NOLS as a Honeymoon?
November 3, 2012 6:04 AM Subscribe
Is taking a short NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) course as our honeymoon a good idea?
My fiancee and I are thinking about doing a two-week NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) course for our honeymoon. We both want to learn some solid wilderness skills and spend time in nature before we relocate to a big, congested city. We're not concerned about this being a non-traditional honeymoon, since we've done our share of romantic trips together before.
However, when I read NOLS' FAQ answer on taking trips with spouses (copied below), I found it it a bit discouraging.
So, for those of you who have been on NOLS trips before, would it be weird or a waste of our time to do this as a honeymoon? How much would we be seeing each other? Would we be able to share a tent? Are the organization and instructors likely to be amenable to our presence, or should we come up with another honeymoon plan?
(I'll be calling NOLS to ask these same questions, but thought it would be good to get an outside opinion, too.)
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My fiancee and I are thinking about doing a two-week NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) course for our honeymoon. We both want to learn some solid wilderness skills and spend time in nature before we relocate to a big, congested city. We're not concerned about this being a non-traditional honeymoon, since we've done our share of romantic trips together before.
However, when I read NOLS' FAQ answer on taking trips with spouses (copied below), I found it it a bit discouraging.
So, for those of you who have been on NOLS trips before, would it be weird or a waste of our time to do this as a honeymoon? How much would we be seeing each other? Would we be able to share a tent? Are the organization and instructors likely to be amenable to our presence, or should we come up with another honeymoon plan?
(I'll be calling NOLS to ask these same questions, but thought it would be good to get an outside opinion, too.)
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Can I take my course with a spouse, family member, or friend?
While we do allow friends and family members to attend courses together, we want them to be sensitive to the overall group dynamic and realize that they will be expected to interact fully with all expedition members.
It is important for you both to understand that even though you are on the same NOLS course, you might not be spending very much time together. While in the field, cook groups, travel groups, and tent groups constantly change as the course progresses.
Once you or someone you know graduates from a NOLS course, you will be eligible for a NOLS Alumni Trip, where friends and family are strongly encouraged to travel together.
Best answer: I would say that it wasn't a good idea. I worked in outdoor education for a long time, have been a student on several expeditions, and I have a number of friends who work, and who have worked, for NOLS. The emphasis, even on short expeditions, is building a coherent group that can work together. Any sort of cliquey-ness is very strongly discouraged; as an instructor you spend a lot of time trying to find a good balance between allowing good friendships to grow and deliberately separating people who are getting too exclusive. Because two people who only want to interact with each other--no matter what the reason--can sour an entire group, I highly doubt that your NOLS instructors would make special exceptions for you and your fiancee, because they're trying to facilitate the experience for the entire group and not just you two.
Therefore, practically speaking, if I were your instructors and it was a mountain expedition and the tent groups and cook groups were separate groups, I would probably put you in the same cook group the first week, but not the second. Tent groups--particularly in short expeditions--are most likely going to be single sex in this case, which means that while it's possible that you would be in the same sleeping group for one of the two weeks, it is somewhat unlikely. You would probably be in the same traveling group during the day once every 3 or 4 days. All of these logistics would be slightly different if you were going on a river course in the summer in the desert, but the basic facts remain: on a NOLS course, the instructors are going to be deliberately trying to separate you as much as possible, because they have to worry about the emotional health of the entire group. If you are saying to yourself right now, "Oh, but we wouldn't be so bad; it wouldn't mess up the group that much if we traveled together every day, etc," then you're just going to have to trust me on that one.
Also, in all seriousness, on NOLS-type expeditions, it is also considered a safety hazard if two students are having sex during the course. Mostly because a run-of-the-mill vaginal infection can turn into a serious pain in the neck in the woods, and evacuating people even for non-life-threatening problems throws a wrench into the entire expedition, but also because things like an ectopic pregnancy can be really dangerous when you're far away from real medical care. Every time I've ever worked on an expedition with people who were of-age, we basically had a talk at the beginning with the whole group that went, more or less: "We know sex is fun. But delayed gratification won't kill you. Keep it in your pants until you get home again."
All in all, I think you would be better served going elsewhere for your honeymoon. Maybe a more specifically guided sort of wilderness trip instead of the expedition-style NOLS thing?
posted by colfax at 8:03 AM on November 3, 2012 [2 favorites]
Therefore, practically speaking, if I were your instructors and it was a mountain expedition and the tent groups and cook groups were separate groups, I would probably put you in the same cook group the first week, but not the second. Tent groups--particularly in short expeditions--are most likely going to be single sex in this case, which means that while it's possible that you would be in the same sleeping group for one of the two weeks, it is somewhat unlikely. You would probably be in the same traveling group during the day once every 3 or 4 days. All of these logistics would be slightly different if you were going on a river course in the summer in the desert, but the basic facts remain: on a NOLS course, the instructors are going to be deliberately trying to separate you as much as possible, because they have to worry about the emotional health of the entire group. If you are saying to yourself right now, "Oh, but we wouldn't be so bad; it wouldn't mess up the group that much if we traveled together every day, etc," then you're just going to have to trust me on that one.
Also, in all seriousness, on NOLS-type expeditions, it is also considered a safety hazard if two students are having sex during the course. Mostly because a run-of-the-mill vaginal infection can turn into a serious pain in the neck in the woods, and evacuating people even for non-life-threatening problems throws a wrench into the entire expedition, but also because things like an ectopic pregnancy can be really dangerous when you're far away from real medical care. Every time I've ever worked on an expedition with people who were of-age, we basically had a talk at the beginning with the whole group that went, more or less: "We know sex is fun. But delayed gratification won't kill you. Keep it in your pants until you get home again."
All in all, I think you would be better served going elsewhere for your honeymoon. Maybe a more specifically guided sort of wilderness trip instead of the expedition-style NOLS thing?
posted by colfax at 8:03 AM on November 3, 2012 [2 favorites]
Also: it just occurred to me that you might both be female. If so, I would still imagine that you'd be put in the same cooking group one week and the same tent group the other week. Rules about sex still apply, even if pregnancy isn't an issue, because hygiene is still a problem.
posted by colfax at 8:06 AM on November 3, 2012
posted by colfax at 8:06 AM on November 3, 2012
I've been on a NOLS course before.
I would find this a very strange thing to do, frankly. Whether you're a straight or gay couple.
posted by dfriedman at 8:20 AM on November 3, 2012
I would find this a very strange thing to do, frankly. Whether you're a straight or gay couple.
posted by dfriedman at 8:20 AM on November 3, 2012
Best answer: Not having direct experience with NOLS, I'd still say it's not the best idea to spend your honeymoon forced to interact with loads of other people. One of the great things about the honeymoon is that it's a time for you and your spouse to come to terms with the elevated sense of 'us'ness. You're not just a couple anymore, you're freaking married. To some extent, I look at it as a break where you and your spouse take some time to define the plural 'you,' the unified front that the world will need to become aware of. It might not seem like things will change, but for me, my honeymoon, and the time spent with Mrs. Ghidorah just the two of us, was somehow more weighty, more important than the time we'd spent alone before. It's a formative time, and I wouldn't want to try to do that in a situation where we're forced to interact with others, with no time to ourselves.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:33 AM on November 3, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by Ghidorah at 8:33 AM on November 3, 2012 [2 favorites]
Hell no. Contact an outfitter, either in the Sierras or the Rockies, and take a month-long pack trip. Have them drop you and your gear into a high, isolated mountain meadow, and day-hike to the ridges, then come and get you when you run out of food.
Okay, well, that's if you already know a little about wilderness camping. If you are a novice, and can afford it, hire a campmary to stay in camp and do the camp stuff, or get the packer to come back every three or four days with fresh supplies and/or advice on rain flies and such.
By the end of the month, you'll find out all you want to know about one another and yourselves. Take lots of pictures.
posted by mule98J at 12:22 PM on November 3, 2012
Okay, well, that's if you already know a little about wilderness camping. If you are a novice, and can afford it, hire a campmary to stay in camp and do the camp stuff, or get the packer to come back every three or four days with fresh supplies and/or advice on rain flies and such.
By the end of the month, you'll find out all you want to know about one another and yourselves. Take lots of pictures.
posted by mule98J at 12:22 PM on November 3, 2012
I've taken a NOLS course. And I love NOLS, and enthusiastically recommend them. However, as everybody else has said, I think this isn't a great idea.
They emphasize the "soft" leadership skills even more than the "hard" how-to-technically-survive skills. They aren't really the place to go if you only want to learn how to set up a tent and navigate - they're where to go if you want to become confident leading a group of strangers on an expedition. I don't see the instructors making exceptions to allow you two to carve out more time together, and I can see it being really weird for the other students. If your goal is to learn how to camp together, hire an outfitter or guide who is willing to teach rather than just do everything for you.
posted by Metasyntactic at 5:24 PM on November 3, 2012
They emphasize the "soft" leadership skills even more than the "hard" how-to-technically-survive skills. They aren't really the place to go if you only want to learn how to set up a tent and navigate - they're where to go if you want to become confident leading a group of strangers on an expedition. I don't see the instructors making exceptions to allow you two to carve out more time together, and I can see it being really weird for the other students. If your goal is to learn how to camp together, hire an outfitter or guide who is willing to teach rather than just do everything for you.
posted by Metasyntactic at 5:24 PM on November 3, 2012
Gut reaction is no, not for a honeymoon.
posted by victory_laser at 1:55 AM on November 4, 2012
posted by victory_laser at 1:55 AM on November 4, 2012
Response by poster: Thank you all for your responses--the verdict appears unanimous. Future Mr. whitewall and I did some talking, and we'll figure out another way to get our camping/nature fix on our honeymoon. Bullet dodged!
posted by whitewall at 10:21 AM on November 5, 2012
posted by whitewall at 10:21 AM on November 5, 2012
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posted by bquarters at 6:28 AM on November 3, 2012