Trekking on the Inca Trail

School and University Groups Education through adventure

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Learning about Africa? Studying Bhutan? It can be difficult to get the specifics across to students who, even if they’re trying their best, can’t imagine life there. One way that is immersive, unique and incredibly effective is to take a trek there. At Kandoo Adventures we have lots of experience of working with schools and universities to design an appropriate challenge for your students. Our tours are designed to give students the opportunity to experience and learn about the destination you choose and support the appropriate curriculum and learning requirements. 


All tours are led by our own experienced and directly employed English speaking local group leaders, who are primed to give a unique insight into an area’s culture, customs, traditions and heritage.

It’s not just about the proscribed educational aspects, either. Any trip into the world of high-altitude trekking means that people who go in as loosely connected groups will come out with some strongly-forged bonds which are almost impossible to sever. On the mountains, trekkers look out for one another, cheering each other’s victories. School pupils will go in as classmates and come back from the trip lifelong friends.



Safety on school and university trips


We understand at Kandoo Adventures that it can be a challenge to give permission to let your child scale a mountain, but safety is at the heart of everything we do here. We won’t take your money and then leave your group to fend for itself; we’ll help with every aspect of the planning, from destination to route, gear, kit, training, safety tips, how to recognise things like altitude sickness and many more.


At Kandoo Adventures, because we specialise in high-altitude treks in particular, we know it’s not the same as deciding to climb a small mountain in the UK. For this reason we recommend long stretches of training that help with lung capacity and stamina, as well as building muscle. Climbing days are long and without training, pupils and students will not be able to reach the summit of the mountain and will have to go back down.


However, school challenges can also be a great way to get children motivated. It’s absolutely possible for a group of children, helped by trained guides and teachers, to scale Kilimanjaro or climb the Annapurnas. Whether this is a curriculum based trip or if it’s a school trip with a difference, students find the experience intensely rewarding no matter if they scaled the summit or not. The knowledge that it was their motivation that pushed them through and nothing else gives them a sense of determination they will carry with them long after the trip comes to an end.


With school challenges in particular, we provide teachers, parents and participating children with sufficiently detailed information to keep everyone informed. We’ll also meet with you to assist with the project planning. We know that, although trekking is not an inherently dangerous thing, people want to be reassured about safety and our procedures. Everyone at Kandoo Adventures expects nothing less than the best.

University challenges tend to feature groups who are more accustomed to climbing, but we still approach every trek as if they were brand new to the sport of high-altitude trekking. This means safety briefings, learning how to recognise altitude sickness, lessons on the right gear and kit, and learning how to train properly.



Going on our treks helps to motivate students. They learn that they are the only people who will force them to do something, and often push themselves harder because of it. We take pride in everyone who says the treks we run helped them to become a better person, pushing past problems and hardships and instead turning them into challenges to be conquered and learning experience to find something new from.


We also aim to educate—not just the university students and school pupils taking the trek, but their teachers and lecturers too. Because Kandoo Adventures directly employ our guides and refuse to go through any other companies, we know them intimately and can easily say that one guide is a must for a particular trek. All of our English speaking guides are directly involved in their local community, and have great knowledge of local custom, history and heritage, culture and way of life. If university students are finding relating to particular subjects, such as daily life in Peru, our guides will be the ones who can open their eyes and help them to connect with the subject.


There is never a day on the trip where students are not learning. If they’re not finding out new things about the culture of the place they’re visiting, they are finding how they can help their fellow travellers if they need help scaling a particular pass, or learning what motivations work best for them. Climbing, trekking and mountaineering are not solitary sports, although they can seem that way at first. In fact, you are always focussing on your group, assessing who needs help, who is doing well, and who needs to slow down because they’re tiring themselves out too quickly. Living with these people for however long the trek takes is also another way to find out what makes them tick, and anyone on this trek will soon know each other better than even their best friend does.

Anyone who comes on our treks—not just students, but teachers too, will come away with a huge respect for the country and the terrain they have visited. When you live in a culture for a time, walking the paths they walk, it is impossible not to become engaged and excited whenever you experience something new. And at Kandoo Adventures, we aim to help students experience something new and wonderful about trekking every day.

On our school and university challenges we aim to motivate, engage, inspire and educate every member of every group.


Please contact us for more information.