Blog

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…

What one mother writes about her son's travels abroad.

Janice Croze, one of the co-founders of the blog 5 Minutes for Mom, wrote about the process she used to prepare her 15-year-old son for his first high school volunteer abroad trip. Janice also included a list of seven tips and tricks she used to help her get ready for his two-week experience in Fiji on Rustic Pathways’ Sun, Sand, and International Service program.

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

Learn about the common worries of traveling abroad as a student and how to overcome them. You are not alone.

Depending on where you travel with Rustic Pathways, you may be required to get a visa ahead of time. If you haven’t done that, the time to start is NOW! For students leaving from the USA ONLY Contact G3 Visas and Passports, our partner who can help you through the process of getting your visa. Or visit…

Each year we create a special pre-departure package for students who are traveling with us! Continue reading to find out what’s inside (and more behind why we designed and included each piece). Rustic Travel Log – NEW for 2017! A mini journal for you to record your Rustic experiences. This is the first year we’ve…

Explore exciting travel journal ideas, travel journal idea prompts and learn expert techniques on how to write effectively in your travel journal with these tips.

The Rustic Pathways Foundation is excited to announce our first-ever Alumni Advisory Board. This is an exciting new initiative aimed at engaging our most active alumni, providing exciting skill-building opportunities, and helping to push the Foundation toward our highest-impact year. The Alumni Advisory Board is comprised of six inspiring Rustic Pathways students who were among the top fundraisers for…

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…

Feb. 20 was the one-year anniversary of Cyclone Winston, the strongest storm ever recorded in the southern hemisphere. The storm left a trail of devastation across many of Fiji's 332 islands, killing 44 people and impacting 350,000 others.

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.

Have you heard? Star Alumni is BACK and we're beyond excited! We love providing our stand-out alumni with the ability to join us again because a second (or third, or maybe even fourth!) Rustic experience gives you the opportunity to improve both the cross cultural and personal skill sets you started to build on your…

As a parent, you want your child to succeed, not just in school but in his or her interpersonal relationships, post-graduation plans, and future career. Most of all, you want your kid to be happy; to know who they are and where they fit in the world. But we all know that when you’re a…

As 2016 draws to a close, here's a list to inspire your next adventure. We chose these destinations with the idea that unique experiences will always beat run-of-the-mill vacations. To me, the best way to travel is to step outside of your comfort zone and explore. So while you won't find any all-inclusive resorts on…

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…

Experiences make us happier than things, according to science. "The good life, in words, may be better lived by doing things than by having things," psychologists Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich first wrote in their research paper titled To Do or To Have? That Is the Question.   It's not a new concept. The New…

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.

Together we're building a world that celebrates diversity, inclusivity, acceptance, and peace. These photos remind us that we live in an amazing world where diversity and a connected humanity should be celebrated.

The following photo series from Rustic Pathways staff member, Mary O'Connor, depicts life in the Prek Toal floating village in Cambodia. The friendly faces of the villagers, the vibrant colors of the produce, and the majesty of Angkor Wat at sunrise will make you feel completely at home. [caption id="attachment_11541" align="alignnone" width="640"] A woman paddles through Prek…