibility. For us, this is one of the strongest learning elements of DiscoverEU Inclusion: not only travelling to interesting places, but learning how to make decisions, negotiate within a group, adjust plans when something changes and take responsibility for the journey itself.
We think that, as an organisation, we can and should prepare the overall framework of a DiscoverEU Inclusion project – one that is realistic and safe for young people aged 18–21. However, if we genuinely want to develop their planning, creativity, time management, problem-solving and ability to deal with change, we also need to give them real space to make their own decisions.
For us, the project framework should provide direction, but it should not prescribe every detail of the journey. A DiscoverEU project also needs to remain flexible enough to respond to participants’ needs and circumstances “here and now”. Quite often, almost a year can pass between submitting the project and the actual journey, and during that time many things can change – participants’ interests, transport options, prices, local circumstances or even the composition of the group. One of the best DiscoverEU Inclusion projects we have implemented was actually our first one "discover it youself". Instead of designing complete routes for the participants, we defined key destinations or points that should be included, while the young people planned how they wanted to travel between them and what else they wanted to explore.
The creativity of their travel plans genuinely exceeded our expectations. Different groups interpreted the same general framework in completely different ways, and participants told us that they really appreciated having this freedom and responsibility. For us, this is one of the strongest learning elements of DiscoverEU Inclusion: not only travelling to interesting places, but learning how to make decisions, negotiate within a group, adjust plans when something changes and take responsibility for the journey itself.