*These programs are typically for students in grades 9–12, however motivated rising 9th graders will be considered
Leadership
Challenge yourself academically at the world's most prestigious universities
Non-profit organization offering student travel scholarships
High school youth summit focused on public health, climate change, and equity
Campus-based climate change program for grades 9–12
Putney Student Travel partners with schools and other organizations to create customized experiential education programs for student groups. For 75 years, we’ve been a leader in educational travel, collaborating with teachers and educators to design programs that leverage our local expertise and travel experience to meet curricular goals. Since 1951, our team has facilitated deep immersion experiences and cultural exchange on journeys off the beaten track, across the globe.
To inquire about Custom Programs with Putney, please email custom@goputney.com or call 802.387.5000.
Our program directors collaborate closely with partner schools and organizations to develop a program itinerary and curriculum that match your educational goals and needs. Partners may choose a destination and combine diverse themes, such as service learning, language immersion, creative writing, ecology and conservation, or history, and our directors will draw on local networks and experience to design a unique program to meet your curricular goals. Whether you wish to examine biodiversity in the Costa Rican rainforest, study political science in the halls of Oxford University, or develop Spanish language skills in Ecuador, there is a Putney program for your group.
When collaborating with Putney, you tap into extensive networks of local contacts
cultivated over seven decades in over 30 countries around the world. Putney is proud of our impeccable record of safety and unmatched risk management. On the ground, our expert leaders, who bring specialized skills, education, and experience, adapt and collaborate to build dynamic partnerships with schools, ensuring the integration of our on-the-ground expertise with school policies and expectations. Our comprehensive safety protocol includes broad liability insurance coverage and 24-hour emergency support to leaders, teachers, and students in the field.
Putney pairs each custom program with exceptional and experienced leaders who bring a depth of local knowledge, first aid and safety training, and experiential education pedagogy. Putney leaders are dedicated educators who all have strong backgrounds in youth engagement, foreign language, international living, education, and travel. Our leaders collaborate closely with partner schools to build a dynamic environment of growth, exploration, inclusion, safety, and learning for each program. Click here to meet our leaders.
"We have collaborated with Putney on five travel programs now, and each one has been safe, well organized, and has provided my colleagues and students with a true immersion experience. The most rewarding aspect though, is to see the students return with an expanded view of their place in the world and an ongoing commitment to global understanding."
"Putney played a key role in crafting a thoughtfully designed, immersive experience that aligned with our school's experiential learning goals, creating a significant milestone in our middle school students' lives. In the week leading up to the trip, we, as faculty, were able to prepare our students with a deeper background of Hawaii’s culture, history, and environment. Upon arrival, the Putney leaders brought this knowledge to life with an infectious enthusiasm and guidance. The collaboration between Putney leaders and faculty teamwork was very compatible and allowed the Putney leaders to build meaningful relationships with the kids while faculty reinforced the experiences and school policies.
Our school's aim was to offer middle school students an enriching, age-appropriate trip that deepened their understanding of the interconnectedness of Hawaii’s ocean, land, and people. Many of the students were traveling away from home for the first time, so the structure of daily check-ins and activities safely challenged and supported the students to grow in meaningful ways. The trip included staying on a farm, sharing communal meals, stargazing, swimming, hiking, and engaging in marine ecology lessons. Beyond these activities, the students also encountered transformative moments of personal growth—like confronting homesickness and managing practical tasks like doing their first load of laundry.
The Putney leaders actively sought out small familiarities of home for the kids, meeting the students' needs and working closely with us during the trip to create an experience that balanced joy with the opportunity to try new things in a healthy, constructive way."
"I worked with Putney on several middle school trips to Costa Rica and Hawaii while I was at Avenues New York Campus.
Overall, I had an excellent experience with Putney. From planning to implementation, they were reliable, involved, and a wonderful set of humans to work with. I worked on two back to back middle school Costa Rica trips with them, and the following year, ran a Hawaii middle school trip with them. Both our Costa Rica and Hawaii trips were fantastic.
The Costa Rica experience was especially enjoyable because my colleague and I at Avenues were trying to curate a very specific experience for students around field work, conservation, and service. Putney was exceedingly helpful in taking our input and ideas and crafting opportunities for our students that matched them. They were communicative on the design of the program, and made sure we had the space and time to run activities of our own.
The itinerary that Putney created for us was rich in personal connections to conservation, through which students got out into the field to meet the individuals who are doing the actual conservation work, as well as experience some of that work for themselves. This included doing stream health monitoring at a forest research station, sorting recycling at a reclamation site, doing walks in the jungle with a birder, night hikes right outside our own lodgings, as well as tree planting. The days were well balanced in terms of down time and structured activities, accommodations were well planned and enjoyable, and meals were excellent (and met individual students' needs).
While we were in Costa Rica, Putney also kept evolving the program, making additional contacts as we went that opened up new opportunities for us. For example, the daughter of a family running one of our lodgings ended up working with the local water department. They were able to juggle arrangements on the fly and set up visits for our group to the local aqueducts and water treatment facilities. Putney also took our feedback and incorporated it into the following Costa Rica trip that they helped us with, improving the student experience even more.
In addition to my experience in working with them to create and run experiences for the students, the people who I have had the good fortune of working with from Putney have all been fantastic. They are a joyous collection of professional, passionate, and resourceful individuals. Spending two weeks in another country with a lot of Middle School students can be an intense experience, even on the best of trips. Putney staff stayed buoyant and resilient, and even helped us adults stay in good spirits. In addition, they worked extremely well with the students, helping them form bonds with each other, build relationships with the new environments and cultures, and displayed a tremendous amount of patience, empathy, and care. This was always reflected in how our students saw them. On all three trips I went on, Putney staff quickly became the favorite adults of our students.
Importantly, I also never have any doubts about their competence or level of preparedness. I am one who tends to lean into situations and over think how things might go wrong, but I always felt secure both for my own person and those I was ultimately responsible for while travelling. Whether it was with regards to logistics, dietary needs, social and emotional wellbeing, or basic physical safety, they ran well prepared and resourced trips.
I cannot recommend Putney highly enough."
"In working with Putney Student Travel on Marymount’s Program at Oxford, I’ve been continually amazed at the magical balance of professionalism and creativity their representatives have provided. It’s a mix that’s delivered a wonderful working partnership for our school. Putney’s representatives have come through on everything they’ve pledged, supporting ideas both big and small, and forging an extraordinary opportunity for our students to participate in a one-week seminar at one of the world’s preeminent universities in one of the most captivating cities on earth. We’ve now planned and run the trip multiple times, and Putney has been consistently responsive in soliciting and incorporating feedback, honing the program, and making sure it matched our dreams and our needs together.
In collaboration with Putney’s representatives– each of whom has brought a wealth of knowledge and contacts – we’ve accompanied students on a fascinating journey into one of the world’s great academic capitals. Putney’s reps have helped us adapt courses that have matched student interest and taken advantage of the latest on-site opportunities, offering recent programs in Law and Human Rights, Science and the Future, and Literature and the Examined Life. We’ve also run a course on the history of publishing and libraries, keeping in mind that Oxford has been a centerpiece of both for much of the last millennium.
A central mission in all of this has been to guide the students in on-the-ground-learning that takes advantage of Oxford’s surroundings, working with experts who share their own scholarship and field experience with our students along the way, and with activity leaders who guide students not only through the course content and themes, but through the university itself and the city that surrounds it – a place that highlights both the sacredness and joy of learning. In the meantime, students experience undergraduate-student life on Oxford’s famed campuses and grounds, stretching their minds in the classroom each morning and exploring Oxford’s sites and cultural events each afternoon and evening, all in connection with their courses – seeing plays, concerts, and historical treasures, for example. We’re thrilled to be planning in partnership with Putney once more."
