The Traveling School

Dear Parents:

Something marvelous about The Traveling School is that we create a community and an environment in which the girls can re-create themselves into the people they have always wanted to be.  We bring together a group of girls who come from different cities, different coasts, different economic backgrounds.  At the Traveling School, we try to equalize this: we all carry only a backpack, we all have a limited number of clothes, we all sleep in sleeping bags, we all have a set number of belongings.  Because of this, it is not apparent which of the girls come from families of wealth and which of the girls come from poorer families.  This is an inherent value of the Traveling School: it does not matter where you originate; it matters only where you are going.

We ask you to understand this and help us maintain this principle. We ask the girls to bring a specific amount of personal spending money ($350, not including tips and exit visa costs).  We have calculated this amount based on what girls have spent in the past and what is a manageable budget for both the girls and their families.  This should cover snacks, souvenirs, gifts, special treats, and whatever else the girls want (in moderation).  Our girls come from a variety of economic backgrounds, and we want to ensure that on the trip, these backgrounds are equalized; to this end, we ask that all of the girls bring the same amount of money.

We want to teach the girls how to budget their money, and we have them keep a weekly record of their expenses.  In order to make this successful, we need your help.

If you allow your daughter unlimited access to a credit card or send her with substantially more money than we suggest, she will not have a sense of how to manage money effectively.

We recommend that you sit down with your daughter before the trip and plan together how to use the money she brings.  We suggest that you send your daughter with an emergency credit card, but we ask that you stress that this is for emergency use only – not for shopping sprees.

This is also important because we are constantly surrounded by outside people, friends, who have different values and perspectives on money than we do.  When they stay with their host-families, the girls will notice the difference between what we call middle class and what the middle class looks like overseas.  If the girls spend a lot of money while staying with their host-families, uncomfortable situations and obvious economic disparities arise, and we present ourselves as extravagant and opulent.

In addition, as we travel in Africa in a safari truck, and we have two friends, a cook and a driver, who come with us.  These two gentlemen are from Zimbabwe, where there is currently a tragic amount of turmoil and inflation; because of this, they are necessarily extremely frugal with their spending.  We have similar situations in traveling by public bus in Mexico, Central and South America. People throughout the world are in similar situations, and we want to be as sensitive to that as we can.  While we want to support and contribute to local economies, we want to do so in ways that are moderate and reflect our good judgment and understanding.

We request that you consider this as you and your daughter prepare for her trip.

Thank you,
The Traveling School