Tour Guide Leads By Example
Donating $2,000 to her favorite charity was out of Barb Wolfert’s league. So she chipped in a 13-day trip to Italy instead.
Impossible? Not with Barb’s know-how. She’s traveled to Europe 24 times in 30 years and rarely paid for the privilege.
She leads and chaperones educational tours. For years, she led students. Since retiring near Harrison in 1995, she’s led adults. Her enthusiasm for travel is so contagious that dozens sign on, earning her free passage.
“I just know it makes a difference in your life. To stand in the Colosseum …,” Barb says.
She interested enough people in a trip she’s taking to Italy next year to earn two free passages. She’ll keep one and donate the other to the Three Cs - Cancer and Community Charities. The club will raffle off the $1,900 trip April 22.
Barb, 62, discovered the thrill of travel as a young Latin teacher in Ohio. She wanted to take her students beyond the textbook, into the world of Latin. It didn’t require a time machine, just energy and good spirits. She was full of both.
Other foreign language teachers steered Barb to Cultural Heritage Alliance, an educational tour company two Italian teachers created.
The company arranged everything, including pre-trip preparations and educational tour guides.
Barb tagged along on her first trip in 1968 and was hooked. The high school students jumped right into the culture, sometimes too enthusiastically. They became part of the stories they’d read - for example, about Pompeii and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius - and the pictures they’d seen.
“It opened my whole world,” Barb says. “I wanted to feel a part of their education in a larger sense. You can’t rely just on books for education.”
Until she retired, she traveled with busloads of students to the Forum and Pantheon, Vatican and Louvre, Notre Dame and the Acropolis. She never tired.
“I don’t think you can see Florence (Italy) enough,” she says.
Then, she retired with her husband in sleepy Carlin Bay. He knew his dynamic wife would miss traveling and mentioned it to the neighbors. They asked Barb to take them to Europe.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she says.
She organized a 10-day trip to Italy she’d taken 12 times. A dozen neighbors went. In the next two years, she arranged tours to Greece and France. Forty-two people went with her to France.
Each time, she offered free pre-trip planning and language lessons. The pre-trip meetings help her groups bond, she says.
She’s survived airline strikes, political demonstrations and, most recently, the death of one of her travelers. A woman’s heart gave out after a day of sight-seeing. The experience rattled Barb, but didn’t change her determination to show others the world.
She’s fairly sure nothing will stop her travels.
“I never get tired of hearing people say this is the best trip they’ve ever had,” she says. “It’s a great reward exposing people to things they’ve never had a chance to do.”
Three Cs will sell only 3,000 raffle tickets for the trip to Italy. Tickets cost $1. Call 765-0427 to buy.
Wonder women
Thumbs up to the women in Sandpoint who are honoring the lifetime achievements of other women. Women Honoring Women wants people in the Sandpoint area to think about the women who have influenced their lives.
Women eligible for awards are at least 60 years old, work well with people, love to learn, are committed to their communities, and demonstrate admirable leadership qualities.
They also inspire, serve as examples for others and face life’s challenges gracefully. Nominations are due April 30. Call 263-6005 for details.