Above: A group of Southborough Boy Scouts had a summer vacation worth talking about. (images cropped from photos contributed by Troop 1 leaders and families)
Southborough Boy Scout Troop 1 members are excited to tell the community about the “Big Trip” they took over the summer. The overseas adventure was four years in the making – and appears to have been well worth the effort.
Here is an excerpt from the Troop’s recap of the trip:
Troop 1 Southborough Big Trip 2019
27 Current and former Boy Scouts from Troop 1 Southborough along with 13 adult volunteers took a “Big Trip” to Iceland in late July of 2019. Following a long-standing tradition, the scouts of Troop 1 voted for this destination in several rounds in the Winter and Spring of 2018 to take this once-every-four-years trip.
The Big Trip team of five senior scouts, Anthony Zalev, Alexander Forrest, Joseph Greene, Zane Walter, and Garrett Goodney and Scoutmaster Jim Greene spent the next 14 months planning the adventure that saw the Troop camp in five different campsites and visit over 20 destinations during their 8-day adventure.
That text is the introduction to a day-by-day overview of their adventure, peppered with gorgeous photos. It concludes:
Forty people made the 8-day journey that consisted of almost 5,000 miles traveled by air, 1,000 miles traveled by bus, and 70 miles travelled by foot around the beautiful country of Iceland. Our 40 adventurers camped using 25 tents in 5 separate campsites. We had 3 restaurant meals and prepared 23 meals for ourselves. We brought 6 stoves and sets of cooking equipment, we purchased two canopies in Iceland along with most of our food and consumed 24 liters of propane, 2 liters of white gas, and 2 pounds of isobutane. Our itinerary consisted of 24 activities (8 of which required a fee) and we were able to do it all for the thrifty cost of roughly $1,600 per person. Being in a foreign land with its unique topology, foods, sparse population centers, unique language, currency, and on the metric system presented a number of challenges, but it made the adventure one truly worthy of the title “Big Trip”.
You can read the full details about the fun they had here. You can also see some of the gorgeous photos they shared with me below:
On Monday, the Troop will be showing off a photo book with even more pictures from the trip at its Heritage Day booth. You can also ask scouts about their personal experience. Of course, they’ll also be happy to talk about future adventures in store for scouts who join the troop.
Leader Jim Greene explained that the Troop embraces the boy led origins.
whether that is turning the church hall tables into a ga-ga pit or trying a snorkeling trip, or this summer’s Water Skiing, as long as everyone is safe and included I always push for the Troop to try new things or destinations. We have fun weekly meetings planned by the scouts that feature training, updates on our activities and trips as well as a game each week. We have pretty exciting trips every month including a week at Summer Camp in Bolton together, Biking, Canoeing, Whitewater Rafting, Backpacking, Climbing, Skiing, etc. Troop 1 is in it’s 104th year of serving Southborough’s Youth and we recently had our 101st Eagle Scout awarded.
The planning for 2023 will likely begin in January of 2022 and I am excited to see what ideas the scouts have (runner up ideas this time were Hawaii and southern Utah).
