In this episode, I connect with Zach Vanderkooy, a veteran study tour organizer and principal of the firm Inspired by Cities for a discussion about the impact of study tours, what you can expect as an attendee, and what it takes to pull off successful educational outings such as these.

Zach is an urban planner by training and has a deep history in bicycle advocacy, having worked for both IMBA - the International Mountain Bicycling Association, and PeopleForBikes. 

Additional Helpful Links:

Organizing Effective Study Tours pdf

Green Lane Project article

Big Jump Project article and Big Jump Better Together Video short

An Active Towns - PeopleForBikes Study Tour Video - Zach helped to organize this study tour w/ PeopleForBikes

Active Towns Podcast Episode featuring Meredith Glaser and Meredith's research article on study tours

Active Towns Podcast Episode featuring Roshun Austin

Four Easy Steps to Support My Efforts:

1. Become an Active Towns Ambassador by "Buying Me a Coffee" or by pledging as little as $1 per month on Patreon

2. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a "thumbs up," leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a friend.

3. Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred listening platform and the Active Towns YouTube Channel

4. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Various mixes also by John Simmerman

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:

- Website

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- Newsletter

- Podcast landing pages

- Facebook

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Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2021

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.