As you’ve probably noticed online, there are dozens of activities and experiences designed for young people. You’ll find options specialized in museums, escape rooms, or whatever your teen enjoys doing in their free time. However, we can assure you that none focus as intensely on graffiti and urban art as we do with our high school trips to Spain.
Now, it’s essential to back this up with facts, not just opinions. In this sense, street art has become the perfect vehicle for offering a cultural journey loaded with anecdotes, details, and curiosities that directly connect with this stage of life. Beyond that, the Cooltourspain team brings years of experience in both education and the artistic realm itself.
Below, you’ll find information to sign up for our public family tours, or to bring your students to a school trip in Madrid if you’re a teacher or department head at a high school in the city or from abroad.
- Organization and structure
- Hands-on component vs. listening activity
- The graffiti community weighs in
What do our high school trips to Spain focus on?
The first thing you should know is these experiences are an opportunity to take students out of their comfort zone and have them apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to a real-world context. Right on the street. Our high school trips to Spain tell stories and share details about what affects them, their families, and their friends. All of this, with graffiti and street art as the connecting thread.
In this sense, we don’t consider ourselves a traditional artistic, cultural, and educational project. Quite the opposite. We were founded in 2016 with the clear objective of solving a problem within Madrid’s tourism landscape. We offer alternative routes through neighborhoods like Lavapiés and Malasaña, districts far from mass tourism. 2-hour walks filled with color and a unique opportunity to introduce them to contemporary art from an early age.
Depending on interest from school coordinators or parents’ associations, we can offer urban art tours in Spanish or English. We even have professionals qualified to lead the activity in French. Why? Because as you probably already guessed, we don’t only receive bookings from Madrid high schools and other Spanish provinces, but also from abroad. Even from pre-university students or those in vocational training programs.
What makes high school trips to Spain’s urban art scene so successful?
As you’ve probably noticed online, there are dozens of activities and experiences designed for young people travelling to Spain. You’ll find options specialized in museums, escape rooms, or whatever your teen enjoys doing in their free time. However, we can assure you that none focus as intensely on graffiti and urban art as we do with our high school trips to Spain.
Now, it’s essential to back this up with facts, not just opinions. In this sense, street art has become the perfect vehicle for offering a cultural journey loaded with anecdotes, details, and curiosities that directly connect with this stage of life. Beyond that, the Cooltourspain team brings years of experience in both education and the artistic realm itself.
Below, you’ll find information to sign up for our public family tours, or to bring your students if you’re a teacher or department head at a high school in the city or from abroad.
- Organization and structure
- Hands-on component vs. listening activity
- The graffiti community weighs in
What do our high school trips to Spain focus on?
The first thing you should know is these experiences are an opportunity to take students out of their comfort zone and have them apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to a real-world context. Right on the street. Our high school trips to Spain tell stories and share details about what affects them, their families, and their friends. All of this, with graffiti and street art as the connecting thread.
In this sense, we don’t consider ourselves a traditional artistic, cultural, and educational project. Quite the opposite. We were founded in 2016 with the clear objective of solving a problem within Madrid’s tourism landscape. We offer alternative routes through neighborhoods like Lavapiés and Malasaña, districts far from mass tourism. 2-hour walks filled with color and a unique opportunity to introduce them to contemporary art from an early age.
Depending on interest from school coordinators or parents’ associations, Cooltourspain serves as an educational tour operator in Madrid which offers urban art guided visits in Spanish or English. We even have professionals qualified to lead the activity in French and/or Dutch. Why? Because we don’t only receive bookings from Madrid high schools and other Spanish provinces, but also from abroad. Even from pre-university students or those in vocational training programs.
Graffiti and street art as tools for active education
If we had to talk about our main motivation, it would be bringing our passion for graffiti culture to the general public. High school trips to Spain are an excellent way to showcase this culture, often called ‘underground’ or street culture. The stories we tell range from simple tags or pieces to walls considered aerosol muralism.
Among other details, you and your students/kids can enjoy a participatory talk where we’ll share anecdotes like:
- How long does it take to paint graffiti?
- How much is the fine applied to graffiti artists?
- Are there legal walls to paint in Madrid?
- Are there specialty shops where you can buy graffiti supplies?
Why do we offer high school trips to Spain centered on social themes?
In addition to graffiti, our high school trips to Spain contain substantial content related to the society we live in. In fact, we address various problems that affect us in everyday life situations. And we speak in first person plural because what’s happening today affects us too, just like it affects their mothers/fathers and themselves.
- Do we live in a world that’s fair to everyone?
- Is there still inequality between social classes?
- What does each of us contribute to improve things and seek the common good?
This is what drives us, and even motivates us to offer free tours through Lavapiés for groups at risk of social exclusion. We believe it’s possible to live in a better world, and therefore we voluntarily offer our time so others can participate in a free activity. No tips. Just our time in exchange for having a good time discovering Madrid alternatively. Did you know about our Foundation?
Content adapted by age, from 12 to 17 years
Our professionals, having previously worked in high schools as teachers, have the capacity and necessary experience to address young people with an educational methodology. Therefore, high school trips to Spain are adapted based on participants’ ages, whether or not parents or members of the teaching community participate. Below you can find more information about them.
From a constructivist and humanistic perspective, we’ll make them the center of attention. We have a battery of questions prepared so they can participate with their opinions in a collaborative experience. For one day, teenage boys and girls will become graffiti artists. How do you think they’ll react? Thanks to Costa’s levels of thinking, we’ll start from prior knowledge, move through an active phase, and finish with analysis. What types of questions will we ask them?
- YES / NO. You only have two options. Level 1.
- Level 2. Compare and contrast ideas.
- Final Phase. The highest. Imagine, judge, and analyze.
What most captures young people’s attention during our high school trips to Spain?
As our experience demonstrates, most young people who come on the tour find a connection between their personal lives and the stories we tell. In fact, high school trips to Spain are usually something new for them. Perhaps because they’ve never used a spray paint can before, or simply because they don’t know the Lavapiés area through urban art, but what’s certain is they’ll discover something new.
Beyond that, the 2-hour tours include an artistic-technical stop to use a stencil on paper or a 100% cotton tote bag (for the most exclusive tours). Likewise, the mere fact that the tour is led by professional graffiti artists makes kids from 12 to nearly-adult 18-year-olds pay more attention to the stories we have prepared for them. Are you ready for a unique activity in the city?
We’ve been doing what we love most for more than 10 years. We started in 2016 offering tours as a hobby. However, given the interest from international audiences and from domestic travelers, we’ve turned a pastime into stable work. We provide employment, directly or indirectly, to nearly a dozen people regularly.
The big moment of painting their own graffiti!
Without a doubt, the part they like most is when they get hands-on to create their own design. Of the entire tour, this is where they usually pay most attention. This is how we get participants in these high school trips to Spain to recommend us to others. We’re proud that year after year they continue trusting us!
Within the humanistic perspective we mentioned earlier, there’s a part that pays fundamental attention to using manipulative materials. That is, if you want your students to learn about street art, what better than giving them spray cans, caps, painter’s paper and stencils so they can take a souvenir home? This way, you’ll access their intellect and talk to them about the importance of effort, daily work, and a positive attitude toward life and/or any situation they must face.
While some will use the medium to create their own signature (known in the jargon as “tag”), others will seek the most creative part to form 3D slogans or works with other patterns. There’s nothing written in stone about art (and even less so in street art!). That’s why while some consider graffiti mere vandalism, others see it as culture and a way of life, full of friendship, good times, and of course, lots of spray paint.
Professional graffiti artists leading high school trips to Spain
As the saying goes, “cobbler, stick to your last.” Well, the same for us. We’re not tour guides and we don’t talk about Habsburg Madrid or the Spanish Civil War. We’re a team of graffiti artists, as well as educators, who have made high school trips to Spain a novel experience for all audiences. No prior knowledge is necessary to participate in the activities.
Cooltourspain members will be in charge of explaining details that very few know. It’s not that we only dedicate ourselves to this as paid work, we live it as a hobby. We’ll tell you information like:
- What steps you need to take to develop a professional career in urban art.
- Who are the most famous artists in Spain.
- How many styles and techniques exist within the graffiti branch.
The opportunity to discover the city center alternatively
Finally, our high school trips to Spain stand out because they’re the perfect way for participants to know their surroundings and relate them to their own world. It’s essential they can also analyze the socio-cultural context of the area they’re walking through. For some, if not most students who have participated in the tours, it’s the first time they’ve walked through the Embajadores district.
We’ll do all this while paying attention to the various events that fill with color streets like Argumosa, Doctor Fourquet, Miguel Servet, or Calle Embajadores itself. For example:
- CALLE Lavapiés
- Urvanity Art Festival
- Panarteria exhibitions
Cooltourspain’s perspective on high school trips to Spain
We didn’t want to say goodbye to this article about high school trips to Spain without first mentioning the lack of involvement from the local government. We believe it’s necessary that each of the City Council’s districts should have walls where artists can paint with their sprays without worrying about police.
That would be our greatest achievement!
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