Trips with a purpose
Peru, from the coast to the Andes to the Amazon.
A trip that isn’t tourism. Students work alongside communities, lead each other, and come home changed — and determined to make a positive impact on the world. Your teachers come home knowing how to do it themselves.
Three minutes in Peru: Lima, the Andes, the Amazon and a community project. Video by Jarz for X-Factor-Ed.
The trip
A standard 15-day itinerary through Lima, the Andes and the Amazon, finishing with a community project such as building homes alongside local families. The program is designed with the school.
What makes it different
- Student leaders and leadership teams from day one
- The X-Factor-Ed journal and guided reflections, to get the most out of every experience
- Teacher training built in
- Preparation before the trip and follow-up after it, at school
What fifteen days looked like: Wangaratta High School, 2026
- Lima: the historic centre, and lunch with a community Harry has known since a fire in 2020
- Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu: tree care with a local reforestation project in Ollantaytambo, then the citadel, with a guide who turned it into a conversation about leadership
- Ccorccor, 3,860 metres: a homestay with Andean families, making adobe bricks, planting potatoes and learning natural dyeing
- The Amazon: three nights near Puerto Maldonado, learning about medicinal plants and the forest from Indigenous hosts
- Chincha: two homes built in two days alongside the two families who will live in them
- Every night: journals and reflection, led by student group leaders
My biggest takeaway was to be grateful and find joy in the simple things, just as the Peruvian people do.
Gus, student, Wangaratta High School
The trip has a stated price, and fundraising is treated separately. On the 2026 Wangaratta trip, students and families fundraised together, and all of it went to the project. How fundraising works is planned with each school.
Where groups stay in the Amazon
In the Peruvian Amazon, groups stay for part of their journey at Casa Amazonas, the Amazon Yoga Centre near Puerto Maldonado. We say this plainly because schools should know: the centre was founded by, and belongs to, Harry’s wife, Vanessa Frías. Schools are told before they book, and any school that would rather stay elsewhere can.
Planning a trip for 2027 or 2028?
Trips are usually planned a year ahead. Tell us about your group and Harry will be in touch.