At Rustic Pathways, we work at the intersection of education, travel, and philanthropy. Our programs facilitate life-changing educational experiences for students and use travel and philanthropy to achieve sustainable development in the cities, towns, and villages where we work. Focusing on this goal allows us to provide transformative experiences for students while having a positive impact on local communities.
Mission
Rustic Pathways empowers students to positively impact lives and communities around the world.
Vision
Rustic Pathways is committed to creating a world where:
We’ve been the leader in international student travel and experiential education since 1983. We now facilitate more diverse and ambitious trips all over the world than ever before. More than 11,000 students traveled with Rustic Pathways in 2019.
Our health and safety measures ensure students have food that meets their dietary needs and clean water, stay in secure accommodations including Rustic-owned base houses, travel in maintained vehicles with safe drivers, and participate in activities with trusted vendors and partners. All students also have access to emergency support via our partnership with a leading provider of international medical consultations, emergency evaluations, and urgent travel services.
Our staff of more than 500 people from 25 countries who speak about 50 different languages are the backbone of our organization. Our local staff will take you to their villages and hometowns, introduce you to their families and friends, and share with you what it’s like to live in their communities. They are experts who enable you to have a truly authentic experience.
We invest heavily in hiring the most qualified Program Leaders. They have experience in classroom and experiential education, wilderness training, and international development, and will help you process your experience. All full-time Program Leaders are trained as Wilderness First Responders and seasonal staff are at least CPR-certified.
We’ve partnered with many of the communities where we operate programs for years, even decades. We collaborate with those partners to create sustainable projects that satisfy the community’s vision and have a lasting impact.
Rustic was awarded the Best Youth Tour Operator in 2018 by the World Youth Student and Educational Travel Confederation for the third time in four years. Outside Magazine named Rustic one of its Best Places to Work for the past three years.
Click below to learn how Rustic Pathways intentionally designs programs to foster student growth in learning outcomes most closely associated with future academic, professional, and interpersonal success.