Location
Multiple Locations +3
  • India
    • Agra
    • Jaipur
    • Delhi
    • Himalaya
    • Dharamsala
  • Nepal
    • Kathmandu
    • Pokhara
  • Thailand
    • Bangkok
Length
4 - 26 weeks

Program Details

Activities
Backpacking City Exploring Trekking
Timeframe
Fall Spring
Housing
Guesthouse Host Family Hostel Sleeper Train Tent
Primary Language
English
Age Min.
18
Age Max
25

Pricing

Starting Price
$10,950 USD
Price Details
Cost is US$10,950 per semester. Includes all meals, lodging, overland travel, scheduled program activities including sightseeing and outdoor adventure, team leaders and in-country staff, orientation session in the USA, and educational materials. In addition to the program fee, participants must pay for their flights (on average approximately $1900), personal expenses, and individual free time activities. Personal expenses include health insurance, entry visas, and transportation to orientation in Colorado at the beginning of the program.
What's Included
Accommodation Activities Airport Transfers Meals Transportation
What's Not Included
Airfare Domestic Airfare Travel Insurance Visa
Aug 28, 2020
May 01, 2021

About Program

Get outside of your comfort zone and immerse yourself in the cultures of Nepal, India, and Thailand. Join a small team of backpackers and travel with two experienced leaders for a 13 week experiential learning semester in Asia.

Youth International programs focus on cross-cultural exchange, and involve a combination of international travel, community service, home stays, and outdoor expeditions. About a third of your time will involve volunteer work, including these service projects planned for the upcoming year: renovating a school in a Nepalese village, and teaching English to children in a village in India.

YI participants are presented with a unique opportunity for personal growth. You will encounter a wide range of new and challenging cultural situations, forcing you to re-evaluate what is right, wrong, or normal, and who you are in relation to these norms.

Dates for the next available program are: September 14 to December 2021. Apply today!

Video and Photos

Program Highlights

  • Challenge yourself with a 9-day trek in the Himalayas in Nepal.
  • Volunteer on sustainable, community-led service projects.
  • Visit Bangkok, Delhi, and cultural wonders including the Taj Mahal.
  • Explore Asian religions and philosophies, including a mediation retreat led by Tibetan Buddhist monks.
  • Learn about new cultures, foods, and languages by living in home stays.

Program Reviews

9.73 Rating
based on 22 reviews
  • 9-10 rating 95.45%
  • 7-8 rating 4.55%
  • 5-6 rating 0%
  • 3-4 rating 0%
  • 1-2 rating 0%
  • Impact 9
  • Support 9.3
  • Fun 9.4
  • Value 8.9
  • Safety 9.5
  • Housing 9
  • Support 10
  • Fun 10
  • Value 10
  • Safety 9.8
Showing 17 - 22 of 22 reviews
Default avatar
Giovanni
9/10
Yes, I recommend this program

Great Gap year experience - YI Asia Fall 2012

I personally wanted to experience life outside of North America and Europe--see things I'd never seen and do things I'd never done. Most importantly, I wanted to challenge myself and the way I thought about the world. I had the most incredible experience of my life with YI. I'm not going to lie here: there are some really hard times--struggles adjusting. struggles with culture shock, struggles with the physical aspects (the treks, the hiking)--, but it is, without a doubt, all worth it. I learned so much about myself through the hardest times. Also, some of the best food in the world, easily.
YI also is so fairly priced! When I went in fall 2012, the cost of the program included the cost of flights, which was just unheard of, but we realized that there wasn't enough money set aside for all meals all the time--and we had a big screw up with a delayed flight that ended up costing YI a lot of money--, so they stopped covering flights and lowered the price a bit, adjusting for an increased food budget (which they handed out to us on the days when we didn't have group activities). Even considering that, the program is still very well priced. Many programs cost upwards of 12 or 13 thousand without flights and certainly without all of the incredible activities and experiences of YI.

5 people found this review helpful.
Default avatar
John
10/10
Yes, I recommend this program

Best Investment Ever!

I can't even begin to express how amazing this program is. It is a perfect combination of seeing a whole lot and also being embedded deep into the culture. Some of the fondest memories of my life are being in a remote village in India with no electricity and no one who spoke English. And yet, somehow, we were able to communicate through lingual and cultural boundaries and bond so much that we all cried when leaving a week later. This program also does an amazing job of stretching your money to see a whole lot. I highly recommend it.

5 people found this review helpful.
Read my full story
Default avatar
Harper
10/10
Yes, I recommend this program

YI was Amazing and Absolutely LifeChanging

I went on the Asia Trip in the fall of 2009 just after I graduated from high school. I knew I wasn't quite ready for college but I wanted to do something exciting and worth while. YI was exactly what I wanted. Just hours after getting off the plane in Bangkok we were walking around Thai open-air markets and century old palaces. Our first home stay was the perfect introduction to set the feel of the trip. We stayed and learned a lot about the indigenous people of the South Asian areas, which I'm now able to connect to nearly all of my college classroom topics. The time we spent with the Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala has stayed close to my heart ever since we left.
The entire trip was life changing and definitely shaped my future. I'm currently an International Studies Major with an Asian Studies focus and I'm leaving in about a month to study abroad for an entire year at the University of Hyderabad in India! Had it not been for YI I never would've had the courage and confidence to do this. I am so grateful for my experience and I wouldn't change it for anything.
I wish Brad would spend more money on advertising so everyone would know what a fabulous program he's made, but he truly gives everything he has into the experience.

5 people found this review helpful.
Default avatar
PeruOutlaw
8/10
Yes, I recommend this program

One of the Most Formative Experiences of My Life

I did this trip in 2004 when I was 19. I had never left the country before, didn't speak any foreign languages, and was a year into a philosophy degree. My life has never been the same.

Within a week of getting on the plane in LA, I was living alongside Akha hill-tribesman in northern Thailand, eating dinner with the family, learning local words from the children, and participating in a village-wide plumbing project. Over the next three months, I lived with four host families; experienced how remarkably similar people are, regardless of context; and learned enough about development projects to know how much more I needed to know. Most of all, I found a calling.

Today I speak three languages, have traveled to ten countries, lived through a government revolution while in the Peace Corps, and work evaluating human experiences.

This is the path Youth International started me on. Where will it lead you?

5 people found this review helpful.
Default avatar
sseif
9/10
Yes, I recommend this program

Life changing experience

I went on a Youth International program during a year off before college in 2005 and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. It has a great balance of volunteer work, homestays, tourism, and treking. I recommend the program to anyone I know who is interested in international volunteering on a year or semester off.

5 people found this review helpful.
Default avatar
Kate
10/10
Yes, I recommend this program

Changed My Life!

It would be no stretch to say that YI change my life and had a profound effect on my career and life choices - I finished my Masters in International Health a year ago and am working for a global humanitarian organization in New York right now. I've traveled to almost 30 countries and it was YI that originally set me on this wonderful path!

5 people found this review helpful.

Questions & Answers