Parents

Money Matters

We strive to ensure that our tours and expeditions offer value for money but we realise that they are often far from cheap. While this may be a deciding factor we do ask that you consider just how much your child can gain from travelling with us.

What’s more, in our experience students always get more from a trip when they have been required to fund some or all of the costs themselves.

A bit of bargaining never goes amiss when it comes to financing the trip and don’t be afraid of drawing the line somewhere, say you fund 60% and your son/daughter fund 40%. Encourage them and help them make a fundraising and savings plan and you might find the scales tip 80:20 in your favour! We have seen students completely self-fund expeditions to the tune of well over £3,000 so there are no excuses, we know it’s possible!

To any young person (or adult….) the prospect of saving £3,000 is a pretty daunting prospect but we have seen it achieved time and time again and the sense of pride and accomplishment those young people experience is second to none!

Encouraging your child to contribute to the funding of their trip will also allow them the opportunity to develop their money management skills and perhaps act as a useful feature on their CV if they choose to get themselves a Saturday job. Moreover, organising and promoting fundraising events are again excellent ways for your child to enhance their skill set and realise that they are capable of doing many amazing things.

And don’t forget, we have been doing this for over a decade and will do our best to provide help and expertise in the matter with handy fundraising tips and money saving guides to help your child raise the funds they need. For all expeditions booked with us we host a fundraising seminar for participants in order to help them raise those much needed funds. For any of our shorter trips please feel free to contact us for more advice. 

Attitude To Risk

As parents ourselves - albeit with a slightly obsessive compulsion for adventure - we believe we shouldn't prepare life's path for our children. Instead, we aim to prepare our children for life's path.

Travel and adventure is the perfect means to this end - it offers the chance to stretch horizons and develop an understanding of cultures and destinations beyond our everyday world. Travel helps develop resilience, a sense of adventure and the ability to cope with change and challenge. The educational benefits and opportunities for personal development are many indeed.

By its very nature, however, adventure travel is more challenging and demanding than a conventional school trip. The enjoyment, excitement and educational benefit is derived, in part, from the inherent risks and challenges associated with each journey. Comprehensive risk assessments, expert guides, thorough planning and contingency arrangements all help to reduce risks, but they cannot remove them altogether.

Standards of accommodation, transport, health care, hygiene and service provision are, generally, not as high as in the UK. Flexibility and patience on the part of the traveller is important, so too is your understanding of risk as a parent or guardian.

Supporting Your Child

Your child is preparing to explore somewhere incredible. A once in a lifetime opportunity to experience another culture, learn about their destination and do it all with their school friends. It is pretty easy to understand why they will be excited! However, you should also remember that your child will probably be nervous too and that your support throughout the process can only make the experience better for them.

Money:We think it is important for your child to fund some, if not all, of their trip overseas as it will allow them to really savour every moment of the journey and feel an incredible sense of achievement. However, we understand that saving or fundraising can be a daunting process for any young adult. Your encouragement and ideas will help them to achieve their goals – and don’t worry, soon you will miss the weekly cake sales which left your kitchen splattered in cake batter!

Preparation: There are a lot of things your son/daughter needs to prepare themselves with before they go away and at times it might overwhelm them. Consider ways you could help to ease this load such as suggesting family walks which will aid any physical training they may need to undertake. Or perhaps spending some time to research their destination together – we are sure you will learn something new and fascinating and having a little bit of background knowledge will allow them to gain so much more while they travel.

While They Are Away:Preparation is key to helping your child make the most of their trip but also consider how you can support them while they are away. As much as you might want to keep updated on their progress, your text messages might well be making your son/daughter incredibly homesick. Why not wait to hear all about it (we promise, you will… ‘This one time, in Borneo’…) when they get home.

Coming Home:Travelling might have been a bit of a shock to the system to your child but we often find that coming home is too. Be prepared for them to miss their trip, the people they met and the places they visited and enjoy listening to them reminisce!

And of course remember that we are always here to offer our support, all you have to do is get in touch.