Greetings Latitudes families and friends,
We have had an exciting couple of weeks with our 2019 Carpe Diem Latitudes cohort! Last week, all 27 students came out to Camp Angelos in the Portland, OR area to participate in a 3 day orientation. It served as a refresher for a lot of the topics our students covered during their group semesters in the fall, while also going over situations and scenarios… Read More
Cheers, Hongi 2018! We did it!
Somehow, December 6th came and went. It feels like just a few days ago that we were all circling up (in the first of many circles) at the SFO airport – but, according to the length of the girls’ hair and the boys’ beards, more than just a few days have passed since then.
And what a journey we shared – 12 weeks filled… Read More
Farewell Walkabout!
Today is the long whispered about December 6th, 2018. A few hours ago we all sat together in the sunny Christchurch Botanical Gardens, making jokes about all the unique people and places we encountered these past few months and shouting out all that we are grateful for one final time. Then we asked a stranger to take a sweet photo of us together in a giant tree, headed… Read More
Part I: One Last Sunrise Before The Journey Home
By OE’s Adam & Mandy
It’s six o’clock in the morning (queue Lily Allen & T-pain) and the voice above is giving us a safety briefing, as we place our carry-on’s under the seat in front of us and buckle our seatbelts. It’s rap music. It’s an unsettlingly cheery juxtaposition against the slow, creeping realization of our soon-to-be end. We’ve been… Read More
Written by Bria and Sheldon
Bilbo Bloggins here. Not quite back at the Shire, but down from the High Atlas in Morocco and found a ring with some writing on it, looks like Arabic. One Couscous to Rule Them All, or something like that. Anybody missing it, you know where our Hobbit Hole is.
We started as eight individuals and somehow ended as three groups of three. (I’m counting Nate’s… Read More
Written by Kate and Doug
Let’s look at some numbers, shall we?
We were 9 humans
From 8 different states in the USA
We traveled to: 1 big, diverse county for 84 days
We visited: 8 cities
And 2 towns
And 4 villages
All in 8 different states
We traveled by train: about 2,363 miles
By bus: about 1,071 miles
By domestic flight: about 2,276 miles
By raft: about 50… Read More
Greetings from our homes,
As we read this we may be sitting back sharing stories of our time hiking to Machu Picchu, sleeping in later then we have for the last three months, eating delicious food we haven’t had the chance to eat for the last semester, or maybe we are still in Peru enjoying one last soda y segundo! Whatever it may be, the adventure that the 14 of… Read More
Written by Avery
With our big bags stored and our goodbyes said we headed across the Laxman Jhula bridge to the last leg of our whirlwind India adventure. In the town square we were picked up by 2 friendly guys from Red Chilli adventure. After a surprisingly short ride to the Red Chilli office we got briefed by Kate’s new snack life role model, Vipin-ji, who gave us a small… Read More
Prema Shanti
Marin and Sky
A Koro Kind of Goodbye
Greetings from the Koro group! For our final week of our big adventure, we spent time reflecting at Prema Shanti, a yoga and meditation retreat center in the Daintree National park of Northern Queensland. We were welcomed by our hosts Mara and Janardhan and made to feel at home right away in their beautiful temple. Our days at Prema Shanti… Read More
That’s it! It’s a wrap. Al final. By now, students have traveled on to their respective places that they call home. Saying goodbye to them was bittersweet, sad to see them go but grateful that we were able to see them grow in many ways over our journey together. In the last three months we have been able to see three different countries and experience three different cultures. We have… Read More
Three months ago 7 strangers met in the San Francisco airport to embark on the journey of a lifetime. Today, our journey has come to an end, and we depart no longer as strangers but as family. We have so enjoyed spending the last three months with all of you.
We appreciate all of the unique qualities that each of you brought to this journey. We are sad to see… Read More
We came. We saw. We experienced. Not many people can say they traveled across India for three months with total strangers but we did it. We explored the culture, we met people from all over the world, and we opened up our heart
s and minds to everything and everyone around us. Some of us are more ready to take on what we have planned for our future; some of… Read More
Written by Owen
The final week of our trip started as the group left Rabat, starting Student Directed Travel, headed to the blue town: Chefchaouen. We hopped on the 1:15 bus and, after 5 hours of driving, a short break, and a shorter taxi ride, we arrived at our hostel around 9:00. We settled and had a lazy night, worn out from a day of traveling.
Our first of two… Read More
Written by Eli and Megan
After a smooth week of student directed travel, the group headed to the beautiful island of zanzibar. once we landed in stonetown, we were introduced to our final homestay families. After settling into our new homes for the week, we were lucky enough to be given a proper tour of stonetown by our contact, Faisal, and his funny sidekick, Ally. We learned about how some… Read More
Written by Reid and Megan
Jambo!
This week we spent our days relaxing on the beach and learning how to SCUBA!! After two days of theory and skills in the pool we finally got to go out on our first dive on the third day! We started off with review of the important skills we learned then went on our first dive at Mnemba Atoll. We split into small diving… Read More
Written by Frederick and Cari
Hamjambo! Oli otya?! Amakuru?
Choo kikowapi?! (Where is the bathroom?) is what we often questioned everyone, in a hurry, after we rushed off our never ending buses through East Africa…
Usually we found them in time and hoped that we remembered toilet paper. We say “usually,” because sometimes you get the travel gurgles and you have a whole new experience. The best part was our… Read More
by Sarah Ruehl
Three months is a very odd length of time. In the grand scheme of things, three months is a blink for mother Earth, Pachamama. Even for us mere humans, three months is 1/400th of our lives, considering we live 100 years. Yet, looking back on everything I did and learned with these thirteen strangers in the last three months, it’s hard to believe it hasn’t been three… Read More
A day for Emily:
Snuggled up under my wool blanket, I am awoken by my host family chatting away in Hindi. I open my eyes and absorb the soft glow of the pre-sunrise light and take in my surroundings: the small mud patio I am sleeping on and my host brothers Lalito and Rukase coming toward me to say good morning. I get out of bed and am greeted wit… Read More
In our final week of our long journey through the South Pacific, we were lucky enough to stay on the Hart Family Farm and spend time with our amazing hosts Greg, Rachel, their kids George, Bill and Emma, as well as their four dogs. This week was a real eye opener for many of us, learning a lot about the way we make and consume food and how unsustainable this… Read More
