After our arrival in Beijing, China’s capital, we depart the city for a small village below a remote and un-renovated section of the Great Wall to escape the overly toursisted sections. Within hiking distance of the wall, we stay in a small family-owned guesthouse here and begin getting to know one another, learning about ensuring our health and safety during the course, and get a sense of where and how we’ll spend the next three months together.

After taking advantage of the quiet and natural beauty of the village, we board a bus to travel back to the city of Beijing and spend a couple of days exploring some of the many historical and cultural treasures it has to offer. Then we will board a high speed train but feel like we are traveling back in time to Xi'an, ancient capital of China, to pay a visit to Emperor Qinshihuang’s Terracotta Army and dive deeper into Chinese history.

We are ready to head deeper into China as we board a flight for Kunming city in Yunnan province in China’s southwest for our first urban homestay. We live with families who embody a diversity of traditional values, lifestyles, and perspectives all shaped by China’s blistering pace of change over the past decades. Our time in Kunming is structured around morning Mandarin classes, afternoon group and solo activities around the city, and Independent Study Projects (ISPs) with local mentors or organizations.

After our time in Kunming, we will head to western Yunnan – an area called Lashihai, to stay with rural homestay families in an ethnic Naxi village. Here we’ll continue language classes in the morning, and spend time helping with household and farm chores with our host families and exploring the area as a group in the afternoon. After our urban time, students love being amidst the awe-inspiring mountains, bucolic scenery, and simpler way of living in this rugged landscape.

Leaving Yunnan, we fly to Guangzhou, where students have an opportunity to design a mini student-led expedition and reflect on our time living and traveling through China. Filled with new perspective and skills, we fly across the strait arriving to Taipei, a dynamic cityscape known for its night markets, Japanese colonial architecture, and thriving scene of young activists. Here we orient ourselves to our new surroundings and explore some of the city's most important sites, such as the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, the National Palace Museum and the famous night markets.

From the largest metropolis in Taiwan, we head into the countryside to stay in the farming community of Yilan. A rich delta region, Yilan has historically been a major source of rice cultivation for Taiwan. More recently, as industrialization and urbanization have progressed, some urban families have relocated from the more expensive Taipei to start organic farms and build a life closer to the land. Staying with local families to practice our language skills, we learn from local experts on various sustainable farming techniques, including aquaponics, organic farming, and permaculture all while connecting with this unique rural lifestyle.

After we bid goodbye to our host families in Yilan, we continue our jouney further down the east coast of Taiwan. We explore the unexpected beauty of Taiwan’s nature by hiking in the wonderous Tarako Gorge before we arrive at our final homestay of the semester in a Paiwan indigenous community in the area near Taitung. Here families welcome us into their community to share more about their cultural identity and unique knowledge of environmental conservation and ecology. We take time to sit over tea and share food with people of this special ethnic community, old and young, where we listen to their stories and gain insight into how our own identities have shaped our lives.

Now seasoned travelers with months of living abroad under your belt, students embrace more ownership over the final weeks of the semester. With the mentorship of instructors, the student group plans and leads the final travel section of the trip based on thier interests. This extended Student Led Travel, or Expedition Phase, of the semester is an amazing chance to build confidence and put into practice all of the travel skills gained over the past weeks. After this final student led adventure, we land at a quiet retreat center outside of Taipei to spend our last few days together reflecting on everything we’ve learned and experienced over the past 3 months.