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Quick Facts about Bold Earth

Welcome to Bold Earth! Since 1976, we have served more than 20,000 families through our adventure and travel programs. Our itineraries are designed to maximize fun, foster personal growth, and create close-knit communities. (Click here to read more about why Bold Earth stands out from other international teen travel companies.) We’ve included a few basic facts below about Bold Earth trips.

Our mission: To create the safest, most exciting, and most substantive summer adventure travel experiences for teenagers through our personal attention to every student, our caring, and our competence.

Ages

We serve middle school and high school students between the 7th and 12th grades. Students need to be finishing the grade the spring before a Bold Earth program begins, not entering that grade after their trip. In other words, the grade students are in as of the September before their trip. 

Locations

International: France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Croatia, Montenegro, Iceland, Ecuador, Costa Rica, South Africa, Tanzania, Mozambique, Swaziland, Fiji, and Thailand.

U.S.: Colorado, Hawaii, California, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona.

Trip length

12 to 21 days.

 

Activities

Activities vary significantly by trip. Adventure activities include whitewater rafting, surfing, scuba diving, snorkeling, ziplining, rock climbing, hut-to-hut hiking, via ferrata, canyoneering, hot springs visits, rappelling, glacier trekking, mountain biking, sea kayaking, and stand-up paddleboarding. Our students also participate in community service, cooking classes, safaris, cultural tours, homestays, and language immersion.

Program goals and guiding principles

  • Physical and emotional safety is our top priority.
  • Our students participate in fun and exciting activities to develop a love, appreciation, and lifelong passion for adventure and travel.
  • Our dynamic and trip leaders serve as role models and mentors and help facilitate personal growth.
  • We empower and encourage students to create a culture of kindness and mutual respect in their communities and create lifelong friendships.
  • We believe that the natural disruption of an adventure travel experience, free from technology, can help students build a new narrative that helps them define the person they can become.
  • Long-term relationships with our students, parents, trip leaders, and outfitters are of the utmost importance to us. We are not just a summer youth camp—we’re a second family.

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Community service

Most of our programs incorporate an element of community service, but none of our adventures focus exclusively on service. We use our short-term service projects to engage directly with the environment and local communities we travel in, and to foster a sense of stewardship, volunteerism, and community mindset in our students. Students receive a certificate from Bold Earth recognizing their service upon completion of their trip.

21st-century skills

Our students learn skills on our adventures that they’ll use in their daily lives back home. Whether it’s hands-on skills like cooking, meal-planning, or setting up a tent, or life skills like learning how to collaborate to solve problems, forming meaningful relationships with their peers, or learning to lead and follow, our students are developing our Great 8 Outcomes that will be key to their future success.

Group size

A typical trip consists of up to 10 to 14 students and two trip leaders. We maintain a 1:7 staff to student ratio, which allows us to give students the personal attention they deserve and foster a small, close-knit community.

Personal program size

We have a selective admissions process, screening new students with the goal of creating kind, supportive peer groups. We intentionally limit our program size to no more than 450 students total to enable us to provide a more personalized experience.

Cancellation policy

The $800 deposit is fully refundable until December 31. The final tuition payment is due on March 1. After March 1, all tuition is non-refundable. We highly encourage you to purchase third-party travel insurance to protect your investment. Please call us at (828) 435-3971 for more information.

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