If you are interested in providing your students with this kind of personal development opportunity, call us on 01730 812742 or drop us a line at chat@true-adventure.co.uk. We would be happy to visit you at school or arrange an online call to discuss different destinations and activities to find what is best for your school or college.

Having seen a bespoke itinerary based on our chat, if you decide to launch an expedition we will come into school to run an initial student assembly, followed by a parent's presentation a week or so later and a launch meeting the following week.

Each school is assigned an Expedition Manager who is responsible for running regular team meetings to help your students prepare, plan and earn their place (fundraise) for their expedition. We understand how demanding teaching can be and want to help as much as possible by alleviating administration throughout the programme.

We can work around your schedule to set meeting dates, provide risk assessments, send letters home and communicate with the team and parents through the student portal ‘My True Adventure’.

We respect all the main expedition companies and work closely with them as part of the Expedition Provider’s Association to raise industry standards. However, we are all a little different.

As a family-run business, our whole team has considerable expertise and passion for expeditions, personal development and travel and we take pride in every expedition being genuinely bespoke. Our motivation comes from the positive impact we have on the whole expedition team as well as the locals living in the countries we travel to. This is why we're proud to partner with unique and sustainable projects to ensure every expedition has a genuine impact.

We believe in the value of face-to-face support to help with fundraising and planning, which is why we visit our schools once a term before departure.
We're large enough to have industry-leading support and safety systems in place but small enough to care about all the details, such as ensuring your Expedition Leader is appointed early enough to run your training expedition and making sure the Operations Room is staffed by experienced, full-time staff who know who you are and understand your itinerary.

Absolutely! We have run several expeditions which have allowed students to gain their Silver and Bronze Awards during their time overseas. We employ several well-known and experienced Expedition Leaders who are Duke of Edinburgh Accredited Assessors and our Expedition Managers can help the team plan routes during team meetings.

School expeditions complement the International Baccalaureate programme particularly well, as they provide a chance for students to enhance personal development through experiential learning and undoubtedly enable journeys of self-discovery. Teams can complete CAS (Creativity, Action, Service) hours by taking part in our unique and distinguished projects

Of course! If you already have connections with a link school overseas, you could spend the project phase there whilst experiencing the benefits of our safety and back up. We could then add on other phases such as trekking or other adventure activities to make the most of your time in-country.

Our Destinations page shows a selection of different opportunities and we are continuously adding to and diversifying it. Please feel free to contact us and we could create something bespoke with you.

We consider a good team size to comprise around 12-18 students and allocate an Expedition Leader and School Leaders per team accordingly. If you do not have enough teachers to volunteer as School Leaders, we can place an Expedition Assistant instead who are often aspirant leaders or past Venturers.

Venturers are asked to pay a £250 deposit upon signing up to be part of the team at the launch meeting. After which, payments are made through a standing order of monthly payments with a final sum to be paid before departure.

We encourage Venturers to fundraise as much as possible so they feel ownership of their expedition and generally find 80% of students raise 80% of the cost. To encourage this, standing orders can be set up in your son or daughters name from 16 years old.

We take your protection seriously and go about ensuring full protection in various ways, starting with being full ATOL license holders in order to safeguard your payments. Your son or daughter is also protected by our insurance which is extremely comprehensive. See our individual badges at the bottom of the page for more information.

You can track your son or daughter’s progress throughout their expedition by firstly seeing their day-to-day itinerary and also through a map displaying signals from the team tracking device. You can view these in real-time through the ‘My True Adventure’ portal.

Venturers are not advised to bring their mobile phones overseas as we provide the team with comprehensive communications such as mobile phones and satellite communications. In the event of a family emergency, our Operations Room can get a message to the team if necessary.

We’re often asked this and the simple answer is yes! True Adventure specialises in school expeditions and we have no plans to become a mainstream travel operator. However, as every itinerary we create is bespoke, we can suit all specific needs. We have organised expeditions for charities and groups of individuals over the past 10 years, so if you have a team ready to go, let us know and we’ll do what we can to help.

Your peers will often tell you that going on expedition changed their lives. Being on expedition, you can have experiences that you may never have thought possible such as trekking through snow-capped mountains, living among indigenous tribes on project, rafting down white water rapids or interacting with wildlife.

Not to mention the lifelong friends you will make, it is a fantastic opportunity to learn how to navigate yourself across the world if you are considering travelling more in the future and it can provide you with a new outlook on life.

Taking part in an expedition can be hard work and requires commitment through preparation and fundraising. By making the trip your own and taking part in different leadership roles, an expedition will undoubtedly help you to stand out through a personal statement or CV. Every Venturer will receive an individual student report from their Expedition Leader which can be used as a reference in future applications.

There are hundreds of ways you can go about your individual fundraising and we find that the best ideas come from students. We will of course support you in your fundraising and finding the right balance between it and your other school or personal commitments.

Fundraising is however your responsibility and quite often one effective and well organised group fundraising event can make a huge difference. It is totally achievable to fundraise the total amount of your expedition, we know this because our Venturers do time and time again!

This depends on many factors but the simple answer is, no, we’re afraid not. We start incurring costs from the moment you apply, such as for administration, recces, itinerary research and planning and travelling to your school every half term, so we still need to cover these costs even if you don’t go on expedition. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule however, so we advise you read the Terms and Conditions very carefully to ensure you are fully aware of what you are agreeing to before signing up. If in any doubt, do get in touch.

If you are interested in leading for us, we would be keen to meet you somewhere convenient for us both and discuss your experience over a brew. Our underlying requirements for an Expedition Leader are for them to be Mountain Leader Assessed, have previously lead an expedition to a similar destination and have experience in working with young people.

Yes. We try to match Leaders to expeditions depending on your experience, personality and travel interests. We are proud to see our Leaders return to us year after year and build relationships with a school they have previously lead for. We will do our best to introduce you to your team as early as possible and train them in the UK.

Great, call us on 01730 812742 to speak to Emma Mitchell or email leaders@true-adventure.co.uk. We look forward to welcoming you to the family!