Today, Elderhostel remains unique. That's because its No. 1 priority is providing educational programs. Travel, whether across the state or to the other side of the world, is secondary. Elderhostel is distinctive in that it also offers a greater variety of special-interest topics and activities than any other single organization or company. Elderhostel topics range as far afield as watercolor painting, Eastern religions, horse husbandry, formal gardens and bird-watching.
Programs take place on trains, boats and cruise ships as well as in classrooms and outdoors.
Some are only for participants with recreational vehicles. The cost for international programs also is significantly lower. It was packed with such activities as talks by experts from the Roosevelt Campobello International Park and a private tour of sites not normally open to the public. We took field trips to visit a ninth-generation family farm along the Maine coast, met a director of an American Indian museum and stopped at historic lighthouses. We went on an afternoon whale-watching cruise among islands in the Bay of Fundy and visited a cranberry bog with a park naturalist.