Written By Garret & Maddie Hi everyone! Our week started as we left the exciting city of Siem Reap to our floating village home-stay in the Prek Tal community of Cambodia. After a short drive and our first boat ride of many, we all made it to our new homes for the next 5 days! We met our guide and now friend Yusuf, who showed us around the village and… Read More

Written By Garret & Maddie Hello from Cambodia! We started the week off by saying goodbye to Chiang Mai. Through a magical mystery tour created by our lovely OE Kayla, we walked around uncovering the last bits and pieces the city had to offer us. Many yummy drinks were enjoyed, many blowouts were had, and sooo much laundry was done. We had the best final dinner at a restaurant whose… Read More

Written by Jamie & Caroline Sawasdee kha from Panya Forest! Post orientation, we ventured into our first week at Panya Forest and the Hin Lad Nai hill tribe village. After a warm welcome from Greg and Ramphai, the owners of Panya, we dove into environmental consciousness and community building. We started our days with morning Thai language classes before heading to group activities, including visiting the Wat Thum Si Nil… Read More

Written By Overseas Educators, Kayla & Malcolm Hello from the beautiful and bustling town of Chiang Mai! We can’t believe what a whirlwind it’s been already, it feels like we both have known each other forever and still have so much to learn and explore. Our days have been full of delicious food, laughter, program sessions setting us up for the semester and deep exploration of both the city and… Read More

Sawatdii!! Malcolm is an avid traveler who grew up on a school campus and has been passionate about education his whole life. He went to college at Sewanee and then became an English teacher, but left the classroom to lead student groups on educational journeys around the world. He loves to read, play board games, and spend time in nature, and is always excited to try new foods. Kayla Watson… Read More

Written by Soumya Sou so dai, Sabai fam. It’s your fearless knee-slapping leader, and I’m posted up in a back-alley noodle & dumpling shop in Phnom Penh as I write this, surrounded by bamboo walls, whirring fans, and the sound of motorbikes racing by. As I reflect on the last few months, you eleven intrepid, transformed young travelers who departed this morning in a flurry of hugs and oversized bags… Read More

Written By Kate and Danica Coming from Siem Reap, we went into PTD with little to no expectations. Though we arrived with low spirits, this week became one of our best. When we arrived we were greeted by Rith (the director of PTD) and a great home-cooked meal. That day we all settled in and rested to prepare for the next day. Every morning at 7 am we all slowly… Read More

Written by Ava and Sam with the group SDT. Or as it was accidentally referred to a couple of times, STD. SDT, or student-directed travel, is a time when the group is completely in charge of planning the week. We were given only a budget and a flight that we had to catch, and the rest was on us to plan. We had spent time at the Chiang Dao Youth… Read More

Written By Leora This week ended on an unfortunate note, due to mostly all of us falling ill. Though, when I could still hang in there, I learned a lot in our initial couple days of arriving in The Kingdom of Cambodia. Particularly, I learned that most of the people I have come across in Cambodia are very kind. On the first day of our travels, we planned to visit… Read More

Written By Peyton Hello everyone! This is Peyton writing to you from the beautiful Island of Koh Tao! We started off our week here at Koh Tao after a long travel day from Surat Thani. October 21st was a half travel day and coincidentally Trev’s birthday! (Fun fact: this is Trev’s first birthday that consists of traveling on four forms of transportation: a plane, songtaos, a double-decker bus, and a… Read More

Written By Kate & Nella “Why” is a good word we would use to sum up the 3 days at the Wat Pa Tam Wua forest monastery. The night before our departure to the monastery, we had gone over what our days would look like living as monk. Several concerns were raised due to the new circumstances, which will be explained later. Due to those concerns none of us were… Read More

Written By Gabrielle Bags in tow we piled into the songthaews leaving Chiang Mai, the city that will forever have a place in our hearts. Despite the only headrest being a friendly shoulder and the cramped leg space, at some point we all dozed off in military posture. Retrospectively, this was not enough meditation prep for the Buddhist feminist retreat as many of us admitted to catching ourselves as we… Read More

Written By Claire & Dan So. Chiang Mai. What a crazy three days. On the first day, we pulled up to our hostel at around 11am, and threw our bags in the storage room so we could go out and explore before our check in time at 2. Our plan was to bathe ourselves in luxury, and that we diddd. Let’s just say Lila Massage got a lot of business… Read More

Written by Trevor Thursday October sixth: Time to set the scene. The fifteen of us tumbled out of the van, slung our backpacks over our shoulders and said a tearful goodbye to Krit and Nada. We were then introduced to our host, Nikom, who took us on a tour of our new home, the Chiang Dao Youth Camp! We got our first looks at the enormous Chiang Dao Mountain on… Read More

Written By Ava Coming into this week, the group had no idea what the expect. We did not know anything besides the fact that we would be staying with families in the Haui Hin Lad Nai village, there were possible tigers in the woods (village members later laughed when we told them how worried we were about them), and most importantly that this was a HUGE honor to stay in… Read More