Since 2011, with the exception of those enrolled during the pandemic, all students have been able to participate in a three-day Spring Break visit to a more distant city further linking classroom study with concrete exposure to diplomacy and international trade. Each trip encompasses 8-12 visits to corporations, government agencies, and NGOs. Destinations have included Atlanta, Chicago, and Detroit, with related stops in Georgia, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Ontario. A recent foray was to Georgia with stops at Fort Benning, Aflac, Coca-Cola, CDC, the Carter Center, CARE, the Mexican Consulate General, AGCO and the US Department of Commerce (Atlanta Trip PDF). The 2016 Spring Break Trip was to Ohio, Indiana and Chicago, with stops at Airstream, OmniSource, Boeing, MillerCoors, the German Consulate General, and DHS.
As for government site visits, students have traveled to military facilities such as the U.S. Army's Fort Knox or Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and to the US Department of State, Department of Defense and the US Senate. For the past several years, the School has been welcomed at the Department of Energy's Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to observe efforts being made to deter nuclear weapons proliferation.
Major contingents of Patterson students also attend the Middle East Institute's annual conference, as well as the biennial Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington, DC. In 2016 and 2017, many Patterson students were able to visit Doha, Qatar for several days due to the generosity of Qatar’s government.
During the recent Spring Break trip in March 2023, students visited the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, National Air and Space Intelligence Center, the Airstream, Inc./Thor Industries Factory and Manufacturing Center, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security at the Detroit Tunnel and Ambassador Bridge, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), International Join Commission in Windsor, the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, the Consulate General of Japan at GM Renaissance Center, the U.S. Coast Guard/Royal Canadian Mounted Police at the Coast Guard Station in Belle Isle, the Cass Corridor, and the Islamic Center of America.