GREEN RIVER — Green River High School teacher Bridgette Nielsen led 54 people, mostly incoming eighth graders, on her annual trip to Washington, D.C., and New York City in late June.
Nielsen then took a second group of 75 high school students, parents and siblings, on her first overseas trip for a 10 day journey through Italy and Greece.
Nielsen has run the East Coast trip for years, starting when she taught at Lincoln Middle School. She has since moved to the high school but continues coordinating the trip with middle school teacher Taryn Calkins and GRHS teacher Nathan Loe, along with fundraisers that let students work to help cover the cost.
Nielsen said she loves the trip for two reasons. Some students come away wanting to move to New York someday while others can’t wait to get back to Wyoming. Either way, she said, the trip broadens their perspective.
The group covered roughly 15,000 to 20,000 steps a day, visiting the Smithsonian museum, the Holocaust Museum, Mount Vernon and national memorials, along with a dinner cruise on the Potomac River.
A stop in Philadelphia added a look at the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall on the way to New York. Because 2026 marks the country’s semiquincentennial, students also viewed the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence and saw the setup for the July 4 celebrations, including a UFC ring that had been installed near the White House.
In New York, the group saw “The Lion King” on Broadway and visited the Empire State Building, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Statue of Liberty and a New York Mets game.
First trip to Europe
Nielsen’s Italy and Greece trip required two buses and two guides for the group of 75. Travelers flew from Salt Lake City through Toronto to Rome, where they swam in the Mediterranean Sea, took a class on making gelato and tiramisu, and toured the Roman Forum, the Colosseum and Vatican City, including the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica.
The group then traveled to Florence, with a stop in the medieval town of Orvieto, to see Michelangelo’s “David” and other Renaissance art.
From Florence, the group caught an overnight ferry to Greece, a trip Nielsen compared to a mini cruise and said gave students a welcome break after days of heavy walking. The ferry brought them to the Meteora region, a part of Greece Nielsen said she had never heard of before planning the trip. The area is known for monasteries built directly into cliffs and rock formations high above the surrounding valley. The group toured one of the monasteries and spent time in the nearby town of Kalabaka, where students got their first taste of Greek food.
From Meteora, the group traveled to Delphi, home to the ancient Temple of Apollo. Students toured the temple ruins, the ancient theater and stadium, and a museum housing artifacts from the site, followed by a traditional Greek lunch at a nearby restaurant that included baklava and orange cake.
The group’s final stop was Athens, where they spent several days touring the Acropolis and the Parthenon, along with the stadium built for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Students visited museums throughout the city and saw a number of ancient monuments and statues before the trip’s final evening.
That last night, the group attended a traditional Greek celebration designed to reenact a Greek wedding. Students learned a traditional Greek wedding dance and took part in breaking plates, a customary part of Greek festivities. The evening also included a full Greek dinner, competitions for the students and a performance by dancers in traditional Greek costumes. Nielsen said the celebration was the perfect way to close out the trip.
“I love that some students love the adventure and some appreciate home a little bit more. This was also so true with our foreign trip,” Nielsen said. “We learned that Europe doesn’t have great air conditioning. You have to pay for water, even at restaurants, and in Greece you can’t flush the toilet paper. It was the little things.”
Nielsen said she plans trips about two years in advance so families can pay in monthly installments of around $175 rather than a lump sum, with fundraising opportunities helping offset costs further.
A Washington, D.C., trip is planned for 2027, followed by another European trip in 2028 that will travel south along the Amalfi Coast to Pompeii before continuing to Greece.
