While we’re known for wearing a lot of Patagonia, we couldn’t be more thrilled to be featured in French Vogue this month! The French word solidarité is synonymous with the American idea of Community Service and also evokes the idea of standing together. We’re honored to be highlighted as an ideal choice for students with a common interest in service to come together for their summer in some of the most amazing corners of the globe and accomplish their goal, whether that be restoring native plant species Kauai, Hawaii or building a school building in Namibia.

To read the piece, click here. You’ll want to dust off your high school French-English dictionary. We did!

It’s cold in Chicago and the thought of all the warm places we’ll take our participants this summer (hello Costa Rica and Panama!) are helping us keep the faith that these sub-20 degree days are numbered! With that, it’s good to have some solid, perhaps even productive, distractions to help us through the day. Enjoy this spectacular time-lapse of Yosemite and see if it inspires you to adventure this summer as well as the mammoth wave (be warned, it’s a little terrifying and a lot awesome). Also, we threw in some truly spellbinding photos from around the world that recently came through our inboxes. Enjoy!

A balcony here in hometown Chicago! See more of Chicago with us this summer.

Dubai is getting really good at building buildings!

When we’re in Hawaii all of our sunsets are seen through a wave!

Thor’s Well – who knew this was in Oregon?

…traveled to 10 countries
…provided 10,660 hours of domestic community service
…provided 13,640 hours of international community service
…worked and played in 9 states in the U.S., spanning Hawaii to Louisiana
…leader Merle Minks traveled 37,010 miles in a plane (thank you KLM!) on two round-trips to Tanzania
…ate 37 cans of bog (an insanely popular canned meat in Norway, not actual bogs)
…built 3 water catchment tank systems for a rural school in Costa Rica
…hiked to 16,050 feet on Namaste
…Footsteps of Giants biked, hiked, sea kayaked and rafted something like 500 km across Norway!
…hiked the Incan Trail to Machu Picchu
…Wapenduka spotted 1 remotely famous Yankee baseball player in the Johannesburg Airport
…improved the habitats of 37 wolves in Colorado
…had 3 students and 1 leader selected to play on the village soccer team in Ecuador
…cleaned and processed at least 600 taro roots into poi in Kauai, Hawaii
…certified well over two dozen PADI SCUBA to the waters
…Namaste loaded 2,234 (leader Jill swears!) mud bricks into the Leh compound where we built a classroom
…rafted the Río Pacuare in Costa Rica 5 times
…hiked 27 miles through the Himalayas in India
…surfed the coasts of Costa Rica, Panama and Hawaii
…added a dozen Wilderness First Responders (WFR) certified to the world!
…caught two foul balls at a New Orleans minor league baseball game

And that was just the start. With your support and enthusiasm for life changing travel, we won’t stop. There’s no better testament to our work than the smiling faces we have witnessed around the world making a difference. Just take a look!

A bit of beautification in Costa Rica on El Sendero

Footsteps of Giants looking fierce and fit in Norway.

Namaste after they hauled all those mud bricks. Not sure what Dan is doing in the back there.

Good thing these girls are WFR certified on Service Learning in Costa Rica and Panama

Putting all that concrete to work in Ecuador.

Going native in Namibia on Wapenduka.

And finally the 2012 leader team - Thanks one and all!