Schools & Groups
Powerful Shared Experiences. Stronger Communities.
Bring your students together through immersive outdoor experiences that forge lasting bonds, cultivate true belonging, and inspire meaningful growth.
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Let’s Plan Your Groups Journey
Real Growth Through Connection & Adventure
Drawing on our rich history facilitating rites of passage, we partner with schools and groups to support them in navigating transition. From a memorable afternoon exploring the forest to a multi-day wilderness journey, our tailor-made programs offer folks the space to challenge themselves in new ways, learn alongside their peers, and discover their gifts in service to the community. Every group is different. We work with you to create a program that reflects your group and goals.
We offer a range of experiences, from accessible day programs to multi-day wilderness adventures. We'll help you find the right fit for your students, your goals, and your group's experience level.
Find The Right Experience For You
Wilderness Overnight Programs
Venture deeper into the natural world through multi-day backpacking adventures in Olympic National Park and beyond. Students take on shared responsibilities, navigate challenges together, develop personal and collective resilience, and reap the rewards of working as an expedition team.
Wlities Our Specialties
What We Offer
Marking Transitions
Graduations, the shift into adolescence, and the beginning or end of a school year are opportunities to pause and recognize what’s changing. We create meaningful experiences that help students reflect on where they've been, celebrate the present moment, and prepare for what’s next.
Community-Building
A strong classroom community is born through shared experiences. With cooperative challenges and group dialogue, students practice listening, navigating differences, taking responsibility, and supporting one another. Our programs teach real collaboration skills.
Learning Through Adventure
Take learning beyond the classroom. Students explore local ecology, develop outdoor skills, encounter challenges, and learn through experience. Immersion in an awe-inspiring environment sparks curiosity, reflection, and fresh perspectives that last long after the program ends.
Our Approach, Rooted in Your Goals
Since 1968, we have brought intention and care to outdoor learning and rite-of-passage experiences. We partner with educators to shape programs around their students’ needs and learning goals, drawing on an approach that combines youth rite-of-passage curriculum and experiential, nature-based learning.
Practices that make our programs unique include:
A foundational practice at Rite of Passage Journeys, talking circles create space for people to share their experiences, speak from the heart, and listen deeply to one another. Gathering in a circle— universal shape of connection and belonging—participants take turns speaking and practice listening with openness, curiosity, and non-judgment. Across our programs, we adapt this practice to the needs of each group, creating opportunities to build trust, deepen understanding, and strengthen community.
Depending on the readiness of the group, we facilitate opportunities for youth to spend time in solitude, connecting with nature and their own inner voice. Solos are facilitated within a container of support and intentional risk management. When participants return from their solos, they have the chance to reflect on what they learned and be witnessed by their community.
Thresholds are a way of physically marking a transition from one stage of life to another. In our programs, thresholds are simple, intentional passageways crafted by guides and/or participants with natural materials like cedar boughs, driftwood, kelp, and other elements respectfully gathered from the landscape. Participants physically pass through the threshold as a way of marking a transition, leaving something behind, or stepping into something new. Rooted in the natural world, this practice gives tangible form to an internal shift or meaningful moment.
We can tailor our programs to support:
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Develop self-awareness, communication, empathy, and emotional regulation.
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Cultivate trust, shared responsibility, and meaningful connections among peers.
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Strengthen problem-solving, decision-making, and the ability to lead and support others.
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Deepen ecological understanding and appreciation for the natural world through direct experience.
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Recognize change, reflect on growth, and consider what lies ahead.
We partner with schools across educational approaches, collaborating with educators to align each program with their curriculum, values, and students’ developmental needs. We also bring specialty experience working with Waldorf and Montessori schools, among others.
Our Promise
A Program Designed With You
Every school community has its own culture, priorities, and needs. We’ll work with you to understand your students and goals, then shape an experience that fits.
Not sure where to start? You don’t need to have it all figured out! Reach out with an idea, a goal, or simply a sense of what your group needs. We’ll help you explore the possibilities.
Testimonials
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"Our 8th grade class trip with Rite of Passage Journeys met or exceeded every expectation."
"The students had an experience that struck a wonderful balance between adventure and reflection, individual growth and cohesion, challenging situations and quiet moments, structured activity and free exploration.”
— Teacher
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"The students returned home changed."
“Four nights of backpacking on the spectacular Olympic coast… worked subtly on attitudes and strengthened capacities. Daily conversations in a circle, gracefully led, probed with questions of community, morality, moving on to high school and more. The students returned home changed, more in tune with each other and better prepared to take on the next phase of their lives.”
— Teacher
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“Each of the four Journeys leaders contributed strongly to the success of the trip."
“Their ability to model good citizenship, to embody outdoors skills and ethics, to lead the group as a whole, and to meet individual students - authentically and with heart - in moments of need, crisis, or triumph was notable. All of them helped make the trip both meaningful and fun.”
— Teacher
