After a long day of travel, we exit the airport into the humid diesel laden tropical air of one of the world’s most densely populated cities and make our way to the Chientan Youth Center. Nestled into a series of gardens and greenspace along the Keelung River and between two of Taipei’s most important highways, Chientan serves as the perfect base for us in our initial days of exploration and container building. Here, we build a solid group expeditionary culture, share important health and safety considerations, and develop fundamental travel skills for the journey to come. During our first few days in Taipei, we will set goals about language learning and gradually ease ourselves into the world of Mandarin. We’ll also explore some of the city's most important sites, such as the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, the National Palace Museum and the famous night market.

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Moving East from the capital, we will continue to the farming community of Yilan. Yilan is a rich delta historically a major source of rice for Taiwan. As industrialization and urbanization have occurred some families have moved from expensive Taipei to start organic farms and build a life closer to the land. Here, we will start our first homestay with families who form a tight community of local farmers and newcomers. Every morning, we will gather and take language lessons which are designed to help with conversations at home and with locals. In the afternoon, the students will have an opportunity to dive deeper into some subjects that they are interested in with local mentors, such as calligraphy and cooking with local mentors, or join our farm-stay hosts and local families in their labor in the fields, working in small groups and getting a feeling for the quotidian reality of food production. In the evenings, we will spend time with homestays, practice the language they’ve learned during the day, watch Taiwanese drama or play games together. After our time in Yilan, we bid our host families goodbye and continued down the east coast of Taiwan. We will explore the beautiful nature that Taiwan has to offer by hiking in a national park or visiting the seaside, before we transition into our second homestay with an indigenous group in Taitung. Here, families welcome us into their community to share cultural identity and local area knowledge of environmental conservation and ecology. We take time to interact with people, old and young, from the tribe, to hear their stories and search for identities through different eras.

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Over the course of the summer, the instructors gradually step back, allowing the group to take more leadership and control of the experience. This culminates in a 2-3 day student-led expedition still accompanied by instructors. By this time, you’ve had lots of opportunities throughout the course to gain valuable travel skills and embrace more ownership of the experience. The student group will work with the support of the instructors to plan an amazing culminating travel experience in southern Taiwan. Finally, we will spend our last few days together in the misty mountains of picturesque Jiufen, reflecting on everything we’ve learned and experienced together over the past 4-weeks and preparing for our return home!

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