Summer 2022 Outlook
A message from our director, Adam Aronovitz
It’s late 2021. And we are honored to be able to resume offering Global Routes summer programs for all the eager high school students out there ready to re-engage their sense of curiousity in the world. There will be pragmatic modifications to programs this summer to ensure we can operate transformative programming in the midst of the shape the pandemic holds this coming July. If you’re ready to travel this summer, we hope you join us.
We want to give you a look behind the scenes so you can feel confident in your decision about travel this summer, whatever that decision may be. We had a date of January 15th to decide which tack to take based on the status of COVID-19, travel regulations, and vaccination rollout. We’re making the assumption that widespread vaccination will not be widely and reliably available for all healthy 14-19 year-olds. If things change, it’s much easier for us to let go of some protocols rather than tightening up but we are preparing to run programs in a travel environment that is similar to current conditions.
We have developed robust covid protocols for our summer programs which include having all students take a covid test and pre-quarantining before departing for their program, modifying our programs to be more ‘pod-based’ while still exploring the destination responsibly, wearing masks when we are not in our immediate pod, and making arrangements to get students tested before their return home in compliance with new federal guidelines. You can see our protocols below.
We are confident in these protocols because they have been field-tested. We ran a successful gap semester this past fall in Colorado in collaboration with Western Colorado University where we put our covid protocols in action, adjusted when necessary, and delivered an incredible 11-week program for students who wanted to travel in a covid-responsible manner. We look forward to doing this again this summer.
We are monitoring the situation in all of our destination countries and adjusting our itineraries accordingly. If it looks like we might have to close a destination because governments are changing or implementing restrictions that would make travel unrealistic, we will notify families as soon as possible so they can choose an alternative program. We have also opened two new domestic programs in Hawaii and Colorado for families who are ready to travel, but prefer to travel domestically for the time being.