A North Wales Photography Adventure Away From Home

In Spring 2026, TOC took a group of young people to North Wales for an outdoor photography residential, delivered through UK Youth’s Adventures Away from Home programme and supported by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Adventures Away from Home exists to give young people who might not otherwise get the chance a genuine outdoor adventure: free day experiences and residential stays built around exploration and time away from familiar surroundings. For this trip, that meant days spent photographing the North Wales landscape, learning composition and camera handling in a completely new environment, and evenings spent simply being away from home with people they were still getting to know.

For several participants, this was their first residential trip away from family, and their first time using a proper camera outdoors over several consecutive days. The change was visible quickly: young people who arrived hesitant with the camera left noticeably more confident, both behind the lens and within the group.

We’re grateful to UK Youth and DCMS for making this kind of experience possible, and we’re already looking at how we can build more residential photography trips like this into future TOC programmes.