Custom Educational Travel
Cultivating a groundswell of critical explorers and global citizens dedicated to reimagining the ways we live, learn, and move together.
Our Story
with questions…
Is voluntourism helping or hurting? How can we make travel a force for good? How can visitors support local community development? Where can we find the best ice cream, really?
Operation Groundswell was founded in 2006 by two university students with well-worn backpacks and lots of questions. 20 years and over 500 programs later, those questions still drive everything we do. OG designs and delivers custom immersive programs for institutions and groups — rooted in experiential learning, community-engaged programming, and critical international education.
Our Values
a groundswell
Crafted collaboratively with over fifty OG alumni, program leaders, and community partners. These are not aspirational — they're in our DNA and provide the standards we hold ourselves to on every program.
Where We Go
and beyond
OG has built programs and community partnerships across Latin America, East and West Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and beyond. We work where we have genuine relationships — not where we can arrange a tour.
Looking for Inspiration?
tailored to fit
Every OG program starts with a conversation, not a catalogue. These are some of the programs we've designed with our institutional sponsors — each one built around a unique set of learning goals and inquiries, locations, community partners, and the group of learners.
Southeast Asia
From Phnom Penh to Banteay Meanchey, explore how communities rebuild after trauma — experience living memorials, dance studios, and family farms where resilience becomes practice.
Central America
Follow a coffee bean back to its origin — from Antigua to Lago Atitlan, experience colourful markets and highland farms while asking why coffee and injustice often grow side-by-side.
South America
From Cusco to the Sacred Valley — get your hands dirty in sustainable agriculture, taste Andean cuisine, and explore how ancient knowledge and practices can help address modern challenges.
East Africa
From Kilimanjaro to the Indian Ocean, trace the links between culture, ecology, and conservation — planting trees, learning Swahili, and hearing from changemakers tackling climate and justice from the ground up.
South Asia
From Delhi to Dharamsala, explore how Indian youth are tackling local and global challenges through social enterprise, ecotourism, and Ayurvedic medicine — in one of the world's most dynamic laboratories for change.
Southeast Asia
From Bangkok to Chiang Rai, explore who tourism really serves — and what changes when communities lead. Ethical elephant conservation, sacred temples, and village hospitality — it's time to ask the questions the industry avoids.
Central America
From the Caribbean reef to the jungle interior, explore how Garifuna, Maya, and Mestizo communities navigate change — where cultural and ecological survival are inextricably linked.
South America
From Quito's urban gardens to the Pacific slope, explore how indigenous knowledge, urban agriculture, and permaculture are redefining food sovereignty — in the country that wrote it into its constitution.
South America
From Lima's hospitals to Tarapoto's traditional healers, explore how Western and Amazonian medicine navigate the same communities — and what each system reveals about the other.
West Africa
From Accra's educators and activists to homestays in Kazugo, explore how knowledge lives outside the classroom — in Moringa farms, girls' schools, and communities growing sustainable futures from the ground up.
Our Local Partners
make the journey possible
Featured Partner
San Martín, Peru
Established in 2013, Ecoaldeas Perú are stewards of the Upper Amazon and San Martín highlands — a vital hub for indigenous-led conservation and cultural resistance.
Alongside the Chirikyacu community, they manage traditional crafts, sustainable agriculture, and environmental education that puts community sovereignty before tourism.
They were here long before we arrived. They'll be there long after we leave.
Our Institutional Sponsors
that take their students seriously
Over twenty years, OG has designed programs with universities and colleges that are serious about learning outcomes, student safety, and the quality of the experience.
Personal Testimonials
(re)think travel with us
Over twenty years, institutional sponsors and the people who travel with us keep coming back. Here is what they say about their OG experience.
Operation Groundswell has been instrumental in helping us ensure the safety of our students. We have selected them with the confidence of knowing we can rely on them to support and care for our students — all while providing a seamless experience where the safety planning goes unnoticed by participants.
Veronica Vasquez
Director, Centre for International Experience
University of Toronto
Working with OG has been a special experience from start to finish. They were great collaborators in building a program that fit our needs and honoured our values, and worked with us to make it accessible to all students. I can't wait to work with them again.
Emily Marchese
Assistant Director, Global Learning
Nazareth College
OG created an itinerary that allowed me to truly connect with the people and the culture. Their leadership did an amazing job of affording us the opportunity to experience a new country in a way that connected us to the people behind the purely intellectual questions most of us had going in.
Susan
MBA Student
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Our programme was thoughtfully designed and expertly executed by skilled, knowledgeable Programme Leaders. The experiences and learning will be a part of me forever. OG has created an amazing set of learning and growth opportunities.
Simon Galton
Faculty
Mohawk College
Our Approach
Grounded.
OG takes on a small number of engagements each year. That's intentional. Good programmes are built on relationships — with institutional partners, with communities in the field, and with the participants who travel with us. We work best with partners who are serious about the quality of the experience and willing to invest the time that good design requires.
01
Community-First Design
Every programme is built around genuine relationships with communities and partner organisations in the field. We build programmes that contribute, not extract.
02
Learning Before Logistics
Curriculum and learning outcomes shape the itinerary — not the reverse. A programme is only as valuable as the learning framework that holds it together.
03
Responsibility Built In
Safety planning, risk assessment, and emergency preparedness are integrated from the outset — not added as an afterthought.
04
Measured Scale
We work with a select number of partners each year. This allows us to bring genuine expertise and attention to every engagement we take on.
Get in Touch
your program
If you're developing an international educational travel program — or looking to strengthen one you already run — we'd like to hear about it. Good programs take time to design. The conversation is where that starts.