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Travel with purpose. Learn how to minimize your environmental footprint and support local communities through responsible and sustainable travel practices. Responsible travel is all about positively impacting the destinations we travel to, something we are all about at Rustic Pathways.

Teens can develop cultural sensitivity on travel programs by practicing openness, respecting local traditions, adapting communication styles, and engaging with locals. These experiences help build essential skills for navigating diverse cultures

“Rustic” lodging can include camping, or staying in huts, or even boats. Here are some of the lodging differences

Stanford University professors have found an extraordinarily effective way to help people understand different points of view. This groundbreaking process will be shared with Rustic Pathways students from 25 countries who'll be participating in the Global Youth Climate Summit.  

A special online program is being launched this July by the Stanford University Center for Deliberative Democracy and the Rustic Pathways Foundation. The Global Youth Climate Summit will challenge students in 7th-12th grade to design innovative solutions to environmental issues.

Mental health statistics show that the well-being of many teens drastically declined during the pandemic. Parents can help teens find their way back through international programs that are designed to build connections.

Find out how easy it is to enroll in a Rustic trip by following these three steps: 1. Pick your Rustic experience. Before you…

If you’re thinking there are new travel restrictions the United States government imposed on Cuba last year, that’s true. But they have absolutely no…

Each December, we start the four-month process of narrowing our pool of more than 1,000 Program Leaders candidates to just a few hundred. About…

Learn the answers to these important safety questions before sending your teen on any high school travel programs

Whether I’m going away for a long weekend or a few weeks on the road the staples in my carry-on are always the same.…

Learn how Rustic Pathways manages travel emergencies with crisis simulations and real-world responses to ensure the safety of students during their global adventures.

64-80 hours. That’s how long the average Rustic Pathways Program Leader spends training for their role leading service trips for high school students after…

At Rustic Pathways, our mission is to empower students to positively impact lives and communities around the world…

With the latest news this week in Washington, we want to reassure families that Rustic Pathways programs are open to all students — including those who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming. As an organization, we have been committed to these principles of inclusivity for decades. In 2014, we established a formal policy that outlines…

With the recent changes in Washington many parents are asking themselves "is it safe for my child to travel abroad this summer"? Watch our most recent info session to learn more about how we keep your child safe on a Rustic Pathways program.

It's not hard to find anecdotal reports about the benefits of student travel. Knowing that students return from our programs having experienced some type of growth wasn't enough for us. So we created a framework to intentionally design our programs and assess what and how students learned from them. According to the results from our…

Resources: Why You Should Spend Your Money on Experiences, Not Things Hill Tribes of the Golden Triangle Intro to Photography in Cuba The Refugee Youth Project Spanish Language Immersion Pacific Adrenaline To give the gift on an experience, start with Rustic's 2017 catalog.