Zac Adair is terrible at lining up the bumper stickers for the back of his wife’s car. He’ll occasionally stub a toe on a random bag of dog food in the middle of the kitchen floor. These are the blurry-eyed perils of life when your sightlines are about the size of the opening for a…

Imagine this: going to sleep with 20/20 vision and waking up the next morning in complete darkness. This is what happened to Zac Adair on the morning of May 7, 2004, about a month after his 29th birthday. While riding his bike home one evening, Zac, an avid surfer from North Carolina, was hit from…

Zac Adair didn’t need anyone to tell him that Hurricane Bertha delivered something big last month. The roar of the surf could be heard well before he crossed the dune at Carolina Beach. But exactly how good Bertha’s waves were remained a blank for someone else to fill even as he stared at the ocean….

Our DEI practices are intertwined into policies on staff recruitment & selection; compensation & benefits; professional development and more. Learn more!…

At NCOAE, we believe an effective educational framework impacts student and learner outcomes in many ways….

The Eastern Divide Trail promises to accommodate bikepacking and hiking alike, offering a trail that will run from Canada to Key West Florida….

It’s pretty well known that we here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) are experts when it comes to training our Knowledge is the key to successful actions in a medical emergency, whether that be on the side of a city street or in a remote wilderness setting….

When a group forgets to pack an important piece of outdoor cooking gear, we like to see how problem solving unfolds to keep the expedition moving forward….

It’s pouring rain, and some of North Carolina Central University’s custom outdoor education program participants slip into the knee-deep mud, briefly Wilderness orientation programs for transfer students and incoming freshmen are gaining in popularity at historically black colleges and universities….

I grew up in the Midwest, and while some may claim the flatlands don’t have much to offer — I often found one way or another to get into trouble. I climbed trees in my front lawn, jumping off one branch, and climbing higher. While learning how to ride a bike, I often showed up…

Information on how the vast majority of backcountry bleeding issues can be rapidly controlled by almost anyone with a few simple techniques….

Looking for a teen expedition this summer? We here at NCOAE are excited to announce that our 2022 season of backcountry and wilderness adventures for teen-agers is already up and running and in full swing. At the end of February, a dozen students led by a team of NCOAE field instructors, headed down to Ecuador…

The health pandemic has had an enormous impact on the outdoor education and adventure programming industries, not to mention those who thrive on If you’re an outdoor industry professional, check out the 2022 outdoor industry conferences and summits highlighted in this post. %…

Applicants to our nationally renowned EMT training courses often ask us if they can taketheir new EMT credentials to the state where they live, and the answer is mostly yes.The National Center for Outdoor and Adventure Education’s (NCOAE) campus islocated in North Carolina, where we offer 21-day “Intensive” EMT-Basic and 23-day“Intensive” Advanced EMT training courses…

Late last year, the staff at Cape Fear Academy in Wilmington, North Carolina, asked for our help in creating a unique and meaningful 10-day, outdoor and adventure-based out-of-country expedition for a handful of its high school students. In particular, Cape Fear’s educational leaders were looking for a diverse destination that would enable their students to…

Zac Adair, our co-founder and executive director, recently asked one of our courseparticipants why they signed up for a particular outdoor adventure. “It was a photo thatappeared on your website of a guy on top of a mountaintop with the blue skies above theglaciers in the background.” Picture yourself here. It’s a common tactic in…

What is Leave No Trace? The idea behind Leave No Trace is to embrace specific wilderness stewardship values in order to protect our backcountry areas for generations to come. Back in the early 1940s, Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the world Scouting movement, said, “Try and leave the world a little better than you found it.”…

Professional development — learning that allows you to earn or maintain professional credentials — is key to career planning, especially when it comes to considering a career in the outdoor adventure and education industry. Much more than participating in a bunch of classes, our sector of the outdoor industry looks favorably on applicants with wilderness…

It may surprise you to learn that drownings — along with heart attacks and falls — are among the leading causes of death for those who venture into the wilderness for recreation or education in the United States. Statistics show that there are nearly 4,000 fatal drownings each year in the United States, with a…

Years ago, I was working in wilderness-based setting with a group of gang members who were attempting to break away from the often-violent lifestyle in which they found themselves. During a break our programming, I asked a loaded question. “Anybody want to tell me about their tattoos and what they mean?” The 30 or so…