Chanrezig

Archive South Pacific- WALKABOUT
Hello back home,We sit here in Cairns after our plane ride this morning from Brisbane.  We intended to board a train last night that would have taken 22 hours, but the train was canceled due to flooding.  Instead, we got the whole day to check out the city and find out all the information we needed for our next group activity.  Tomorrow at 9, 7 of the 11 members start… Read More

SCUBA! SCUBA! SCUBA!

Archive East Africa- KIFARU
We’ve finally completed our certification classes for open water scuba diving! Yay! Here’s how the journey started: On Thursday morning, we all went to the One Ocean Dive Centre and got signed up! It was a long, long, long day filling out a ton of forms, watching videos, reading and taking tests. The whole process took about 9 hours…yup, getting open water scuba certification is a loooong process! 🙂 For… Read More

Free Travel!

Archive Central America- QUETZAL
Hi family and friends, Keely here from San Jose, Costa Rica. We just completed our week of free travel, which we spent in Puerto Viejo de Talamaca, a small beach town on the Caribbean coast.  We had a low key week in this relaxed town, using rented bikes as transportation. (A shout out to Mike, who was kind enough to tote me around on the back of his bike due… Read More

Watch Out For Drop Bears!!

Archive South Pacific- HONGI
Two weeks ago, we flew from Sydney to Adelaide where we met up with our contact from the Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA). After a quick orientation where we met our group leader Hamish, we discovered that we would be doing work on Kangaroo Island. The work we did consisted of building boardwalks on four of Australia’s most beautiful beaches. We were also pleasantly surprised to find out that we would… Read More

The Austins take control

Archive South America- INTI
Namaste Bros, We have just finished a four day yoga and meditation retreat in the Sacred Valley. We started every day bright and early with a nice relaxing meditation, followed by an hour and a half of broga (also known as “yoga” to all you normal people). After a dank breakfast of dank foods, including homemade yoghurt, quinua, and fresh fruit, we did our 45 minutes of daily seva (chores… Read More

Free Travel-Moshi and Tanga!

Archive East Africa- KIFARU
Hello!!We just had an amazing and exciting past few days of free travel. We started our free travel journey on Thanksgiving at the United African Alliance Community Center. The group ended up deciding to split up into two groups, a group of five and a group of seven. We all traveled from Arusha to Moshi together and stayed the night at a backpackers hostel in Moshi. The next morning, the… Read More

Save the Baby Turtles

Archive Central America- MAYA
This is Lillie and Rebecca signing in after a week in Playa Hermosa with the adorable tortugitas. When we arrived at Punta Judas, finding enough beds for everyone was our first challenge, but after the initial confusion we all found a place to rest our heads and enjoyed a delicious meal.  The first day of work found the group in an all too familiar situation of moving dirt as we… Read More

We’re back!

Archive South America- INTI
Greetings family and friends,We’re now back in Cuzco until tomorrow morning, after 4 wonderful/interesting days at Lake Titicaca. The 24th, we left Cuzco by way of a private van, 13 smiling, healthy (note: healthy is a crucial word here) gringos and one native driver off to see the highest navigable lake in el mundo. As the hours in the van turned into extreme hunger, our driver, who led us to… Read More

When I grow up I wanna be Kate Bosworth

Archive Central America- QUETZAL
When I was eight years old, I saw the movie Blue Crush. You know, that one where Kate Bosworth lives in Hawaii and surfs in competitions until she gets into an accident and becomes truamatized but eventually finds the inner strength to win Pike in Oahu? Yeah, well ever since I saw that movie, I´ve wanted to learn to surf. There´s just something inherently cooler about a girl who can… Read More

The Truth About Turtles

Archive Central America- QUETZAL
Hey everybody. Maya here, broadcasting live from the beautiful beachside town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, our chosen free-travel destination. Our week on la Playa Camronal was harder than most of us expected, with killer bugs and long, often fruitless nights of turtle work. A fair ammount of our time during the day was spent relaxing, and the rest performing various seemingly meaningless tasks– we picked up garbage on the… Read More
Archive India- SHIVA
Here we are in McLeod Ganj, tucked high up in the hills, surrounded by even higher peaks-the mystical Himalayan Mountains. After our week at Deer Park Institute, we were able to enter this week in McLeod with clear and focused minds. We are all excited to finally have reached this destination, so different from any place we have previously been to because of the strong Tibetan influence, or rather, a… Read More

Groovy Grape & CVA

Archive South Pacific- WALKABOUT
    Hey all! We had a great time on the Groovy Grape with our new enthusiastic companion, Steve, (BRILLIANT!). We started off our journey through the Outback by driving over to Uluru a.k.a. “Ayer’s Rock”, the biggest attraction in the Outback. We spent two days here and on the second night we got to experience a once in a life time opportunity of a thunderstorm over Uluru. The next day we… Read More

Gratitude is my mood…

Archive India- SHIVA
Gratitude is my mood… If anything I’ve learned from travel it is that we are all family in some waysucked down by gravity to walk this landAnd on Thanksgiving 2010 with you, my brothers and sistersgratitude is my mood when you glow as you write and wrestle and wrestle and write with your journey, Amanda,you alight inspirationand gratitude is my mood when you dance and dance then sit for hours… Read More

Did pancreas just explode on my leg

Archive East Africa- KIFARU
Hello! Happy Thanksgiving! We are still in Arusha, but no longer with the Maasai anymore. We have been staying with Black Panther, Pete O’Neil for the past 3 days. For everybody who doesn’t know who Pete O’Neil is, he started the Black Panther Kansas City chapter. After being exiled from the United States, he and his wife Charlotte moved to Tanzania and started the United African Alliance Community Center. We… Read More

Everybody Loves Photos! (More cowbell!!!)

Archive South America- INTI
FairPlay Spanish School in Cusco, Peru Payaya TIME! In the Jungle at Robin´s Farm!!! Jungle Walk around Camino Verde protected forest. Your friendly neighborhood white caiman. Salt Lick by ¨The Gator¨ Hiking out of the jungle was mighty hard work! Pina break! Riding around in Puerto Maldonado… Lake Sandoval Ma and Pa Kettle The ¨80 meter¨Black Caiman!! Lobos del Rio!!! Playing Dress up at llanchon, Lago Titicaca… Read More

Maine Boys Check-In

Archive South America- INTI
Hello folks, We are currently in Puerto Maldonado awaiting our departure flight back to Cuzco in the morning. We have spent the last ten (mas o menos) days in the heart (mas o menos) of the Amazon. We were in a small community called Baltimore, off the Tambopata River, helping reforest with a righteous broski named Robin (who has a ton of land, knowledge, and rusties [ask your child if… Read More

Carpe Diem Presents Whitney and Will’s Wonderful Words of Wisdom

Archive Central America- MAYA
Hi, Whitney and Will here. We’re Wonderfully happy, and We made it to Costa Rica! But lets reWind the clock back to Granada.Granada Was an aWesome, but very touristy, city. We Went ziplining Which Was Wicked fun. Whoever Wanted could go upside down, and superman style Which Was Wonderful! We also recieved free coffee Which We doWned because it Was Wonderfully delicious. We also Went to Masaya, an artisans market Where… Read More
Archive India- SHIVA
Hey! The Deer Park Institute. A place built up in our minds as the home to five days of bone-chilling buddhist-style silence. Five days with few, if any interactions with the other carpe diem group members we have grown to love and hold dear. Five days of mindful nothingness. Upon arriving at the institute, all these intimidating perceptions were thrown out the window. The atmosphere was far less strict than… Read More

Pu Khao de Laos!

Archive Southeast Asia- SABAI
Laos has baguettes. That is the first thing that, on behalf of everyone, must be said about our visit to the second country in our exciting itinerary: LAOS. After a 6 hour van ride, an overnight stay at the border, a river crossing, another 6 hour van ride, and a much lighter bag of dramamine, we finally arrived in Luang Nam Tha, a town that looks like what would happen… Read More