It is now possible to travel, learn, research land areas and experience a different culture all in the midst of getting some Mardi Gras beads with your professor in New Orleans.

The department of geography at Chico State offers a course that consists of visiting Louisiana, while studying the area and earning three college credits. Who better to travel with than a professor who spent his childhood years growing up in Thibodaux, La.?

Professor Scott Brady, who is in his early 40s, takes 9 to 13 students each spring to Louisiana. He enjoys traveling with students to Mardi Gras and showing them where he grew up.

Traveling and moving around has always been a part of Brady’s life. When growing up, his family moved eight times before settling in Louisiana. Brady said he was fortunate to have grown up in various places of the United States and that moving never bothered him because he always had his four brothers by his side.

“It was always exciting to have my dad tell me about the new place,” Brady said.

Brady first became interested in travel during his last semester at Louisiana State University. One of his professors showed slides of his personal travels and he found this interesting.

“Story telling is an important part of teaching,” Brady said.

Central America interested Brady the most because “it was in the news at the time.” Following his schooling, he traveled to Sweden, Mexico, Central America and Latin America.

Since 2000 he has been a geography professor at Chico State and has continued his travels, but with students at his side.

This three-credit geography course allows him and his students to step out of the boundaries and experience an entirely new culture.

Department chair Eugenie Rovai accompanied Brady on his first trip with students to Louisiana. She said it was interesting to watch the students’ reactions to the South.

“The students were introduced to how different cultures are,” Rovai said.

Brady has many family and friends from the area and his friends allow him and his students to stay the night on the floor in their homes. Normally, they plan to stay for five nights in different places and in different homes.

“He told stories about how he would take his students to his parents’ house,” said Corinne Murdock, a student of Professor Brady and sophomore at Chico State.

Students would spend two nights in a hotel and the rest under the roof of some of Brady’s friends.  This allows the cost of the trip to be reasonable for students. It is about $600-$700 per person, not including the costs of food.

The university has guidelines that have to be followed for liability purposes and one requirement is that anyone under the age of 21 is not qualified to go. The reason for this is that students are sometimes taken to places where alcohol is served. Other than the usual guidelines, Brady said he plans the trip.

He has planned many trips in his life, including his move from Washington to California. He enjoys Chico State because it has a very residential campus and is not a commuter school. The move was just what this professor needed because he was not fond of the winds in the spring.

“The climate was difficult for me,” Brady said. “I am happy with [Chico] because I can live outside.”

And Brady enjoys the outdoors. His family likes hiking and you can always find him biking to campus in the morning.

“I never learned how to parallel park,” Brady said with a chuckle.

Brady’s office is covered with maps and pictures of family and friends. Multicolored Mardi Gras beads sparkle from where they hang on one wall and a basketball-sized, blow-up globe hangs from the ceiling. These details signify his passion for traveling.

“He seems like a well-rounded professor,” Murdock said. “He would tell stories about his family during class.”

Balancing his travels with family time is a main concern when planning trips.  Family vacations mostly include visiting friends and family in Louisiana and Sweden. His wife, Eleonor, and two sons, Gulliver and Sebastian, take a trip to Sweden for six weeks every summer. During this time, Brady said he travels to Central America, where he can study “traditions of land use among the Lenca in the cloud forests of the Honduran Highlands.”

Whether he is biking to campus, teaching geography classes, enjoying the outdoors or spending time with his family, Professor Brady always makes time to travel.