A week ago we parted from our host families and Rabulu village with tears and heavy hearts but excited for the fun times ahead. This past week was our free travel week, which means that the students decide everything, including the food, how we get around, activities, and even the places we stay. After a challenging search, we agreed to spend the week in the Vatia Beach Resort, in a… Read More
We made it to Australia!!!!
Spent the day of April 3rd exploring the beautiful city of Brisbane.
Now we are spending a few days in the beach town that is Noosa. We are attempting to surf, hang out, and get psyched for our next adventure which begins on the 7th.… Read More
We just completed our second week in Arequipa and I´m full of food…stories! This past Tuesday was my 20th birthday, which justified my hunt to try every cake in Arequipa. This wasn´t hard to accomplish, considering there is a pasteleria on every corner. What started off as a blessing, seems like somewhat of a curse these days.
Caroline, my roommate in Arequipa, was my honorary twin this week, and my… Read More
Rolling along with the food blog theme (considering food is one of the things we're enjoying most in South America), I wanted to share some of the weirder foods we've gotten to taste down here.
Cuy: I tried Guinea pig, which is a famous Peruvian dish but is available basically everywhere, in Pucara, Ecuador, where my homestay mother slaughtered one of her own guinea pigs to eat for dinner. Despite… Read More
This world we live can be such a beautiful place if you let it be. If you open yourself up to what it has to offer you can find yourself again.
This week Shanti India found themselves in the Asian fairy tale of Sikkim. Famous for its wide variety of plant life, that attracts botanists from all over the world and opportunities for mountaineering tourism. We arrived at our destination… Read More
A big hello from Playa Gigante in Nicaragua! I am currently in my 5th week here working with Project Wave of Optimism and loving it and all the people I’ve had the chance to meet so far. It seems like just yesterday that I was here with my group semester (shout out to the Quetzal homies) and falling in love with it all so much that I had to return… Read More
Fiji,
What an amazing country.
We started out in Nadi, staying at Bamboo Beach. Serving as a baby step by teaching a few cultural traditions and Fijian phrases, Bamboo Beach was lots of fun. Nadi was very chaotic, with the food markets, lots of kava and loads of souvenirs.
Free travel begins. We stayed at this beautiful resort called the Beach House. The best way to describe it was 4… Read More
Bula! This past week in Rabulu Village was spent getting to know our host families and falling into the pace of village life. Some of us went horseback riding to local swimming holes, while others went fishing and watched the village rugby team play in a local tournament. On Wednesday, we went to the Fiji Water plant to get an inside look at the production process. On Thursday, we… Read More
Hola. My llamas name is maria. Soooooooo we may or may not have been slacking hardcore in the blogging aspect of this trip. Two weeks ago we chilled in Matagalpa and stayed with host families while also going to Spanish school. Pretty good gallo pinto if I do say so myself. We spent the week looking at tall buildings and learning about the canal that will be going through Lake… Read More
Overnight trains are almost becoming comfortable — compared to train station floors.
We left the busy city of Calcutta and looked onwards towards the mountains of Gangtok, Sikkim. After our first jeep ride we were eager to make our way into the nearest cafe to grab pizza, hot dogs, and a cake to celebrate the 19th birthday of our wonderful group mate, Hava. We made our way into our… Read More
Bula friends and families!
We have spent the last week in Rabulu (pronounced "Rambulu") Village living with host families and getting to know everyone in the village. Upon arrival on our first night, we introduced ourselves to everyone and were welcomed into the village with the traditional drinking of kava, a crushed plant saturated in water which produces a tea-like drink. After the drinking of kava, meeting our host families,… Read More
What’s travel’s environmental impact? And how can you be a sustainable traveler?
Congratulations! You’ve decided to travel internationally during your gap year. You’re thinking about all the new people you’ll meet, the adventures you’ll have, the places you’ll go – but have you considered the environmental impact you’ll have?
“Impact?” you ask. “But I’ll be living out a backpack, maybe taking fewer showers, not driving a car….”
While that can… Read More
This week we left Thailand and moved on in our journey to Cambodia. We all knew that this week especially was going to be a pretty emotional and heavy because of what we were about to learn. We left our hotel in Korat to travel to the border of Thailand and Cambodia. There we crossed over and got our Cambodian visas and found a bus to bring us to the… Read More
At the beginning of my trip to Ecuador I thought I would be able to draw countless parallels between the experiences I had last semester in the South Pacific and the experiences I would have in South America. However, I was very wrong. I also thought that I was prepared completely for the adventure I was entering. And literally, I was. I had my backpack, steri pen, Spanish- English… Read More
Greetings from the Seattle girls!
This is Marley and Monica blogging from Neema's cafe in Iringa, Tanzania. It's been a long and very unlucky transit to get here but don't worry moms and dads we made it. There will be a series of unfortunate transportation events that we will cover first starting off in Rwanda. Our wonderful day started at the airport early in the morning at 6am. We arrived… Read More
Bula Friends and Family,
Greetings from Nasolo Village on Vatu Levu Island in Fiji. We have spent the last week immersing ourselves in a Fijian village. We have spent the week constructing sidewalks and a driveway. It was definitely an interesting experience making concrete using sand and rocks and mixing it in a barrel that was cut in half with a hand saw. Our hard work paid off though because… Read More
Greetings from Arequipa!!
After leaving Pucara, we spent a couple of days in Quito to prepare ourselves for Peru. Some of us ate some bad bus food and suffered the consquences, but it wasn't anything too serious. Our last night in Quito we all went out for a nice dinner with a beautiful view of Quito at night and had some great gringo food and pancakes and apple pie!
The… Read More
Our group has a certain Achilles Heel for food, especially sweets, so I thought it was time to do an in-depth blog about the amazing foods we have been eating on this trip.
First off, let's give a basic overview of our eatin habits so far. Our meals have mostly consisted of rice, fried eggs, avocados, some type of soup as an appetizer, lots of plantains cooked every-which way, lentils… Read More
Well… It has been exactly one month since I arrived in New Zealand. I really have been dreading this day, not because I’m home sick or anything, but because I am lazy and really don’t like writing blogs. So here it goes, I am not expecting a Pulitzer Prize for what I’m about to write, and neither should you
I arrived in Auckland lacking money, a phone, or… Read More
What does it mean to be alive? All around this vast earth, every human and every culture asks this question. The diversity of languages, religions, traditions, stories, and artwork is an attempt at an answer. Whether traveling across the world or exploring our own backyards, tapping in to the collective wisdom is a vital part of our own journey.
Wade Davis defines the ethnosphere as “the sum total… Read More
