Outback Adventures

Archive South Pacific- WALKABOUT
Where do I even begin to describe the unbelievable week we’ve had in the outback. From riding camels (yes there are camels in Austrailia), to sleeping in swags under the stars and cooking our entire meal over the campfire, we’ve truly had the authentic outback camping experience. It all started last Thursday when we were picked up bright and early by our enthusiastic guide Tamara in her safari car, nicknamed… Read More

Leaving Ziwa

Archive East Africa- KIFARU
Last Sunday marked the end of our time at Ziwa, and we were all pretty upset to leave. Most of us agreed that it was our favorite volunteer opportunity so far. Working with the Rhino Fund was not something that I was super excited about, but I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed my time there. Getting to see the rhinos was cooler than I imagined and having Felix… Read More

Jammin’ in Jaipur

Archive India- SHIVA
Salutations from The magical city of Udaipur!! Although it has been only a few days since the last blog post, many significant events have transpired in the meanwhile.  We had an UNBELIEVABLE couple of days in Jaipur, staying in homestays. On our second homestay adventure of the trip, we were split up into pairs and were able to share the experience with a buddy. Being the only two boys, Matt… Read More

Emerged from the Amazon!

Archive South America- INTI
This morning we returned to Puerto Maldonado via three hour boat ride after an amazing week. We stayed at a guest house called El Gato (named because there used to be a lot of panthers in the area) run by a family who has lived there for quite a while. It is the last community before the Tambotata Reserve- a huge preserve that is almost entirely untouchable land. During the… Read More

Piga picha?

Archive East Africa- NKULA
Kamwene everybody! Just wanted to share some of our favorite photos from the last two and a half months. Thanks for following along, and thanks a ton for sharing all these wonderful people with us. It has been an amazing journey and it just keeps getting better. Tomorrow we begin Student Directed Travel. The crew has big plans including waterfalls, monkeys, long dusty rides on rough bumpy roads, tropical paradise,… Read More

Our Time in Nogales

Archive Indigenous America
At our visit to HEPAC (Home of Hope and Peace) we learned about border issues and the work that the organization is doing to stabilize and better life on the Mexican side of the border in Nogales. We learned that is important to improve the quality of life in Mexico so that Mexicans will not have to feel like they need to risk their lives illegally immigrating in the desert.… Read More

Vietnam

Archive Southeast Asia- SABAI
Greetings from Vietnam! It’s hard to believe that we’re in our final country of this three month long adventure. Ho Chi MInh city is amazing so far. The city is remarkably clean and the French influence is evident in both the architecture and excessive sale of pasteries and baguettes. This morning, as a whole, we visited the War Remnants Museum. The entire museum was dedicated to the Vietnam War and… Read More

Trekking is fun, I guess

Archive Central America- QUETZAL
Hello family, friends, and concerned parents and grandparents, we have had a great time during our second half of being in Xela. All of us continued with our one on one spanish lessons in the morning and cultural activites in the afternoon. We worked closely with Christian, one of the men who works at the school, who helped organize all of our activities. He facilitated a cooking class one day… Read More

Noosa Head!

Archive South Pacific- HONGI
For the past 4 days Carpe has been staying at an awesome hostel called Flashpackers. Its located dead in the middle of a surf town, with a 10 minute walk into town on one side, a 10 minute walk to the beach on the other side, and a 5 minute walk to the National Park. And to top it off it has a free shuttle that drives us to each… Read More

Bigfoot Beach

Archive Central America- MAYA
Hola de Playa Gigante! The group is staying as busy as ever here in Nicaragua. We finished up Student Directed Travel with nights in Masaya and San Juan del Sur, and continued on to Playa Gigante which is where we happily write to you from! Masaya greeted us with a hostel all to ourselves, complete with our own puppy for the night as well, some disappointing (although SAFE, as the… Read More

Noosa, Australia

Archive South Pacific- HONGI
What’s up Family and Friends, We are here enjoying our down time here in the beach town of Noosa for a couple of days before we head out to the Outback to survive and do some wild life preservation for two weeks.  Our family is still incomplete with the loss of our two brothers but we are still living it up here taking surf lessons, paddle boarding, swelling up at… Read More

Home Stay

Archive East Africa- NKULA
Hello family and friends back home! These past four days have been spent in a small village called Kanani. We were split up into groups of two and were sent separate ways to stay with different families. Although a few of us were sick, we all tried as best as we could to help out around the house. We helped cook the meals, clean the dishes, and carried a number… Read More
Archive South Pacific- HONGI
Hey everyone! As you may already know, today marks our 8th day in Australia. Already the Hongi family has experienced everything from mediation with Buddhist nuns to visiting the Australia Zoo on Steve Irwin Day. Despite the loss of two beloved group members, we have still managed to carry on (albeit heavyheartedly at times) and enjoy the amazing opportunities we’ve been granted. On a more personal note, this week has… Read More

Rishikesh, ashram, and rafting!

Archive India- SHIVA
Namaste North America! Matt from Boston here! After an amazing week in Calcutta, we took a domestic flight back to Delhi and then a train to Rishikesh. We spent 7 days just outside of the city at the Phool Chatti Ashram, which is a silent yoga and meditation retreat. While having to wake up every day at 5:30am, the rigid schedule, and the speaking limits were all challenging aspects of… Read More

are you team hindustani?

Archive India- SHANTI
NAMASTE Y’ALL. Shanti’s experience in Amritsar has been pretty interesting to say the least. Amritsar is known as the spiritual center for the Sikhs and home of the Golden Temple, Harmandir Sahib. The temple is MAGNIFICENT. If you’d like to see images of the holy temple, feel free to Google: “Harmandir Sahib”. I guarantee the pictures hardly do it justice, you must come see it for yourself. I promise you,… Read More

Wacked Shit

Archive Central America- MAYA
Howdy y’all! Our apologies for the late post, we’ve been rather internet-less for quite awhile and will continue to be. Anywho here’s our blog from last week! ¡Hola! ¡Hola! From Rancho Esperanza…though I must say we’re severely lacking in hope (esperanza) at the moment.  Here’s our eventful yet unfortunate update of the past week: Thursday we spent the day at Bonafide hard at work with our machetes…some of us even… Read More

Hello Australia

Archive South Pacific- HONGI
Hey family and friends, We just arrived in the small town of Noosa, Australia. Our 5 day stay at the Chenrezig Buddhist Institute was a great place to clear our minds and relax which was much needed after the past week. Unfortunately we lost two group members our last night in New Zealand. We were all heartbroken saying goodbye and have been adjusting to the loss of their presence since.… Read More

Fun at Uganda Rhino Fund

Archive East Africa- KIFARU
This week was terrible. All I wanted to do was ride a rhino. Not only would they not let me ride one, they wouldn’t even let us pet them. Just kidding! This week went far beyond any of our expectations and believe me, you DO NOT want to get too close to these ginormous majestic beasts. Upon our arrival at the rhino sanctuary we had a brief orientation followed by… Read More