Life-changing Experience

My trip to Costa Rica with Global Leadership Adventures was amazing. I was nervous first going there because I had never traveled alone to another country, and I spoke almost no Spanish. But from the moment I landed I felt very safe and my nerves went away. The counselors were very responsible and helpful, they taught us useful phrases and told us things that we should know, about the culture and where we were staying. I loved not knowing anybody going on the trip it was nice to meet new people from all over the world who shared common interests with me. This program has a great balance between service work and activities. Helping out the community and seeing the local people's positive reactions to our work was such a powerful feeling. It was important to me to feel be immersed in the culture, and to feel like I was a part of the community for the time I was there. We were at a local elementary school building a bio garden for our service work and also did things like beach clean ups. There were a few times where it rained and our counselors told us we had to stop working, but my group was incredibly motivated to get everything we could done and tried to stay as much as we could. It wasn't all hard work, we did fun activities too. That included things like zip lining, surfing, snorkeling, and going on hikes to waterfalls. We even played a soccer game against local people from the town! It was nice to have those fun things to do after working. We also did a lot of learning on my trip and would have things at night like watching videos or reading articles which led to great discussions among the group. This trip changed my perspective on the world and made me realize what my interests are and what I want to pursue after high school. I discovered a passion for environmental issues and learning about conservation. Although I was fine without knowing lots of Spanish, due to help from counselors and other students on the trip, I decided to switch from French to Spanish because I realized how much I wanted to travel to underdeveloped countries and do what I could to help. I loved this trip so much that I signed up for a joint program this summer to the Dominican Republic and the Galapagos. I can't recommend this program enough!!