We recently had the pleasure to sit down and chat with National Geographic’s Traveler of the Year Award recipient, Tracey Friley. Tracey is the Founder and Executive Director of The Passport Party Project, OBG Adventures, and (one of these days) Teen Travel Summit & Extravaganza Weekend. She is a die hard advocate for passports and international youth travel, and received an award from the U.S. Department of Consular Affairs for her work. She is a serious giver and passionate about serving the underserved.
Her Passport Party project caught the eye of Expedia who sponsored passports for 100 girls, and a trip to Belize with 6 of those girls. There are a lot of great things Tracey is doing and plans to do, which she shares in this interview.
BMWK: How did you get your start with travel, and how did the Traveler of the Year award come about?
BMWK: What is the Passport Party Project and what is the overall mission?
Tracey: It is a global awareness initiative that gifts underserved teen girls with their first passport. The ultimate goal is to play a role in creating global citizens that are responsible and responsive global travelers. No matter how big or small, or how many girls I’m serving, that is always the mission and the goal. Expedia funded phase one of the project.
For the last couple of years, I have been traveling the US hosting passport parties. We talked about travel, the girls made travel vision boards. They took photos in the travel booth of different items from different cultures. I had bloggers come in to volunteer and talk about their travels, so these girls could see people that looked like them.
The way I define ‘underserved’ for the work I do is: any girl that comes into this world without a fair shake, or not on a level playing field. That could be based on cultural background or socioeconomic background. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a family can’t afford a $105 passport. What it means is that there is this mindset that needs to be shifted and changed. There are a lot of families that when you start talking about travel and passports, in particular, their response is that they can’t afford it (traveling abroad). People think of travel as a luxury and not a lifestyle, and I look at travel as a lifestyle and not a luxury.
Global citizenship isn’t always about getting on a plane and leaving, although that’s where I think the growth occurs, but the growth can occur at home. It’s about acknowledging that there are other cultures that are interesting. Sometimes as Americans we get confused about what “exotic” means, and everywhere I’ve been in the world (with maybe the exception of Scandinavia), I look like people [there].
The idea is to teach these girls that they are as interesting as the people they are going to meet. But that these interesting people they want to meet when they travel, are also right in their own classroom, neighborhood, and parents’ jobs. Their responsibility is to meet these people and to talk to these people here at home and not to wait. So before they have an opportunity to take that global adventure, they still have an opportunity to become global citizens at home.
BMWK: What is next for the Passport Party Project?
Tracey: The Passport Party Project, in phase one, were parties and at the end of the party, I would give them the money and tools they needed to go out and get their first passport. At the end of the 18 months, all 100 girls who got their passports were able to enter a contest in an effort to win an all-expense paid trip to Belize to get their first passport stamp. So I took 6 girls with a parent or guardian.
In phase two, I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m going to do it online mostly, where I’ll do it in groups of ten. So I’ll take ten girls through a 6-8 week online global awareness program. After that, they will research a local or global community project (just research but the hope is that it encourages them to do it). After they go through the training and research, they’ll get their passport, which I think will have more meaning. It’s going to become a right of passage. They hold onto their passport like a prize trophy. And that’s how I would like to think all 100 girls feel from phase one. But going forward, I’m going to make sure they feel that way by having them go through a series of steps before they get it. It’s not about just going to take a trip.
In phase two, I’m looking for sponsors, who are committed to serving girls in this way, to sponsor groups of ten girls. I would like every group that starts the program to go on a trip with me at the end, whereas with phase one, only six girls got to go. One of the biggest concepts of The Passport Party Project is teaching these girls to travel with heart; to think about the local community. I only want sponsors who care about that.
BMWK: Let’s talk about the selection process. How are the girls even considered/made aware of this program?
Tracey: In phase one, I picked ten cities and there were ten girls chosen in each city. I didn’t make it an open-call because that would’ve been way too much to manage. So instead, I found a local non-profit in each city whose agenda was similar to mine (empowering underserved kids).
This [project] is about independence and growth. If you prepare your children, when they do leave, they’ll be able to figure out when something isn’t right, and understand what their instincts are.
The idea is to give them information. You give a child a passport, and they’re like ‘WOW, this means that the world is accessible to me’.
That’s all it means. While it sounds like a small thing, it’s a really big thing when kids don’t ever consider leaving their city, state or country.
BMWK: Can you share maybe something about how the experience impacted the girls that went to Belize with you?
Tracey: It’s interesting because it isn’t always immediate, especially in children. So no child came up to me and told me what the trip meant to them although they did tell me how much fun they had and even gave me a surprise gift before they left. Now I did get a love letter from Shannon about how much she missed me, but that was more about how she connected with me and what I’m about. I think that the signs of growth is something that might come later, especially with children.
I had one mother say to me, “My daughter told me last night that she thinks that God sent you to her”. I told her, “I think that God sent me to her as well’. I don’t even know what to do with that sometimes since it’s so precious and emotional. But so far I haven’t heard from any of the moms about how any of the girls have grown yet. But it’ll happen.
If you ask the girls, they will tell you that the highlight of the trip was going to the orphanage. They were tasked with raising $100 each because I believe in the power of crowd funding…even on a small scale. So those six kids brought their money orders and presented them at the orphanage. We spent the day there and they played with the kids. One of the interesting things was that when it was time to go, they didn’t want to leave. The orphanage doesn’t have computers so a couple of them are actually going to be penpals. It’s so old school but it’s so sweet. So I hope they follow through with that.
One of the girls, Jazmyne, started a blog called the Search 4 Empathy. I had a conversation with her about the photo session with National Geographic. She’s a budding photographer, so she got to assist them with the pictures. That was a great opportunity for her and of course now, her picture is being spread all over the place since it was used for the article.
Another one of the girls, Shannon, is raising money to go on my Paris trip. What that did for me, as there’s growth for me too, is make me create a space every year, where I will have one slot for a low income participant. I am doing what I can to help her raise the money to go, but she has to take the lead and put in the work. I got her to Belize. Now let’s see if her new-found wanderlust gets her to Paris.
Thank you Tracey for all that you are doing to help our underserved girls, and for giving a lot of us a new perspective on travel for our children.
Please take a minute to vote for Tracey for the People’s Choice award by clicking here.
You can find out more about her Passport Party Project, as well as make a donation by clicking here. You can connect to Tracey via Facebook (Passport Party Project and OBG Adventures) and Twitter as well.
BMWK: What are your thoughts on traveling abroad with or without your children?