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Destinations

A place students travel to for one quarter, for one academy. For example Costa Rica or Patagonia.

Where to find it

Destinations in the left menu of the dashboard.

How to add one

  1. Go to Destinations → Add New Destination.
  2. Title: the place name as it should appear, for example Costa Rica or Eastern Canada.

  3. Fill in the fields below the title:

    Field What to put
    Start Date First day at this destination
    End Date Last day at this destination
    Event Repeating block. Each entry has Event Dates and an Event Description. Four rows at most, each one short line (see the warning below)
    Card Background The photo shown on the destination card
    Academy Which program this belongs to. The dropdown lists Kayak, Climb, Kite, Mountain Bike, Surf (Kiteboard shows as "Kite" here), plus Administration for non-academy content — leave Administration alone unless Michael says otherwise
    Quarter Q1, Q2, Q3, or Q4
    Academic Year The school year, for example 2026-2027
    Destination Type Past, Current, or Future

  4. In the Connected Schedules box, choose the matching Schedule. You only need to set this on one of the two records. See How destinations and schedules pair.

  5. Set the URL slug using the format in Name the URL (slug) below, for example costa-rica-surf-q1-26-27.
  6. Click Publish.
  7. Open that academy's page and confirm the card appears in the right section.

Four short Event rows, no more

Every Event row shows on the small destination card on the academy page, and the card only has room for four. Use these four, in this order:

  1. Arrival, for example Students arrive in Ottawa, Canada (YOW)
  2. The quarter itself, for example Quarter One in Eastern Canada
  3. Departure
  4. The break that follows, if there is one, for example Fall Break

Keep each one to a single short line, about 50 characters. Orientation, finals, dinners, graduation, and the full description of the quarter go in the matching Schedule, where there is room for them.

Making this one by copying last year's?

A copy carries over everything, including old dates, photo, and link. Run through After you copy a post before you publish.

Name the URL (slug)

The slug is the last part of a destination's web address, the part after /destinations/. Set it yourself so every destination has its own clean address. Otherwise two academies visiting the same place, or one academy returning to a place in a later year, both try to use the same address, and WordPress quietly adds -2 to one of them.

Format: place-academycode-quarter-yy-yy

Use the place, then the short academy code, the quarter, and the academic year abbreviated to its last two digits on each side:

Academy Code to use in the slug
Kayak kayak
Climb climb
Kite (Kiteboard) kite
Mountain Bike mtb
Surf surf
Snow Sports snow

Snow Sports does not have a live program page yet (see the note on the Academies page), but reserving its code now keeps things consistent once it launches.

Examples, taken from live destinations:

  • costa-rica-surf-q1-26-27 (Surf, Q1, academic year 2026-2027)
  • slovenia-mtb-q4-26-27 (Mountain Bike, Q4, academic year 2026-2027)
  • australia-climb-q1-26-27 (Climb, Q1, academic year 2026-2027)
  • brazil-kite-q2-25-26 (Kite, Q2, academic year 2025-2026)

Use the same quarter and academic year that appear in the matching Schedule title, so the pair stays in step. Write the place in lower case with hyphens for spaces: costa-rica, not Costa Rica.

Where to set it: after you type the Title, edit the page's URL (the permalink shown just under the title, or the URL box in the settings panel) and type the slug there.

Copied a destination? Set the slug before you publish

WordPress builds a slug from the title only the first time a post is published. A copy starts with a slug based on the original (for example q1-2027-surf-copy) or even just a number, and changing the title afterwards does not change it. Type the slug yourself before you click Publish. The rest of the copy checks are in After you copy a post.

There's a reminder on the edit screen too

The Destination Fields box now shows a red "Set the URL slug" reminder at the very top, right under the permalink, repeating this format, an example, and the academy codes, with a link back to this page.

Schedules follow the same rule

A Schedule title always includes the academy, quarter, and year, so a brand-new one gets a clean, unique address from WordPress. A Destination's title is just the place name, which is not unique on its own, and that is why destinations need the format above every time. A copied Schedule needs its slug set by hand too. See After you copy a post.

Only when creating

Set the slug when you first create a destination, or when you copy one and before you publish the copy. Do not change the slug of one that is already published, because that breaks links people have already shared. See Never do these.

Some older destinations skip this

A few destinations were published without a slug set, so their address is just the place name (for example /destinations/zambia/). That still works, it is just less clean and more likely to collide with a future trip to the same place. New destinations should still follow the format above.

Getting Destination Type right

This is the Past/Current/Future status that decides where the card shows up:

  • Future for a trip in a school year that has not started.
  • Current for a trip in the school year happening now.
  • Past for a trip that already happened. It disappears from the site but stays saved.

This is one of two switches

Each schedule has its own Schedule Type. At year-end rollover, flip both. If only the destinations change, last year's schedule quarters show next to this year's. See Two switches: Destination Type and Schedule Type.

What it connects to

A Destination is filed onto an academy page by its three labels, and it is linked to its matching Schedule through the Connected Schedules box. How the two records work together is covered on How destinations and schedules pair.

How it shows up

It appears in the Current or Future Destinations section of the academy page whose three labels it matches. Its card image comes from the Card Background field.

Two things that trip people up

The three labels must match the schedule

Academy, Quarter, and Academic Year must match the matching Schedule exactly, and both should carry the same Past/Current/Future setting. If the destination shows but the schedule does not, these are almost always out of step.

The heading year is separate

Adding a destination for a new year does not change the heading above it. That is set on the Academy record. It is Rule 3, and the most commonly missed step.