Service projects are often incorporated into Outward Bound courses through coordination with local land managers, conservation groups, government, or social service agencies. While on expedition, students are encouraged to practice service to the environment and their team by sharing responsibilities and following Recreate Responsibly ethics throughout the course.

Develop outdoor skills. Enhance your leadership and communication abilities. Strive to increase your knowledge of the environment – all while learning wilderness travel techniques in a variety of stunning environments. The ultimate goal of our Gap Year expeditions is to help you develop the confidence, knowledge, and integrity essential for effective leadership. Whether you are learning how to safely tie in on belay, deciding as a group how to navigate through new terrain, or setting up a minimum-impact campsite for the evening, you’ll be honing and practicing skills for life.  

• Build skills, form connections: Amidst rugged natural landscapes, learn to lead and to follow; to give and receive feedback; and to trust in your own capabilities as you expand your technical and personal knowledge base. Find connections with your crewmates based on support and respect (and fun too!), and in the thick of challenges, discover there is more in you than you know.
• Value strengths and strengthen values: Uncover your unique character strengths, exercise your independence as you gain life experience and learn how to let compassion in to everyday life by pushing your own limits and supporting your crew as you tackle obstacles together, big and small.
• Demonstrate mastery: As you gain confidence in new skills and a better understanding of the natural world around you, take on more decision-making responsibilities. Work together to achieve team goals, solve problems and succeed both as independent individuals and as a group.
• What you’ll learn: Examine your personal values and discover more about your true self. Hone your technical abilities as you become a master at ropes courses or swiftwater rescue techniques and Wilderness First Aid. Numerous certificates are available depending on the course, and up to 18 credit hours can be earned along the way.
  

Exploring new environments and building new connections will put your tenacity to the test. You’ll return with broader understanding of the natural world around you, deeper appreciation for small kindnesses and greater confidence in yourself and others that will serve you well long after you return.

Outward Bound is accredited with the American Gap Association and is the longest running program in this elite group dedicated to providing safe, meaningful and high-caliber educational experiences to students.

The 30-foot open sailboat is your home and classroom. These seaworthy boats are rigged to take full advantage of the power of Maine coastal winds, and when the winds do not cooperate, the boats can be rowed by two or four people pulling on oars. At night the boat will be configured as a sleeping platform, and you and your watch mates will take turns at anchor watch under brilliant night skies. Underway, you will learn to set your sails properly for sailing at different angles to the wind and to anticipate and respond to changes in weather. As you practice rowing, you will discover that by coordinating all of the rower’s movements so that the oars splash as one, you halve the effort it takes to travel on windless days. You will learn to navigate using a chart and compass across open water and among the bold granite islands, concentrating on the environment around you.

If your expedition route and water levels allow, you may get the opportunity to learn to run whitewater stretches of river up to Class II. You will learn self-rescue, reading the river, picking out the line you will run, and maneuvering the canoe in moving water and waves. This will give you the chance to work with your canoe partner and put together your paddle skills to run the rapid.

To travel between lakes, your group will work together as a team to carry packs and canoes over trails. Portage trails are rugged and often rocky or hilly. They vary in length from a few hundred yards to a few miles. The group will work to come up with a portaging plan that sensibly and safely distributes all of the responsibilities.

Students will have another chance to step outside their comfort zone and explore a new environment as they earn a NAUI Scuba Certification in the crystal-clear waters off Solarte Island in the Bocas del Toro region in Panama. This is a unique opportunity to learn about tropical ecology and coral reefs while participating in several dives to complete this certification. With Scuba gear securely in place, students transform into underwater explorers and experience the diversity of marine life firsthand.

This section begins on the island of Solarte where the group will spend one to two days planning and packing for the expedition as well as practicing paddling and rescues. During this expedition, instructors will train the group in the skills of kayak-based expedition travel. This section has a strong cultural immersion component with homestays in many of the villages of the indigenous Guaymi-Ngobe people within this tropical lagoon. The Guaymi communicate in both Spanish and their traditional language, of which there are only about 2,000 fluent speakers left in the world, and their dwellings are typically constructed on stilts over the water with grass-thatched roofs. Several small communities and outlying homesteads will host your group as you all explore the region in expedition sea kayaks. 

Maine

The coast of Maine, with its intricate and indented shoreline, is a unique segment of the North Atlantic seaboard. It is known among sailors for its picturesque beauty, iconic lighthouses, abundant bays and harbors, rocky islands, and quiet coves. Our cruising area covers nearly 200 miles of the Maine coast, with countless rivers, bays, and islands to explore. The rocky, spruce-covered islands are the summits of a prehistoric mountain range, and generations of inhabitants have made their livelihoods here. Evidence left behind on the islands reveals the historic presence of indigenous Abenaki camps, pre-colonial fishing communities, post-colonial timber and farming operations, and early 20th-century granite quarries. Cold, nutrient-rich waters flow from the Canadian Maritimes and make the Gulf of Maine home to a wide range of sea birds, seals, porpoises, and whales. 

The mountains of western Maine and northern New Hampshire comprise the northern end of the Appalachian Mountain range. The upper reaches of the Androscoggin watershed are fed by the Aziscohos Lake, the Magalloway River, and the Rangeley Lakes. Indigenous Abenaki peoples used the Androscoggin as both a means of transportation between winter habitats inland and summer living on the coast as well as a source of food. Later the Androscoggin River was used to move logs to mills downstate during the logging boom of the 19th century. These days the lakes and rivers are used primarily by canoeists, fishermen, and other recreationists. Some of the portage trails here, such as those along the Rapid River, have been in use for centuries. These regions are the ancestral lands of the Wabanaki Confederacy, which includes Abenaki/Abénaquis, W∂last∂kwiyik (Maliseet), Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy nations.

Panama

The final phase of the program is located in Panama where the group will learn two technical skills, scuba diving and sea kayak expeditioning. The Bocas del Torro archipelago is located near the Caribbean border with Costa Rica. The islands are home to a rich, heterogeneous culture including the indigenous Guaymi-Ngobe people who are direct descendants of the original inhabitants of these islands and the afro-Caribbean Bastimentenos. The Guaymi communicate in both Spanish and their traditional language, of which there are only about 2,000 fluent speakers left in the world. Their dwellings are typically constructed on stilts over the water with grass-thatched roofs. Several small communities and outlying homesteads will host the group as the crew explores the region in expedition sea kayaks. The Guaymi-Ngobe community on the island of Solarte is the staging ground for the scuba element of the course. These regions are the ancestral lands of the Guna Yala, Guna of Wargandí, Emberá/Eperara/Épera, and Wounaan nations