The Travel Study trip itself consists of three main components:
- Adventure: all of our travel study experiences involve a significant "adventure experience". Whether it is canoeing on the Green River in Colorado, backpacking along the wilderness beaches of western Vancouver Island, or rock climbing the towering granite cliffs of Yosemite Valley, carefully planned and professionally supervised adventure challenges students to push their personal limits and grow, both individually and together.
- Authentic Investigation: during the pre-trip phase students prepare a rich and open ended "fieldwork question" that they will study on trip. Faculty shape the trip itinerary in part to provide opportunities for each student to collect data, interview experts, make observations, and do research in the order to answer the fieldwork questions they designed and better understand their personal research topic. Each student on the trip presents an workshop to his/her classmates on the topic he/she has selected and become an "expert" in.
- Community Connections: one of the most fulfilling elements of any travel study trip is the opportunity to interact with the people who live in the region. Typically we select destinations where our students will have the opportunity to interact with and get to know people of different cultures and ethnicities. In the Southwest, REALMS students spent time living with Hopi families and learning about Hopi traditions. On Vancouver Island REALMS students worked side by side with members of the Kwa'Kwa'la First Nation and helped paint a traditional Head Canoe.