Here at The National Center for Outdoor Adventure & Education (NCOAE), we just aren’t all that interested in touting the attributes of the materials and products we use while traversing the worldwide wilderness areas in which we work. But every once in a while, we’ll step back and look at a piece of outdoor gear…

…Stereotyping is never a good thing — primarily because such finger-pointing prejudices are usually unsupported by fact. Take, for example, the 140 million Americans who either dabble in human-powered outdoor recreational activities to some extent or are fully immersed in everything related to the backcountry and Wilderness itself. That’s almost half the nation’s population, if…

As you’re probably aware, we here at The National Center for Outdoor Adventure & Education (NCOAE) do a lot more than just organize backcountry trips for teens, Outdoor Educator courses for outdoor education industry professionals, GAP Year Programs for college-age students, and wilderness medicine and EMT training for anyone desirous of such certifications. For certain,…

For those of us who work day in and day out at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education’s (NCOAE) headquarters in Wilmington, N.C., tropical storms and hurricanes are part of our environment. Just last year, Hurricane Matthew paid our campus a visit — right in the middle of a three-week campus-based course. But…

…The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education’s founders Zac and Celine Adair recently returned from this month’s Outdoor Retailer Winter Market show in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the buzz inside The Calvin L. Rampton Salt Palace Convention Center was centered around moving the show out of Utah and to a state with “a…

…If you believe being in the backcountry allows for a freedom that can’t be found anywhere else, or that backpacking and river rafting by their very nature sets a subtle but intentional pace that’s good for your soul, then our September 7-13, 2015, Women’s Wilderness Initiative course in North Carolina is tailor-made for you and…

…It’s common knowledge that hanging around the outdoors, whether that be running bases on the baseball field or trekking in the backcountry — is nothing less than beneficial for you. There’s all that fresh air, exercise, a release from the stresses of everyday life — we could go on infinitum. So now we have a…

…Starting and completing EMT-Basic training in North Carolina doesn’t have to be a long, drawn-out exercise. It’s now possible — in just 21 days — to obtain the proper training and knowledge to take and then pass the National Registry and the North Carolina state EMT exam. Editor’s Note: This course was previously a 19-day…

…Backcountry travel and wilderness recreation means traveling light while having everything we need to survive. A small problem like a deep cut or a sudden change in weather can quickly become an emergency when civilization is miles away. That’s why wilderness medicine starts long before anything goes wrong. It starts with what you carry. Everyday…