Where There Be Dragons
“Where There Be Dragons offers small group, custom-crafted travel programs in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Participants are led by the best educators in the industry in order to develop an understanding of critical global issues through immersive travel, meaningful engagement, and empowered leadership. Our goal: to build empathy and foster a feeling of shared responsibility for our collective future.”
The organization offers both summer and gap year programs. The experiences are intense and sometimes difficult, and nearly all involve going “off-grid” and immersing yourself with the local rural population. These unique programs are no walk in the park, but they enable students to explore aspects of the world and other cultures in a way that is exceptionally rare. This organization is so well regarded that universities like Princeton use them to run their gap year programs for admitted students.
How do I get started? Go to their website and start exploring their programs.
How do I expand on this narrative arc? Upon returning from your trip, you should explore ways to continue to build on the experience by writing articles, engaging in activism to support the local population you got to know or even setting up an organization to raise money or support the local economy. Hopefully you returned with a “feeling of shared responsibility for our collective future” and can demonstrate that through future actions. In addition:
Keep careful track of your experiences and then write an essay, an article or even a research paper that incorporate your observations.
Go deeper into the world of adventure when you spend a summer Living Like a Mongolian Nomad.
If you are writing fiction or poetry, you should be submitting it to one of the many competitions and journals aimed at teens. See our posts about getting writing and poetry published in the prestigious Hanging Loose Press, Teen Sequin , Elan Literary Magazine and more.
Did you travel to a place that is facing a particular type of challenge (poverty, clean water, climate change-related struggle?). Host an event in your community to raise awareness (or raise money).
The New York Times runs many student competitions through the year for all different types of writing. Consider submitting an entry.
HOT TIP: These programs are expensive, hard and not for everyone. But for the right teen, a Dragons summer program could be transformative. If you continue to take action upon your return, it would give you an incredible story to tell.