AP Human Geography teacher and travel coordinator for the NCSIS Magnet program James Auld announced the summer of 2019 Magnet trip on Thursday, January 19 in the media center.

Magnet freshmen will travel to Central European countries including Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. The group of approximately 45 students will tour the historical cities of Budapest, Vienna, and Prague.

“I am looking forward to the wooden slide [in Berchtesgaden salt mines of Salzburg] and the Danube River cruise,” freshman Isaac Stobo said.

Auld kept the countries a secret until students attended the meeting to see where they believed they would travel. He let the freshmen write down their guesses, and the first person to correctly predict the six countries from clues on his blog will receive a $50 Amazon gift card.

“We believed that we were going to tour Japan and South Asia,” freshman Maggie Glancy said.

Registration for the tour opened at 9 a.m. on Friday, January 20 and filled up within nine minutes. Auld, who accompanies fellow chaperones AP US History teacher Tamara Rankenburg and AP World History teacher Gracia Elrick, will consider adding another bus to the excursion which enables the addition of another 45 students or completely create a new trip for the people already on the waiting list.

The Magnet program centers itself around international travel. Students and teachers alike believe travel molds a person into a well-rounded world citizen.

“It is the most transformative experience people can have because it puts them outside their comfort zone and exposes them to a real world situation that is never otherwise encountered,” Auld said.