Summer School classes for mature and senior travellers

Odyssey’s school program is a learning program of week-long teaching sessions offered each January in Hobart, Tasmania. Courses are refreshed for each year’s programs. Each class is limited to 15 people.

For more than twenty-five years, Odyssey’s small group Summer School Program has given countless travellers an unforgettable educational and travel experience. Each summer, we prepare and offer fun and challenging special interest courses and programs designed to give travellers the options and opportunity to learn about literature, history, religion, Australian culture, and the arts, among many other topics. These courses are designed in such a way that enthusiasts can deepen their knowledge of a particular topic or be initiated into new understandings on a subject.

Summer school classes

Limited places

Houses and Gardens of the Blue Mountains small group tour

7 days

Jan

Houses and Gardens of the Blue Mountains small group tour

Visiting New South Wales

Spend a week in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney attending this summer school course exploring the historic homes and gardens of the region over a week. For mature and senior travellers. This small group tour visits 13 very different homes and gardens.

From A$4,350 AUD

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Convicts and Emigrants

7 days

Jan

Convicts and Emigrants in Early Tasmania | Summer School in Hobart, Tasmania

Visiting Tasmania

The course focuses on Tasmania and its similarities and differences from the ‘mainland’ as a convict colony, with a particular focus on women's experiences.

From A$3,345 AUD

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The Great Philosophers and Us | Summer School course

7 days

Jan

The Great Philosophers and Us | Summer School course

Visiting Tasmania

This course takes you back to the birthplace of western philosophy and the basis for our inner growth as individuals, as communities and a civilisation that continues to question its values and our very being ever since. Our small group will explore these origins of thought, the masterpieces of literature and drama that reach far beyond their initial time and place and let them speak again to us today.

From A$3,200 AUD

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Narryna house Hobart

7 days

Jan

Tasmanian Colonial homes, centring on Hobart and Launceston | Summer School in Hobart, Tasmania

Visiting Tasmania

Summer School tour that examines the Historic homes and the history of their occupiers.

From A$3,650 AUD

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Argentina Dinosaur

7 days

Jan

I always wanted to be an archaeologist | Summer School course

Visiting New South Wales

This course examines the world and role of the Archaeologist in the study of ancient and contemporary history. Our small group will explore in tutorial environment the influences of Archaeology beyond the walls of the museum.

From A$3,200 AUD

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Blue Mountains with Odyssey Traveller

7 days

Jan

Convicts and Colonials in NSW | Summer School in Blue Mountains

Visiting New South Wales

The course focuses on the early years of white settlement in NSW. The subject is vast and, obviously, impossible to cover in just one week. This course will, however, serve to whet the appetite for further study, and will also provide the opportunity for an interest filled week in pleasant surroundings with congenial company.

From A$3,495 AUD

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Charlie Chaplin - Modern Times movie scene

7 days

Jan

Charlie Chaplin and the making of Hollywood | Summer School course

Visiting Tasmania

Spend a week in Leura, Blue Mountains, attending this summer school course which traces the early life and development of the comic genius of the twentieth century through to the end of the silent era. It is set against the phenomenal growth of the American film industry and lasting impact of Chaplin’s life and art upon the world. It goes deeper than the knock about comedian, pantomime artist and Little Tramp that we see in his early short films.

From A$3,200 AUD

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Tasmania Wilderness

7 days

Jan

Tasmanian Wilderness | Summer School in Hobart, Tasmania

Visiting Tasmania

The Tasmania Wilderness summer school is held annually in Hobart in early January. This summer school allows you to experience the great western wilderness of Tasmania, while staying at a comfortable ‘base camp’ in a Hobart hotel!

From A$3,495 AUD

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Houses and gardens of Southern Tasmania

7 days

Jan, Mar

Houses and Gardens of Southern Tasmania | Summer School in Hobart, Tasmania

Visiting Tasmania

Houses and gardens of Southern Tasmania runs for five days and takes in ten different gardens and three heritage-listed houses. We will step back into the past and experience life as it was two centuries ago.

From A$3,495 AUD

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Italian renaissance, Cathedral of Ferrara in Italy

7 days

Jan

Italian Renaissance | Summer School course

Visiting Tasmania

This Summer school course looks at the influence and contribution five key families in shaping today's Italy. In the 15th and 16th centuries the principalities that became Italy were alive with new ideas. The boundaries of art, architecture, music, science, politics, religion and literature were pushed. It was also riven by bitter rivalry and even open warfare between the numerous independent city states.

From A$3,200 AUD

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Romans settling Britain and Gaul

7 days

Jan

Romans settling Britain & Gaul | Summer School course

Visiting Tasmania

This course will investigate contemporary accounts of Roman of the path to occupation and then settlement in Britain and Gaul. This class will endeavour to consider and discuss the contribution Rome and the Romans had on the places controlled by these invaders.

From A$3,200 AUD

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Glory of Greece

7 days

Jan

Uncovering Ancient Greece | Summer School course

Visiting Tasmania

The Glory of Greece course examines the history of the Ancient Greeks from Mycenaean, Minoan and Homeric times until the commencement of the Peloponnesian War in 431BC. We discover the development of a classical, ancient people and culture.

From A$3,200 AUD

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Medieval and Renaissance Women

7 days

Jan

Extraordinary Women from Medieval and Renaissance Europe | Summer School course

Visiting Tasmania

This Summer school course will examine the life and deeds of a number of strong women living in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Women seldom wrote the history books in the period between 1050 and 1650.

From A$3,200 AUD

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Victorian Britain

7 days

Jan

Victorian Britain | Summer School course

Visiting Tasmania

This course will look at the life and times of Queen Victoria who reigned over the British Empire between 1837 and 1901. During that period Britain underwent what amounted to a revolution in industry, agriculture, transport, politics, science, medicine and the arts.

From A$3,200 AUD

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Aboriginal history in Tasmania |Summer School in Launceston

7 days

Jan

Aboriginal history in Tasmania |Summer School in Launceston

Visiting Tasmania

Aboriginal Tasmania explores the deep history through to the contemporary period today. Colonial settlement is explored and the program is supplemented wit field trips.

From A$3,200 AUD

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We don’t quite live on campus, but we will be staying in a comfortable hotel in central Hobart or Leura. We will enjoy welcome and farewell dinners in between our seminars, as well as daily morning tea and lunch.

These programs offered are tailor-made for mature-aged and senior travellers who are eager to explore in-depth a particular topic. Summer school learning programs for mature and senior travellers who are and remain curious about the world. Read more about our philosophy of the Odyssey Summer Schools.

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