Program Reviews

I spent 4 weeks on the Wildlife Conservation Adventure in Madagascar with Frontier and enjoyed every minute. The programme was really well organised with really helpful pre-departure advise and in country staff who really knew what they were doing. It was a great opportunity to get some experience in the world of conservation and to do it somewhere like Madagascar was incredible. The accommodation was basic but comfortable and you have everything you need. The camp is in a beautiful setting between gorgeous beaches and forest, and life is very simple, relaxing and fun.

The project is perfect for people interested in protecting wildlife as Madagascar has such an extensive range of endangered biodiversity so every day you get to see different species of reptiles, birds, butterflies and of course lemurs. Project life is pretty laid back as you spend the mornings on surveys and the afternoons however you want whether it’s lying on the beach, swimming in the sea or just relaxing in a hammock. So you get the perfect balance between exploring Madagascar’s beautiful forests, gaining experience you could not get anywhere else and enjoying the gorgeous sandy beaches of this amazing tropical island.

Frontier made my whole experience so easy and stress free through their detailed project brief, pre-departure support and friendly in country staff who make you feel welcome and at home in no time at all.

I would highly recommend Frontier for gap year/volunteer travel due to their expertise and helpful staff and encourage everyone to go to Madagascar! It really is a place like no other and not many people are lucky enough to get the opportunity to go making it a true hidden gem and a place you will not regret visiting. This whole experience has been amazing and one I will never forget.

I took part in the Frontier Madagascar Community Teaching Program for 6 weeks, over the months of February and March. I can honestly say it was a life changing experience, and I whole-heartedly and without reservation recommend it to anyone prepared to work hard and have an amazing time.
The project takes place in the town of Hellville, on the island of Nosy-Be off the North-West coast of Madagascar. The community house is very central in its location, being very close to all of the schools and places where volunteers work. I volunteered primarily at a primary school known to locals as "L'école frère," run by catholic nuns, the youth club of Nosy-Be, and a village school near to the Frontier Camp at Ambalahonko. At the catholic school, I taught around 5 or 6 30 minute lessons everyday, teaching them basic english such as body parts, and family members. Each class held around 70 children, which was very intimidating at first! However, in my first week, the community staff member trained me and guided me through how to best and most effectively teach, thus by my second week I was ready and raring to go! It was very rewarding teaching at the catholic school, and a lot of fun. The kids absolutely love the Frontier Volunteers, and always said "'Ello Annah!" whenever I passed them in the street after school and at weekends.
Every Friday, we would go to spend the night at the Frontier Camp at the village of Ambalahonko. It was great fun, and really good to spend time with the Forest and Marine staff members and volunteers. In the afternoon, we taught english at a school in a neighbouring village. Although the children were always quite loud, it was always a great learning experience and lots of fun! The walk there and back through the forest always involved seeing lemurs and eating mangos, which was an added bonus!
By far my favourite part of the project was teaching at the youth club. I taught them three times a week for two hours. It was great because I had a lot of freedom with what I taught them – I started by teaching them about Australia, and then over my 7 weeks covered subjects ranging from music and films to feminism. I really felt I was making a real difference in the lives of those who attended class, and we always had such a good laugh. Some of the students asked me to take extra classes with them, and so starting from my second week, I gave individual help and extra classes in all of my free time. Although it was tiring, I’m so glad I did this, because as a result I made life long friends, and became part of their family. One particular student, benefitted greatly from this extra help, and made it all worthwhile for me. In the beginning, although very strong at English, he lacked confidence in himself, and was too scared to apply for jobs (his dream is to become a tour guide). Over my stay, I made it my personal project to get him to apply for jobs and hopefully to secure one in the future. We worked on his oral skills, English CV and did practice interviews. In my last week, he finally secured an interview for an apprenticeship at the Economic Development Board of Madagascar. After many practice interviews at his house, he went for the interview, and came out having been offered the job! This made all of my hard work worthwhile, and deeply touched me. I also just found out he now also has a tour guide job secured for December.
I'm so glad I decided to take part in the Frontier Community Project in Madagascar. The opportunities that Frontier provided were really awesome, and it was so amazing to actually make a difference in the lives of our students. The work that Frontier does in Madagascar is incredible - it's reflected in the cheery greetings anyone in a Frontier t-shirt receives from any locals wandering past. The support from the staff members was superb, and they made the whole experience so amazing and highly educational. I hope to return very soon.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Costa Rica as a Research Assistant for the Big Cats, Primates and Turtle Conservation project. I spent four weeks there in total where I learned about survey and research methods in the tropical environment. The surveys were great fun and it was a real opportunity to discover many different species. I took part in turtle beach patrols, river walk surveys for Otters, forest walks to count and identify groups of primates and took part in cast moulds of big cat paw prints. I also learnt how to set-up camera traps, catch frogs and attach butterfly nets to trees.

Whilst in Costa Rica, I carried out my BTEC Certificate in Tropical Habitat Conservation. I enjoyed designing my own project and carrying out the surveys looking into frog diversity and abundance in Piro. The research team in the camp were really helpful and supportive and made it very easy to give my final presentation.

Camp life was relatively easy to get used to and everyone was very friendly and helped me to settle in. The food was delicious and the facilities great. Cooking for the group and creating recipes with what was available was also a fun experience - meals were simple consisting of Pinto (rice and beans), fresh fruit and vegetables - we definitely did not go hungry.

There was a lot to experience in Costa Rica and I felt that I had learned a lot from the trip. The skills that I developed whilst working on the project have enabled me to progress into my chosen career.

I am in the process of organising my second trip with Frontier.

I'm a 26 year old Aussie with a fair share of travel notches in my belt and too be honest I didn't quite know what to expect when volunteering in a developing country. Frontier created an experience that I'll never forget, the perfect balance between fun and learning about such a beautiful country and it's inhabitants with a program that ran like clockwork. With the beach and coral reefs at the front door and the dense lush forest at the back this place makes paradise jealous! with out sounding cliché and cheesy my only regret is that I didn't stay longer. I have no doubt in my mind I'll be back!!!!!!!

I have been working on Frontiers Big Cat, Primates and Turtle Conservation programme for just under three weeks now and as a Conservation Biologist it has been an incredible experience.

It is hard to decide what has been my highlight. I love the birds especially. The Scarlet Macaws, Toucans, Tanagers, Hummingbirds, Woodpeckers, Pelicans, Frigate-birds, Parrots and Lorikeets are just some of the many different species that have beguiled me.

As well as these I have loved seeing a wide range of mammals. Four species of monkey I have seen around camp. As well as this I have seen Neo-tropical otters, Pacas, Bats, Coatis, Squirrels and Possums.

As a biologist it is not just the birds and mammals that fascinate me. I have loved seeing the amazing butterflies, the frogs, giant iguanas, snakes, spiders, lizards and the myriad of species of insects.

Around our camp we also have several species of Big Cat. A Jaguar was spotted close by in a camera trap, an Ocelot was footprint located recently on a track search and one of my colleagues saw a Jaguarundi on his first day! Lucky devil...hopefully one day I will see one of these elusive creatures.

Yet as amazing as all these things are they are not the highlight of working here so far for me. Recently I released 74 Olive Ridley Turtle hatchlings. It was a first for me a wonderful and life affirming experience that I will never forget.

I enjoy living on the camp in rustic conditions in tents and hammocks with great like minded individuals who want to help save Costa Rica's incredible biodiversity. Most places in Osa are five star lodges that would break the bank and I like that conservationists can come to work with and learn about these special animals in such a rich and diverse rainforest without having to be millionaires.

Luckily I have more time here in this unique part of Costa Rica and the world but it has certainly been a entrancing few weeks in this biologists nirvana!

My experience was breath taking if you love animals, traveling and meeting new people I would definitely recommend this project. The work is hard and starts are early but seeing a baby hatchling for the first time is incredible, I have never experienced anything like it before. You make life-long friendships and meet people from all over the world which is another excuse to travel. This project was hands on and worth every bit and teaches you all about the importance of conservation.

I was in Belize, Caye Caulker for whole month (August) with Frontier. First I have to say I loved my time there, that the lovely and extremely competent Frontier coordinators and the people who we were working there made the trip worthwhile, (the best trip of my life actually) including the people from the Fisheries Department, FAMRACC (who were both incridible) and Frenchies diving center although I had some horrible first days at camp because of the sandflies (that kind of ruined a bit the experience beacause they sting you all day) they dont let you sleep well and there is no other way besides not being at camp that can save you from them at it seems like a problem that Frontier doesnt look worried in adressing. Secondly i want to talk about the Frotier people from London HQ, that unlike the Frontier coordinators in Belize, were incompetent, they didnt know how to explain anything. They wouldnt let me talk to the coordinators in Belize unless I had payed for the volunteering, actually, they almost didnt know any relevant information or whatsoever about the project and also to top it all they, told me to book a hotel on the last day that wasn t at all necessary.
Overall I would recommend volunteering in Marine Conservation in Belize for sure but I wouldn t recommend Frontier to anybody who is thinking in doing volunteering, there are for sure better volunteering agencies or just talk directly with the organizations in the country you what to do the volunteering in.

This marine conservation project was the first volunteering abroad program that I have ever participated in. It offered me a taste if what it is like to work in the marine biology field and gave me a taste of island life.
I had expected to be doing surveys multiple times a week in order to really contribute to the conservation efforts here in Belize. However, during the month that I was volunteering I was only able to submit five surveys to the conservation project. I do not think I made the difference that I had intended to make when signing up for this project, but I was able to practice a variety of surveys including; fish, conch, benthic, and coral surveys.
While gaining survey experience on this project and a peak into the life of a marine biologist, I also got to learn the pros and cons of living on a tropical island. First of all camp was right on the water making a swim easily accessible and of corse there was always plenty of sun. However, the sand flies are quite bad making camp life less enjoyable. Life on camp is very primitive with simple meals and tight living quarters. However, if you are looking for a project were you can get a first hand look at the work of a marine biologist and are prepared for some rough, but rewarding living conditions then I would recommend this project.

Overall I can say that my experience as a volunteer in Belize has been a unique one. This project is just starting,something that I would have definitely liked to know beforehand, as it would have meant that I would have come with a different mindset. I'm not saying that this is something bad, it simply meant that things weren't as organised or prepared as I would of thought. However, we took this as an opportunity to contribute towards the development of the project,and I will leave with the great satisfaction of knowing that we have made a difference and an impact for this project, and I leave with the hope that in the future Belize shall become one of Frontier's best and most popular projects, because it has the potential to do so.
At the moment the living conditions are very harsh, especially because of the sand flies and mosquitoes...they just don't stop! But despite how challenging life at camp can be, eventually you end up getting used to it (you even learn to tolerate the sandflies!). Because of all that I think I have mostly benefited at the personal level as this experience makes you grow up a lot as a person plus I've also learned new skills like driving a boat (kind of), skinning a coconut, IDying the wildlife you find in the sea, doing surveys and mastering your diving skills.
All and all, I don't regret at all my decision of coming here as I think it has definitely been worthwhile in terms of personal growth. I will leave with amazing memories from the locals and the various trips I made during my stay (Blue Hole, Mayan Ruins and Cave Tubing).

I spent an incredible two weeks with the enthusiastic young leaders of Frontier's Marine and Conservation project in Belize. Based on the sparsely inhabited northern isle of Caye Caulker, the isolated camp at the ranger station is very basic, but as back to nature as you can want short of settling under a palm tree. The project was still in start-up phase when I was there, but the team running the scheme have a clear idea on the objectives and science of the project, which has the close cooperation of Belize's Fisheries Department. I was not there long enough to really contribute to any science, but did help dry-run some of the regular tasks: training in fish, coral and habitat identification, and also participated in marine surveys. I was already PADI trained, so skipped a big part of joining a project like this in getting dive-qualified. But as I was much older than the normal target participant for a project like this, what I took away from my experience was always going to be different. And it was encouraging and inspiring watching the young people leading this scheme and I cannot speak highly of a great group of people. The people, isolation of the camp, basic living and beautiful location make up a fantastic experience for me.