Company History
Joanne Van Meter is the founder and the owner of Carousel Student Tours Inc. Joanne has always had a passion for travel. Before she was even thinking about this company Joanne trekked across Southeast Asia, made numerous trips to Asia as well as countless trips to Europe. The business began almost by chance when her daughter's junior high school wanted to go on a theater trip to New York City. Joanne volunteered to help and ended up planning, booking and chaperoning her first domestic tour. Her interesting and unique itinerary for the two-day trip was a great success. That same year her daughter's school approached her with an idea of a homestay exchange for their German program. Joanne went to Germany and found a school interested in the exchange and during the next school year organized her first homestay exchange program. Within a few years there were other schools that began calling and asking for her help in organizing both their domestic and international school trips.
For the first 10 years of Carousel Student Tours Inc Joanne ran every aspect of the business, including escorting every trip. In between trips, she traveled through Germany, Spain, France and Italy finding suitable schools interested in homestay exchange programs with schools from the US . She spent months of every year in Europe. Year after year she saw her business grow as schools appreciated the time and effort put into each trip. Today Joanne has a large network of contacts here in the US as well as in Europe, Mexico and Costa Rica. She has become proficient in creating unique and custom itineraries that work. As her business has grown, she is no longer able to accompany every trip, as she did twenty years ago. You will, however, find her in the office almost every day of the year coordinating an increasing number of trips and answering the phone. Carousel Student Tours Inc remains a family run business. Her daughter, for whom she organized her first tour, her husband and her son now assist her in many of the travel duties. Joanne still has her passion for travel. She is excited for the opportunity to continue to share that passion, as she has done with so many people over the years, in the future.