The Micro-Expedition

One week. One story. One film.

A custom documentary trip for small groups in Guatemala. You bring the people. We bring everything else.

A Short, Grand Adventure

Your group makes a real documentary. In seven days.

Most group trips are consumption. You go somewhere, you see things, you come home. The Micro-Expedition is production. Your group spends a week in Guatemala finding a real protagonist, filming their story, and leaving behind a finished documentary that didn't exist before you arrived.

No one in your group needs filmmaking experience. Last year in Bogotá, ten young women with no filmmaking experience found a story, filmed it, and finished a short documentary together in one week. Here's what they made.

Welcome to La Perseverancia. Researched and filmed in one week by a group of ten first-time filmmakers in Bogotá, Colombia. This is what your group can make.

How It Works

You film. We handle the rest.

Your week is a mix of micro-lessons, research visits, excursions, and filming. An Actuality Abroad instructor teaches you the skills as you need them, guides the story development, and runs every interview and filming day alongside you. Your group does the discovering, the asking, and the filming.

The edit starts while you're still on the ground. Before your group leaves, you watch a rough cut of your own film, together, in the place where you made it. The finished edit follows after you're home, completed by Actuality Abroad editors and delivered to your whole group.

One story. One protagonist. One film. The whole group works on the same documentary, together. That constraint is what makes the week work. Everyone contributes. Everyone appears in the credits. Everyone was there when the story happened.

A group reviewing footage together during a filming day
A crew member filming an interview with instruction from an Actuality Abroad instructor

Who This Is For

Groups of four to twelve who want to make something real.

Families

A trip your teenager talks about for years. A parent and kids working the same story, side by side.

Corporate teams

A retreat with an actual deliverable. Screen the film at your next all-hands.

Youth organizations

Leadership programs, gap year cohorts, scout troops. Ages 16 and up with adult supervision.

High school media programs

Bring your journalism class or broadcast club into the field.

Faith communities

Mission-trip depth without the construction project.

Women's leadership cohorts

Professional groups and retreats built around doing, not talking.

Reunion groups

College friends, former colleagues, siblings. A week with more substance than a beach.

Community organizations and nonprofits

Make a film that connects to the work you already do.

Don't see your group here? If you're four to twelve people who want to go somewhere together and make something, write to us.

The Stories

What your group might film.

Your group will be assigned a protagonist from within the changemaker world you are set to work with. These are the worlds your week can move through:

Weaving and textile tradition

Maya women's cooperatives where weaving is cultural preservation, income, and identity at once.

Coffee

Smallholder farming families behind one of the best cups in the world, and the gap between what they earn and what the world pays.

The lake itself

Local organizations fighting for the water quality and ecological recovery of Lake Atitlán.

Youth and opportunity

Young Guatemalans navigating education, migration pressure, and ambition.

Language and cultural preservation

People working to document and teach endangered Maya languages.

Women leading change

Entrepreneurs, activists, and cooperative leaders pushing against real barriers.

We have working relationships in every one of these worlds. Your group picks the direction. The protagonist emerges from there.

The Place

Two bases. You choose.

A cobblestone street in Antigua, Guatemala

Antigua

A colonial city ringed by three volcanoes, forty-five minutes from the international airport. Cobblestones, ruins, working coffee farms in the surrounding valley, and Volcán Fuego erupting on the horizon most evenings.

Lake Atitlán ringed by volcanoes, Guatemalan Highlands

Lake Atitlán

A volcanic crater lake in the Guatemalan Highlands, ringed by Maya villages and three volcanoes. Plenty of people call it the most beautiful lake in the world. After sixteen years working here, we haven't found the counterargument.

Both bases are fully operational. We've been working in this region since 2010. Your choice comes down to the stories your group wants to be near and the pace you want your week to hold.

Excursions

The week includes more than filming.

From Antigua

Sunrise over Antigua from Cerro de la Cruz with Volcán Agua in view

Sunrise at Cerro de la Cruz

A short hike above the city with Volcán Agua filling the view.

A working coffee farm in the Antigua valley

A working coffee farm

In the Antigua valley, ten minutes from your door.

A cooking class in a local Guatemalan home

A cooking class in a local home

Traditional Guatemalan food made with a family, at their table.

From Lake Atitlán

Market day in Chichicastenango, Guatemala

Market day in Chichicastenango

One of the largest Indigenous markets in Central America. Thursdays and Sundays.

The volcanic hot springs at Fuentes Georginas

Fuentes Georginas

Volcanic hot springs in the highlands. A rest day that still feels like Guatemala.

A weaving cooperative in San Juan La Laguna

A weaving cooperative in San Juan La Laguna

Backstrap looms, natural dyes, and the women who've kept both alive.

Volcán Fuego erupting at night, seen from the Acatenango overnight camp

The Add-On

Acatenango overnight

A two-day hike to 13,000 feet, camping on the volcano's shoulder across from Fuego, which erupts through the night. Summit at dawn. The hardest and most memorable thing your group can do in Guatemala. Available on request.

What's Included

Everything but the flights.

Housing is arranged to your group's preference, from guesthouse to boutique hotel, and priced accordingly.

Pricing depends on group size, housing choice, and season. Write to us and we'll build you a quote.

Inquire

Tell us about your group.

Send us a note with who you are, how many of you there are, and roughly when you'd want to travel. We'll reply with ideas, honest answers, and a quote if it looks like a fit.

hello@actualityabroad.com

You've read this far. You know if this is for your group.