NOLS Spring Semester in New Zealand

Fall asleep savoring a delicious meal you cooked on a camp stove and wake up ready to explore the next turn in the river. During this semester, you’ll make your way through alpine grasslands, snowfields, rainforests, valleys, rugged mountains, and spectacular gorges as you learn to live and travel in the outdoors with minimum impact. The course combines a variety of outdoor skills that may include sailing, sea kayaking, backpacking, and canoeing. Your course will also spend time visiting a community of Maori, New Zealand’s indigenous people. Visiting the marae, the meeting house, you’ll exchange stories and learn about their ancient and modern ways of life.

As you progress through your semester, leadership will be a key focus. With each day, you’ll learn more about how you lead and hone your personal leadership style. Trying an activity like sea kayaking for the first time might be your opportunity to develop self awareness and a lifelong love for the ocean. Or maybe you’ll learn about tolerance for adversity as you and your group work through challenging mountain terrain together. Experiences like these will help you build on what you’ve learned throughout the semester. By the end of this course, you’ll go home with deep friendships, real leadership experiences, and a relationship with the unique, wild landscape of New Zealand.