Dance Trip 2024

The program fee includes housing, ground transport, breakfasts, dinners, weekly laundry, dance instructions, entrance to social dances, other group-sponsored activities, and a trip t-shirt.

Not included: airfare to/from SFO and PDX, lunches, snacks, and public transport costs during your independent exploration. We recommend bringing $15-$20/day for lunches and other incidental expenses. Participants are also expected to bring a cell phone will mobile data in order to stay in touch with the group.

Your illustrious trip leaders are Milla von Tauber and one more (TBA). Learn more about them on the Leaders page.

Valid concern! We suggest taking a local partner dance class (especially Fusion or Blues) to get a taste. Also, watch these testimonials from UA Patagonia 2023 participants who learned partner dance with Milla. Also, look how much fun these same participants are having :D

Unlike our international trips, there are no organized group flights for Dance Trip 2024. We will advise you on the appropriate time windows for arranging your flights into San Francisco and away from Portland, and you’ll purchase these flights independently. (Please wait until you are enrolled & we provide instructions before booking anything!)

During periods of free time, you’ll be free to explore local areas that (1) aren’t known to be dangerous areas and (2) stay within a reasonable radius of our homebase. Following the Unschool Adventures tried-and-true group outing guidelines, we will require that you always go out in a group of three or more people. (We make exceptions for very quick, nearby trips—the “1-person/1-block” rule.) Please understand that these rules will limit your autonomy, and we cannot make exceptions—but we do have them for important reasons.

You’re welcome to wander by foot and public transport. Rental bikes, scooters, rideshares, and other novel forms of transport are unfortunately not part of the deal (unless specifically authorized by trip leaders) due to injury and liability considerations.

Since our first trip in 2008, Unschool Adventures has facilitated independent exploration of foreign cities by teen groups without serious incident. While no such exploration is risk-free, we are confident that these big West Coast cities can be successfully navigated by our young adult participants with basic precautions, street smarts, and regular communication with the UA staff. If you’re unsure whether this level of freedom and responsibility is appropriate for your teen, don’t hesitate to contact UA Director Blake Boles (blake@unschooladventures.com) prior to applying.

The Unschool Adventures teens will certainly be the youngest participants in the social dances we join, which are otherwise populated by 20- and 30-somethings. Milla has experience facilitating such teenage participation in adult dance spaces (through the UA Dance Recess 2017 and the High Desert Center) and will coach participants on looking out for each other and setting appropriate boundaries in these public events.

A big challenge to running this trip is the cost of accommodations in major west coast cities. We’re going to attempt to see this challenge as an opportunity to get creative and highlight the “community” aspect of this trip by frequently staying in the private accommodations of members of the partner dance community (typically friends of Milla). This means that you might end up in interesting situation like sleeping on a couch, a people pile on a living room floor, or sharing a queen bed with another participant. Unlike other UA trips, we won’t be guaranteeing your own, private sleeping surface every night—but we will always ensure that you have a safe and comfortable place to get a night’s rest! This is also why we’ll ask all participants to bring a lightweight sleeping bag and ground pad. We encourage you to see this as part of the adventure—and as another life skill that will come in handy in young adulthood. (We may also stay in youth hostels, in which case we’ll follow the normal UA protocol of renting out entire dorm rooms just for our group.)

September and October tend to be lovely months along the West Coast! Rain and cold are unlikely but possible, so we will advise you bring a variety of clothing layers.

Feeding ourselves will be an ongoing, co-created project to which you’ll contribute through shopping, cooking, or cleaning. Breakfasts will be simple and DIY (think: fruit and granola), while dinners will be more substantial, with vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and carnivorous options. We make sure that everyone has more than enough to eat on Unschool Adventures trips. Snacks are your own responsibility, and we highly recommend that you keep a snack stash to avoid becoming hangry—dancing and urban exploration consume a lot of calories!

We’ll ask you to bring a variety of clothing layers for different kinds of weather, a traveler’s tower, a few nicer/dress-up clothes for social dances, shoes for dancing, and some basic camping gear (sleeping pad + lightweight sleeping bag + makeshift pillow) that will empower you to sleep anywhere. A full packing list will be provided upon enrollment.

Although Unschool Adventures no longer requires proof of Covid vaccination by default, the west coast fusion dance community is still very Covid-cautious, and we will need to play by their rules in order to participate. While the situation may change between now and trip departure, it’s likely that you will need to have the most recent Moderna or Pfizer booster (launched Fall 2023). We’ll also ask you to bring some high-quality masks and 1-2 boxes of Covid tests.

Upon enrollment, a $2000 nonrefundable deposit is due within two weeks to hold your space, payable by bank transfer (or credit card, with a 3.5% surcharge). The program fee balance is due in June.

All Unschool Adventures programs require a minimum number of participants for a program to run. We anticipate making a “go” or “no go” decision for this trip by late March 2024. If cancelled due to low enrollment, all payments are refunded.