Borja Pérez-Mínguez | Travel blog
St. John’s is the most urban city and capital of the Newfoundland province with 110.000 people and thanks to it’s location, about 5 hours flight from London, the closest area of Canada to fly from any European country.
The city was founded by Spanish fishermen on the XVI century (that’s the reason of it’s name and it’s considered the oldest city in North America) and offers one of the warmest climates in all Canada with very mild winters (they never usually go below -5º) compared with the cold provinces of Manitoba, Ontario or Alberta with winters up to -35º. For these reasons Newfoundland is undoubtedly one of the best options to study academic year programs in Canada, specially for students that don’t like extremely cold environments.
In one of our latest trips we got to visit the entire area, located in a spectacular nature environmet surrounded by water that allows students to experience the amenities of a medium sized city (movie theaters, malls, water parks, bowling, shopping, restaurants, etc) with many nature related activities like hiking, mountain biking, climbing, camping, kayaking or fishing just to mention a few.
Among the many schools we selected at International Academic Programs, the ones with the best facilities were located at the own St. John’s city, and all of them offered a wide range of programs and academic opportunities like smart boards, 3D printers, laser cuts and many sport and extracurricular activies like music and art related subjects.
For these reasons and being one of the fewest urban options in the provice, it’s essential to keep in mind the city schools are the ones with the highest demand so in order to be able to secure a place, we need to apply with plenty of time since most of the spots are gone by Christmas of the year before the program starts.
The city also offers many opportunities for sport enthusiastics and allows students to practice at local clubs the ones they like the most during the entire length of the program: soccer, hockey, swimming, tennis, basketball, etc. There are many options both at the schools and at the cummunity (extra cost, but very affordable) so like in all the academic programs and destinations we promote, in order to select the best possible school for each candidate, we must establish the student’s main areas of interest.
It’s important to keep in mind the city of St. John’s is located in a flat area and therefore doesn’t have any mountains so students who want to ski must travel to farther areas outside of the city. For ski and snowbarding enthusiastics the province of Newfoundland also offers mid sized towns located in rural environments and surrounded by all kinds of nature opportunities like mountains or spectacular ski resorts that allow students to practically ski every day for most part of the academic year, so this would be one of the main parameters we should keep in mind in order to select the best possible school and area for each candidate.
The Newfoundland province offers an optional adventure program with monthly activities like whale and iceberg sightings, zip lining, ski weekends and all kinds of field trips so it’s a great opportunity for students who want to be involved in all kinds of nature and adventure activities.
At the following link you will find all the details of the program: https://www.internationalacademicprograms.es/en/canada/
