About IAC Journeys
IAC Journeys is International Academic Competitions’ new initiative for family travel. After a successful launch (when following the International Geography Championships, 82 students, parents, family members, and friends joined 12 IAC staff for a week-long tour from Vienna to Berlin), IAC Journeys is now offering its first tours in the United States, including a Civil Rights Trail tour as well as a tour of Civil War battlefields and other historical landmarks.
The Civil Rights Trail: In Search of Dr. King’s Legacy
- Dates: January 16-19, 2026 (Martin Luther King Day weekend)
Locations: Atlanta to Memphis (Full itinerary available here)
- Questions: Please contact both IAC Executive Director David Madden & IAC National Director of Outreach John Garner
Civil Rights Trail Tour Locations
The King Center, Atlanta
Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta
Freedom Riders National Monument & Museum, Anniston, AL
16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham
Edmund Pettus Bridge, Selma
Legacy Museum, Montgomery
National Memorial for Peace & Justice, Montgomery
University of Alabama & Ole Miss: Integrating Higher Education
Civil Rights Trail Tour Details
The cost is $900 per person, regardless of age. The costs includes bus transit from Atlanta to Memphis with all intermediary stops, guides, all museum and site entrance fees, and hotels on Friday night (in Atlanta, GA), Saturday night (in Montgomery, AL), and Sunday night (in Oxford, MS). Breakfast is also included, though no other meals are. The cost includes a quad occupancy room (two queen beds). The minimum age is 4, but we recommend children be at least 7 to appreciate the trip to the fullest extent. Note that some of the exhibits in the museums we will visit, as well as discussions of the violence faced by participants in the Civil Rights Movement, may be difficult for young children. Further details on the Practicalities, Costs, Details, Terms, and Conditions are provided here.
The itinerary shows the planned route of the trip. Some slight adjustments may still be made (for example, if additional eyewitnesses to the Civil Rights Movement are able to meet with the tour in addition to those already planned, but attendees can count on the start times and end times for travel purposes.
Read a full description of the tour stops and destinations.
Tour Leaders
John Garner
John Garner
John Garner – IAC Director of Outreach and IAC Journeys Coordinator
John is a native Georgian who, in addition to having staffed dozens of IAC events since 2015, is also a former Georgia State Teacher of the Year with 17 years of teaching experience. Having led thousands of students on hundreds of field trips throughout the South during his teaching career, John looks forward to sharing the tragedy and the triumph of the Civil Rights Movement with all tour guests. He has curated the tour itinerary with IAC students and their families in mind, and particularly looks forward to introducing tour guests to the eyewitnesses of the Civil Rights Movement whom we will have the pleasure of meeting.
Jay Wickliff
Jay Wickliff
IAC Director of Strategic Planning
Along with his role in strategic planning, Jay is the co-founder of the National Political Science Bee. Jay also served for many years as Executive Director at Presidential Classroom, a Washington-based civic education program for outstanding high school students. As a social teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, VA, he coached its National History Bowl team to a National Championship title in 2018. Most of his career was spent in human resources management for international high-tech companies before he shifted his focus to teaching and student opportunities.
David & Nolwenn Madden
David & Nolwenn Madden
David and Nolwenn will join the tour group for Sunday and Monday. David and Nolwenn have overseen IAC since its founding in 2010 and IAC Journeys since its launch in 2024. They have also organized and served as tour leaders on the five tours that IAC has organized to date in Europe in 2024 and 2025 (Budapest, Bratislava, Central Europe, Normandy and Brittany, and the South of France). They look forward to its first ever tour in the USA along with the opportunity to explore one of the most important eras and fields of American history.
The Civil War: Battlefields and Beyond
- Dates: September 3-7, 2026 (Labor Day Weekend)
Locations: Start and End in Washington, DC / Arlington, VA (Full draft itinerary available here)
- Questions: Please contact both IAC Executive Director David Madden & IAC National Director of Outreach John Garner
Civil War Tour Locations
- Smithsonian Museums in DC (African American & American History)
Bull Run / Manassas
Gettysburg
- Winchester & Shenandoah Valley
- Spotsylvania & The Wilderness
- Harper’s Ferry Richmond & Petersburg
- Antietam Appomattox
Ford’s Theatre
Frederick Douglass House
