Your Ultimate Guide To 8 Fab Learning Vacations For Women

Skip the tacky souvenir shops and bring home a new skill instead.

by

Rebecca Treon,

 
AARP
Published June 20, 2025
gif of photos of various travel destinations to take classes
AARP (Getty Images, 4; Shutterstock, 1)

Reclining on a lounge chair poolside should be part of any itinerary while on vacation, but there’s nothing like immersing yourself in a cultural experience while visiting someplace new. Whether it’s painting a traditional Portuguese tile or living out your career dreams as a circus performer for a day, taking a class at these schools would be an awesome keepsake of your trip.

Mumbai, India: Dance Like a Bollywood Star

Mumbai’s prolific film industry, Bollywood, produces upwards of 2,000 movies a year, notably musicals starring actors in colorful clothing doing choreographed dance numbers. Mumbai Magic’s “Learn Bollywood Dance in Mumbai” class, a one-and-a-half-hour workshop, combines steps rooted in India’s folk dances with internationally renowned dance styles such as hip hop, swing and salsa. You’ll learn classic Bollywood moves and the choreography of a well-known dance number. The school can also arrange for costumes and professional photography or videography.

Paris, France: Carve a Cathedral-Inspired Gargoyle

In Paris, gargoyles and carved stone motifs called chimeras are synonymous with the city, where fantastical and grotesque figures feature prominently on Gothic buildings like Notre-Dame de Paris. Visitors to the City of Light can spend a weekend with sculptor Cécilia da Mota in her Belleville atelier and learn to carve their own gargoyles. Da Mota has been restoring historic monuments since the 1990s and has worked on some of the city’s most famous buildings, including the Louvre.

Sarasota, Florida: Join the Circus

Sarasota was once the winter home of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and today honors its performance history with the Circus Museum at The Ringling, a circus-themed boutique hotel, Cirque St. Armands Beachside and several seasonal circus performances. If you’ve ever dreamt of running off to join the circus, you can do it at The Circus Arts Conservatory, even if only for a few hours. In their classes, you can fly through the air on a trapeze, wind around aerial silks, get twisted in a contortion class and learn pro-level hula hoop skills.

Tokyo, Japan: Learn to be a Geisha

In the 1920s, some 80,000 geishas practiced in Kyoto’s Gion district. Today, due to changes in societal roles, there are fewer than 1,000. Geisha uphold traditional Japanese arts like dancing with fans, playing traditional instruments, singing, and reciting poetry and literature. They’re also recognizable by their elaborate dress and makeup — elegant kimonos, obis, okobo shoes, styled wigs and dramatic white makeup. Visitors to the EDOCCO Edo Cultural Complex in Tokyo can learn to make matcha tea, write calligraphy, fold origami and wear a kimono in this day-long cultural experience.

Lisbon, Portugal: Paint a Traditional Tile

You can’t walk a block in Portugal without seeing elaborately painted tiles that cover building façades. In Lisbon, tourists can visit the National Tile Museum, Museu Nacional do Azulejo, to see centuries of intricate tile work and then take a tile painting workshop at a nearby ateliê. The three-hour class delves into the history of tile painting before participants paint two tiles that are later fired.

Oaxaca, Mexico: Cook in a Traditional Oaxacan Kitchen

Oaxaca is considered the cradle of Mexico’s diverse and delicious gastronomy scene, and one of the best ways travelers can experience it is by taking a hands-on approach with a cooking class. Outside of the city, on the family’s small organic farm and guest property, Sonia Silvia and her son Baldo teach guests how to make masa, tortillas from scratch, salsas and moles by crushing ingredients with metates and molcajetes, and tetelas and memelitas — filled, folded tortillas cooked on a comal. They also give guests a tour of their farm and a mezcal tasting before sitting down to a multi-course shared meal.

Buenos Aires, Argentina: Paint in the Fileteado Style

Fileteado, the scrolling decorative font style that includes ribbons, flowers and other flourishes, is used for lettering on signs and windows in Buenos Aires. A distinctive embellishment not found in other parts of Argentina, it originated in the San Telmo neighborhood and is an art form that embodies the porteño (Buenos Aires resident) spirit. Alfredo Genovese has been painting fileteado for more than 30 years (his great-grandfather also practiced the art) and has put designs on everything from people’s skin to automobiles. At his workshop, students are introduced to fileteado and its history, draw classic patterns, paint using stencils and work on a personal project.

Charleston, South Carolina: Learn to Cook Lowcountry Specialties

Try a Hands-on Cooking Class with a seasoned Lowcountry culinary pro in a charming 19th-century building. Through expert guidance and experimentation, immerse yourself in the essence of Southern cuisine while learning to prepare authentic regional dishes. Classes start at $89.

Have you ever taken a class while on vacation? How was it? Let us know in the comments below.

Rebecca Treon is a Denver-based freelance food and travel writer and the author of a forthcoming guidebook, Colorado Food Trails. You can find her work at rebeccatreon.com.