Ever dream of being paid to travel the far reaches of the globe, no strings attached? Undergraduate Susan Glenn soon will be, thanks to a Bonderman Travel Fellowship.

Glenn was one of 14 lucky UW students recently awarded this unusual fellowship. Each will receive $20,000 to travel independently to at least six countries and two different regions of the world.

"They told me in person and at first I could not believe it," said Glenn, a UW senior majoring in public health. "It's a little overwhelming to know I'll be doing at least eight months of solo travel."

The aim of the fellowships – funded by investment adviser and UW and Harvard Law graduate David Bonderman – is to offer students a chance to "travel to explore, be open to the unexpected, and come to know the world in new ways." If that doesn't sound good enough, fellows are forbidden from studying or conducting any research.

Glenn plans to travel first to Easter Island and then Patagonia, where she will hike and explore environmental impacts ranging from deforestation to hydroelectric dams. She is interested in how people can "save a unique part of the world while also developing a country."

After South America, Glenn will travel to Africa, where she hopes to gain a better understanding of the continent. Although minoring in African studies, Glenn says her UW classes have mostly focused on sub-Saharan Africa. Morocco, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa are on her itinerary. She speaks Swahili.

Other Bonderman winners say they will "explore mindfulness practice" in Vietnam and Laos and use the "universal language of skateboarding" to connect with people in the Balkan Peninsula. Glenn said one former Bonderman fellow and friend wrote in his application essay that he wanted to sample street food across the globe. "He just ate his away around the world," she said.

So, how do you get one of these gigs?

"The biggest thing is to be honest," said Glenn. She struggled to find a theme for her four-page essay, so recalled an experience last summer as a participant in the Future Public Health Leaders Program at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She says her team was blinded to some possibilities in their research on asthma in the Detroit area. So in her essay she wrote, "I don't want to set out seeking a certain outcome, because that will limit me."

Glenn first read about the Bonderman Fellowships in the travel section of a Sunday newspaper when she was a freshman at Gig Harbor (WA) High School – eight years ago. It's one of the reasons she applied to the UW honors program, she says. At the time, only undergraduate honors' students and graduate and professional students were eligible to apply. This year, the UW expanded eligibility to general undergraduates with at least a 3.8 cumulative GPA.

In high school, Glenn wanted to be a human rights lawyer. Now she has chosen public health as a major and plans to pursue a master's degree in public health. "It's a different way of getting into human rights," she said. "Health to me is a human right."