Dear Friends,

As the summer winds down and we enter into the 4th quarter of 2025, I find myself feeling incredibly grateful for the adventures we’ve had, our MedTreks 2025 travel highlights, and all the adventures still in store.

What a year it has already been. We started with classic cars and mojitos in Cuba. Then we snorkeled Fiji’s coral reefs, trekked glaciers in New Zealand, and surfed Costa Rica’s waves. We also swam alongside penguins in the Galápagos, rafted wild rivers in Oregon, and spotted lions moving through the Kenyan savannah.

And the year is not slowing down. Ahead lies a string of adventures: hiking the Dolomites, exploring Bhutan’s mountains and monasteries, and tracking tigers in India. Plus, a mindfulness retreat in wine country, camel rides across Morocco’s Sahara, and two brand-new December programs: An adventure retreat in Panama and a Medical Spanish immersion in Guatemala.

In June, we also launched our Outdoor Medicine Collective. The OMC offers intimate, domestic gatherings for learning and connection. We’re thrilled to expand this with sessions in Bend and California next year!

Behind the scenes, MedTreks has been evolving too. Since this time last year, I have welcome two new awesome ladies to our women-led core team, Becky and Anna. Two people you’ll see not only in your inboxes but also out in the field on trips! They are fellow adventurers who share our vision and bring invaluable experience.

On a more personal note, I have deeply enjoyed creating and building MedTreks to new levels this past year. As a medical professional, I came into this journey with very little business experience. But thankfully, a lot of travel experience. So blending medicine and adventure feels quite natural.

I also feel proud. A consultant recently told me, “You know you can automate that.” And while it’s true, there are so many things in this business that can be “automated” – I choose not to.

In an age of AI and internet at our fingertips, I am committed to keeping MedTreks personal and human-centered. Every email, every question, every plan has a real person behind it—someone who cares about your journey. I grew up in a family of travelers who valued connection over automation, and I’m proud to carry that forward here.

This value of intentional connection also extends to the places we travel. At a time when choosing to travel is, in many ways, choosing how to support communities, we believe responsible tourism matters. Coming off our annual Kenya trip, where we celebrated the 25th anniversary of Village HopeCore International. Village HopeCore is an incredibly success story of how one program can reach hundreds of villages with a basic yet strategic model of economic empowerment. In addition to capacity building and health services.

In many ways, our program in Kenya is what fuels my purpose for the rest of our adventures: medical professionals work hard, they deserve to rest, to explore, to have fun. And also connect with one another, to learn and expand their own personal and professional horizons. (I look forward to expanding our MedTreks Kenya global health programs in 2026. There will be some custom experiences for private groups, universities and healthcare institutions.)

Our Wilderness Medicine courses have also thrived this year! With clinicians joining us in destinations from New Zealand to the Galápagos to learn how to practice medicine outside the hospital walls.

I am excited to be building out our Medical Spanish offerings through our trips. I am particularly excited about our upcoming Guatemala Global Health & Medical Spanish cultural tour. In particular, it captures the heart of MedTreks: combining professional growth with cultural immersion. It’s all about giving clinicians the tools to better serve their Spanish-speaking patients. While they also experience the warmth, history, and beauty of Guatemala. I couldn’t be more excited to launch it.

As I close this letter, I want to say a heartfelt thank you. Thank you to our extraordinary guides and outfitters around the globe. And thank you to our alumni who return again and again, and to those of you who are just discovering MedTreks.

You are the reason we exist, and the reason the MedTreks 2025 travel highlights have made this our biggest year yet. With 2026 shaping up to be even bigger with more incredible destinations (Antarctica, Japan, Vietnam & Uganda/Rwanda!!!), I can’t wait to see what adventures lie ahead.

Here’s to more journeys, more connections, and more moments of wonder.

Hope to see you out there,

Ari