Location
  • Indonesia
    • Bali
Length
24 weeks

Program Details

Compensation
Non-Monetary Benefits
Timeframe
Fall Spring Summer Winter Year Round
Housing
Apartment
Language
Bahasa Indonesian
Weekly Hours
40
Age Min.
18
Age Max
40
Qualifications
  • Fluent in English
  • Strong work ethic

Pricing

Starting Price
650
Price Details
The one-month boot camp and five-month internship are completely FREE.

Interns are responsible only for travel and living expenses. Check out our site to get a breakdown of the cost of living expenses you can expect in Indonesia.
What's Included
Some Accommodation Activities Airport Transfers SIM cards Wifi
What's Included (Extra)

- One month accommodation in Bali during the boot camp
- Unlimited scuba diving
- Scuba diving certification programs
- Unlimted marketing mentorship

What's Not Included
Some Accommodation Airfare Domestic Airfare Airport Transfers Meals SIM cards Travel Insurance Visa
What's Not Included (Extra)

All interns pay $650 for month one which includes accommodation, airport pickup, motorbike rental and SIM card.

For Divemaster and IDC candidates, you're responsible for additional PADI course packs and professional registration fees

Nov 07, 2019
May 06, 2020
15 travelers are looking at this program

About Program

Paradise Interns gives you the unique opportunity to hone in on your digital marketing and diving skills at one of Indonesia's leading dive centers. This internship guarantees 6 months of fun in the sun.

In month 1, you'll attend a 'marketing boot camp' in Bali where you are trained in branding, social media marketing, content marketing, graphic design and SEO.

In months 2-6, you will have the opportunity to apply new skills towards a professional portfolio, continue to learn through weekly mentoring and enjoy life in paradise while diving regularly.

All internships include unlimited diving and PADI/SSI courses that work with whatever diving certifications you already have. Thinking about going pro? Enjoy earning your divemaster certification. Never dived before? You’ll have 5 months to work your way through three different certifications – Open Water through Rescue. Already a divemaster? Certain resorts offer some of the region’s leading instructor development courses.

This program is no longer offered. View more programs from Paradise Interns.

Video and Photos

Program Highlights

  • Free 6-month digital marketing internship. Learn digital marketing skills and build your portfolio
  • Intern at one of Indonesia's top dive resorts, marine conservation projects or NGOs
  • Earn your professional scuba certifications and enjoy unlimited scuba diving
  • 60% of interns have secured full-time employment in the dive industry post-internship

Related Programs

Program Reviews

4.50 Rating
based on 20 reviews
  • 5 rating 85%
  • 4 rating 0%
  • 3 rating 0%
  • 2 rating 10%
  • 1 rating 5%
  • Growth 4.7
  • Support 4.25
  • Fun 4.9
  • Housing 4.5
  • Safety 4.6
Showing 1 - 8 of 20 reviews
Default avatar
Georgie
2/5
No, I don't recommend this program

Incredible opportunity but wouldn't recommend

I wasn't sure whether or not to leave a review but I think it's important for anyone in the future considering this program to hear both sides of the experience.

I'll start this review by echoing what others have said: it's an incredible opportunity and I made lifelong friends. I started the Paradise Internship in January 2020 as a non-diving intern. The first month was great - bootcamp was intense but I learned a lot. I made some amazing friends and the PI staff who taught us the course were absolutely brilliant - down to earth, incredibly friendly and helpful and went out of their way to support us. I have nothing bad to say about them whatsoever. Due to some very sad personal circumstances, we didn't get to meet one of the staff members and unfortunately didn't really hear from her throughout bootcamp.

The course was missing a fair few elements that we'd been promised to learn about (video editing being a major one, as it was a weekly requirement for our entire internship with a threat of losing our deposit money if we didn't stick to this), to the extent that our entire cohort of interns decided to speak to the PI staff and voice our concerns. While some elements were then included at the end of bootcamp, video editing wasn't.

I was over the moon with my placement and felt it matched my personality perfectly. I settled in immediately and made lots of friends. The weekly support from Elisha was brilliant and I loved being able to learn more about blogging/writing from Rika. I was really happy with how everything was going.

The issues began when the Coronavirus hit. Everything seemed to turn upside down in a matter of days. We all received a message from a staff member telling us that we had a group meeting the next day and, if we didn't attend, we'd lose our $1000 deposit just like that. In the meeting she gave us three options - to stay and continue (but not recommended), to leave and continue the internship from home, or to quit the program.

She warned that most of our companies would probably go bust and there was a chance PI would do the same. She said - fairly casually, I felt - that she’d love to give us our deposits back there and then but, due to our contracts having a force majeure clause, she wasn’t able to. I pointed out that most of us had never received contracts (that we were supposed to get mid February before we moved to our placements) and she said - equally casually - that we had even less working in our favour then. Many of us recorded this conversation as we were unsure on the legality of this result.

After much consideration and speaking to my family and manager, I decided to stay. This was the decision of most interns. The idea of going home, when many of our home countries were in (and continue to be in) much worse situations with the pandemic than Indonesia, seemed to be nonsensical. As did the thought of booking last minute flights home while also being warned that we likely wouldn’t see our $1000 deposit again.

Here, I want to stress something a staff member mentioned in her reply to previous interns - saying that "They will be receiving their full deposit upon completion of the internship.” A staff member warned us on the group call that there was a fair to medium chance that we wouldn’t receive this money back even if we did continue, as it had already been spent ($1000 x almost 30 interns from the November and January cohort). A staff member said she would do her best to make sure those who continued the internship from home got their deposit back eventually but she couldn’t promise due to the fact that it had already been spent. Some interns decided to pause their internships from home after hearing this. This was also a factor in my (and other interns' ) decision to stay in Indonesia.

The next day, we received a directive from a staff member saying she'd limited our options to leaving Indonesia and continuing our internships from home, or staying and losing our deposit and any support from PI. After speaking again to my family and manager, I decided to stay at my placement. I notified the PI team and, before I’d even got a reply, I had my access revoked from not only the programs that we had used with PI, but also business manager on Facebook for my placement's account. Shortly after, there was also an attempt to change the Instagram password. My scheduling account was deleted, along with the work I’d created for my manager for the following week. I had to message the PI team and ask them to please un-delete my account to access the pre-approved work.

I decided to stay in Indonesia alongside three of the other interns and am very happy with my decision to do so. Fortunately, my manager here has been incredibly supportive not only to me but also to the other Paradise Interns who have stayed on the island.

Overall, I’m very glad I took this opportunity with Paradise Interns and it’s given me the chance to live in Indonesia and now pursue other freelance opportunities. It's effectively forced me to take the leap into freelancing that I was hoping to take in July when the program finished!

However, I’d advise against the program due to the financial uncertainty of its future and the, in my opinion, careless and casual attitude shown by a staff member when it came to supporting almost 30 young people who’d quit their jobs and uprooted their lives to move to the other side of the world.

What would you improve about this program?
It's very sad because, until the Coronavirus hit, I'd been recommending this program to everyone. Despite the small issues, I wouldn't have changed a thing. It was one of those "too good to be true" situations that, until recently, was actually true. But staff member's reaction and response has left me and many others here in disbelief.
41 people found this review helpful.
Default avatar
Sorcha
1/5
No, I don't recommend this program

Good experience but would not recommend to anyone

I’m writing this review about my experience as a Paradise Intern, for people in the future who may be considering this, or any other similar venture that Anna Kloth may start when life is back to normal. I have tried to be fair and balanced in what I say, as there were some positive factors about my experience in Indonesia, but I feel that it is really important that people out there are aware of the basic and important failings in this programme which are very concerning. I would also say that I am not alone in having these concerns and many of my fellow interns have had similar or worse experiences.

I want to start by saying that I had an amazing and unforgettable time in Indonesia, thanks to my awesome dive shop, the great people I met, and the memories that I will always have. I have nothing but positive praise for my dive shop and the time I spent working there. My dive shop suited my personality and my vibe so well, and for that, I am very grateful. Another positive of the internship was the content that we learnt during bootcamp as it was very interesting, useful, and informative. The other members of the Paradise interns team were very supportive throughout the internship. The members of staff whose roles were content, blogs, and admin were all super helpful.

I was a Paradise Intern from November 2019, and this was planned to be until May 2020. After the month boot camp in Bali I was placed with a dive shop in Labuan Bajo where I arrived in December 2019. It soon became apparent that there were major flaws with Anna’s management style; primarily around inconsistent and poorly communicated information and expectations. We were often told one thing at our monthly meetings with Anna, and then a few days later told something very different, as though the Paradise team had forgotten to tell us what was expected of us and then tried to put the responsibility on us for these mistakes. The whole question of the ‘fines’ or deductions from the $1000 deposit was unclear, poorly communicated and inconsistent. This $1000 dollar deposit was meant to be returned on our successful completion of the internship.

When the coronavirus pandemic started to become serious, we were told by Anna on our group video call that they would advise us to go home. There was clearly no contingency planning, no policies and procedures and no forethought about a very serious and difficult situation for 18 young people in remote locations far from home and support networks.

She told us that we had two options; to stay in Indonesia and have no affiliation to Paradise interns as they could not support us, or go home and continue the social media remotely from home. There was no support or help around the options available, the way this was communicated was in a pressured, panicked and completely unprofessional and unethical manner.

We all had 1 week to decide and let Paradise Interns know our decision. I decided initially to stay in Indonesia as I wanted to continue working with my dive shop. Upon telling Anna my decision, I was removed from all the networking apps, the paradise interns networks and my message was ignored by Anna, with no response. We were all young people alone in a foreign country, and given the situation, everyone was worried and unsure about what was going on. Anna left us with no support and no guidance in Indonesia. Her responses to the concerns I expressed were rude, dismissive and added stress to an already difficult situation.

We all asked if our deposits would be returned to us, and were told that no our deposits could not be returned to us because the money was gone. We were told that Anna had spent all of our deposits (18 interns = $18,000 USD) and that they would be using the deposits from the next round of interns to give us ours back. We were told that our deposits had been used to pay for the accommodation for bootcamp in Bali. However, there was clearly not going to be another round of interns due to the pandemic, so our money was gone.

The principle of a deposit, for anything, is that it is held in safe keeping for its possible return, NOT spent by the company on keeping their liquidity due to poor financial management. Each of us has now lost $1000, which, especially given that we had to find our way home , after booked flights being cancelled, was catastrophic. Without family support I would have been in a desperate situation, and the lack of support, help or advice from Anna Kloth was appalling and deeply unethical.

For the reasons stated above, I would not recommend anybody to put their trust in Anna Kloth or her business ventures.

What is your advice to future travelers on this program?
I would advise future travelers to find a Divemaster internship directly through a dive shop!
41 people found this review helpful.
Response from Paradise Interns

Hi Sorcha,

Thanks for leaving a review. I'm glad you enjoyed the majority of your internship, loved where we placed you and felt that you learned quite a bit. However, I’d like to address a few of the concerns that you brought up.

First off, I’m very glad that you found the majority of the Paradise interns team very supportive. As a small business, it has taken a lot of work to get together a team that can assist our interns in the ways needed. As the company has grown, I no longer take as much of an intern-facing role, but am regularly behind the scenes making sure that everyone is on the same page and everything runs smoothly. With my mother’s terminal cancer diagnosis at the beginning of your internship, I had to rely on my team much more and I’m glad they were able to come through.

As for the deposit, I am sorry that you felt anything was unclear. Our entire team has all rules clearly outlined in the Intern Responsibilities board. This has not changed since the first day you were an intern and, upon reading this thoroughly, you would have found answers to any questions you had.

The monthly meetings have nothing to do with the rules, but are strategy sessions where your work and analytics are reviewed in order to see how your company’s social presence is faring. Tweaks are made to content and strategy, but there are no changes to your responsibilities.

As for deductions to your deposits – it’s best if I can explain our business model. The way we are able to keep this free for interns is by charging companies for this service. In order to keep clients, it’s important to deliver upon what we promise. This means if we have promised a company 4 Instagram stories a day, the company needs to receive this. As interns are being ‘paid’ in diving and other perks regardless of their performance, we use the deposit to ensure the work is being done.

We are extremely up front with what constitutes a deduction from deposits from day one. These are outlined clearly on the Intern Responsibilities board and, again, did not change from the very first day. In fact, we gave everyone additional leeway as the program continued so that our team would be deducting less than initially stated.

Which brings us to the recent COVID-19 issue that interrupted our regular internship. On March 16, 2020, after closely following the effects across the globe, we called a company wide meeting. At this meeting we explained that we were concerned about the safety of our 30 interns in Indonesia and we strongly advised them to go home. In addition to to our interns’ safety, we believed that tourists taking resources away from an already impacted healthcare system would be unethical. In full transparency, we also said that we did not know whether our clients (the companies that they were placed at) would make it through the impending cease in tourism and that Paradise Interns did not know if we would, either. While we did not know what this meant for our own operations, we explained that flights out of the country would only be harder to get and borders were tightening up. We also expressed concern at the economic implications of COVID-19 would have on the tourist reliant economies surrounding our interns’ placements and what this would mean in regards to the safety of our interns.

Following this meeting, we regularly updated interns on developing stories regarding the spread of the coronavirus. However, interns asked us to stop sending updates to the group because they were seen as, and I quote, “sensationalist” and “bumming them out.” We were concerned that, by being in Indonesia, they perhaps were not aware of the full issues that would be arising as President Joko Widodo had just openly admitted to suppressing Indonesia’s COVID-19 data. We spoke with similar companies and consulted with our legal team and were advised that we should take cues from similar study and work abroad programs and recall all interns immediately.

Just a day later, on March 17th, 2020, we called another meeting. In this meeting, we issued a directive. All interns who wanted to stay with Paradise Interns would need to return home. As all of our interns are adults (ages 21 - 40), the choice was up to each individual with a full week to decide. However, we could not take on the liability or ethical responsibility of having interns in our program abroad at this time of global unrest. Our team is small and we did not have the resources available to adequately assist any interns in troubles they may face if staying in Indonesia under our program. It is imperative to our operation that our team is able to support our interns to the best of our ability.

Just 7 out of 30 interns decided to quit Paradise Interns in favor of staying in Indonesia. 5 others decided to leave the program as they didn’t want to work on Paradise Interns without the full guarantee of being able to receive the benefits from clients who might face bankruptcy. These interns, by quitting the program, did lose their deposit, but made the choice on their own. I understand the choice wasn’t ideal on either side, but hard choices are being made by the majority of global citizens at this time. The rest of the interns have returned to their home countries and are working remotely, still within the program. They will be receiving their full deposit upon completion of the internship and are free to return to Indonesia when this global pandemic clears to collect the benefits owed by the companies they were placed at.

As for how this relates to you: Upon receiving the mandate to leave Indonesia and complete the program remotely, you let us know that you would be staying in Indonesia, effectively quitting the program. We thanked you for your time and sent a termination letter. We removed you from all networking apps and client platforms, as is standard for offboarding interns. However, we did give you time to retrieve any work so that it would not go to waste. We did not respond to your further emails insisting we create another option because we were busy supporting the remaining interns who were still in our program. In the next few days it became increasingly harder to get flights home and we wanted to ensure we were doing everything we could to support those who were actively trying to get home.

As we predicted, the regions our interns are placed at effectively closed down completely, causing further difficulties for expats to repatriate. You, along with a few other interns who chose to stay in Indonesia and quit the program, chose to go home amidst the closures and had great difficulty doing so – as was our original concern. If anything, the difficulties you ended up facing validate our mandate to return home.

Of all people, I wish this had gone differently. COVID-19 put Paradise Interns in a position where we needed to act quickly and decisively to ensure the safety of our interns. We knew that our decision was going to be wildly unpopular and polarizing, but stand by our decision as the only responsible and ethical choice. This is my livelihood and my passion. We’ve been successfully growing and graduating an increasing number of interns for over 3 years without any problems and, like so many other small businesses in the world, COVID-19 has put the future of our business at risk. I’m sorry this didn’t go as planned and wish you all the best in the future.

Sincerely,
Anna Kloth

Default avatar
James
2/5
No, I don't recommend this program

Brilliant opportunity, but fundamentally flawed in how it's run

I was a Diving intern on the November 2019 intake and was placed at Manta Dive in Gili Trawangan.

Firstly I want to talk about the opportunity that Paradise Interns offered. It was a massive leap of faith to fly to Indonesia completely alone and to join a bunch of strangers and people often said I was crazy for doing it. But having spoken with the programme co-ordinator Anna I was confident that this wasn't a con and that it was going to be the experience of a lifetime. And immediately I want to say that yes it really was. From the point when I started, I absolutely fell in love with the place and the people. I have definitely made friends on the course which I know I will still speak to for years to come. Paradise Interns gave me that opportunity to meet like-minded people who shared my passion for scuba diving and marketing and for that I will forever be grateful.

The bootcamp was also brilliant. Pronoia community was a bit run down but is due to be renovated. It didn't really bother me too much because the complex was massive and safe. We were a group of 20 interns and the complex had volleyball courts, a restaurant, lecture hall, 100m walk to the beach, 2 swimming pools and a football pitch! It was amazing.

The programme itself was in-depth and complex. There's definitely no denying that this is a serious course and one that you need to be switched on to learn and build a strong depth in social media marketing and how it all operates. I always felt exhausted at the end of the lessons as we crammed in as much as possible but I enjoy that way of learning.

When I got to my placement in Gili Trawangan the dive shop was incredible. I found it tricky to fit in at first as the shop was a well-established community but after a few weeks, I had found my place and fell in love with the island and all the people in it. Manta Dive is an amazing place to do this internship as you are surrounded by creative people who come together to make as much entertaining content as possible. That's the reason I wanted to do this internship and I was placed in the dive shop that suited my abilities best. That was a great judgement call by Anna when she decided where to place me.

Overall there is a lot of positives I will take away from my time on the internship, however, there were some fundamental flaws that have left an extremely sour taste in my mouth and would result in me not recommending the programme to anybody in the future.

The biggest issue that myself and other interns struggled with was the deposit scheme. All interns pay a $1000USD deposit at the start of the internship. If work is not completed the finances are withdrawn from that deposit. There is differing amounts for differing discrepancies. There is also a warning system in place with multiple warnings before you start losing money. It added a lot of pressure to our already extensive workload though and the discrepancies included extremely small details such as not tagging other accounts.

The initial 2 months of the internship were fine, then one day I was fined over $440 for missing stories and not tagging accounts. As were many other interns. A completely flawed penalty system was in place where they used up every single warning in one go and then immediately started fining us. This came one week after Anna explained in our personal check-in that I was overachieving. The analytics were showing growth for the Dive shop. My shop was extremely happy with the content I was producing and the results it was getting. What is the point of having a warning system if it doesn't actually alert you that you are at risk of being penalised?

There was also an issue with communication about my visa. Prior to my arrival at the internship, I emailed several times about my passport and visa. I was told it would be fine and (the lawyers) were looking into it. It turned out to not be true. The visa was an issue which reoccurred throughout my time. The most notable time was the evening before I had a 7am flight to Singapore for a visa run, they informed me that because of the issue with my passport I had messaged them several times about I was having to change my flights to Kuala Lumpur. The cost was covered by Paradise Interns but the stress of that situation meant that me being able to remain in Indonesia was in the balance. I felt this issue could have been resolved well in advance when I was trying to communicate my issue with them.

Another issue was how they handled the Covid-19 outbreak. I had to leave the course 2 months before my internship ended. We learnt after a meeting that Paradise Interns had infact already spent all of our deposits on securing the Bootcamp location for 2 more years. Parade Interns were then going to be paying our deposit money back from future income they earnt. They had spent everybody's deposits. So not only were we getting fined left right and centre but it turns out the money had already been spent.

There was no guarantee that any of us would see a penny of our deposit back again, even if the individual hadn't received any fines and done the entire required workload. Not only is it unethical to spend our deposits but the fact that entering these unprecedented times was going to leave many of us in financial ruin. It is of popular opinion now that the way things are being run with remaining interns is to force as many to exit the programme as possible.

The internship is completely against any sort of feedback. Having returned to the Western world I needed to get a full-time job immediately. When I asked Anna if there was any consideration for this I was told 'it is not up for discussion'. When I gave her possible solutions which would benefit all parties she continued along the 'it is not up for discussion' route.

My final communication with Anna before deciding to exit the course is when she focused on my lack of communication with them as the only issue. There was no consideration for their wrong doings. No apology. No acknowledgement that they had also made mistakes. When it was Paradise Interns in the wrong it was 'just where we're at'.

I will always have a high level of respect for everything Anna has achieved. We always felt leaving lectures with her that she was brilliant at teaching and engaging with us. The downside of the internship is the business side of things. It is still relatively young in terms of a business so the flaws that I faced should hopefully be ironed out in the future but the lack of consideration for feedback makes me think that it will just be more of the same.

If you are doing this course to be scuba diving, I recommend just doing your divemaster as it will be more cost-effective.

What would you improve about this program?
The penalty scheme.
The visa process/support.
Adaptability for workload depending on dive shop requirements.
42 people found this review helpful.
Response from Paradise Interns

Dear James,

Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. I’m very glad to hear that you still think of this program as a once in a lifetime opportunity. It’s equally heartening to hear that you learned so much in the course and what you learned will serve you in your future endeavors.

I would like to offer some feedback and context to your concerns.

We are extremely up front with what constitutes a deduction from deposits from day one. These are outlined clearly on the Intern Responsibilities board and did not change from the very first day. In fact, we gave everyone additional leeway as the program continued so that our team would be deducting less than initially stated.

This is a professional internship. From day one, we are clear about expectations. We do have a set of warning systems that are used to protect companies and interns from dismissal, but they are not there to remind you to do your work. We aren’t here to handhold and scold over the basics we’ve been clear about from the beginning. You are being paid in what amounts to over USD 8,000 dollars worth of perks, so we expect you to treat this internship with the same level of professionalism you would bring to a job.

Over the first two months, we regularly reminded all interns on a weekly basis that we were tracking all requirements and that not posting properly or the required amount would result in deposit deductions. Proper social media management strategy is nothing more than juggling an array of small details. You were not fined in one day. You were fined because, amongst other things, you went 3.5 months without ever tagging another account, even though we had regularly reminded you. In comparison, of the 30 other interns, there were only 5 of you who were losing any money for this. If you had done this in another job, you would have just been fired.

It’s interesting that you bring up the fact that I had said you were overachieving as that is a bit out of context. I had said you were doing too many other side projects for your company and the basics were suffering. I had actually asked you slow down on the extra projects and use the time to really hone in on the responsibilities outlined as we weren’t achieving the results I would have wanted to see.

As for your visa, Paradise Interns is very clear that we are not immigration agents and we are not authorities on anything related to visas. We had tried to help you by asking our lawyers your question about passport validity. They gave us a response in their own time and we passed it on to you. In the few days you were meant to do a visa run, Singapore changed its policy and you ran into the need to change your flight. This was not our fault, but we did pay for your flight change because we felt bad that the information that came specifically from our team was no longer valid.

As for COVID-19, you left out some very important details. On March 14th, you sent us a message saying you needed to speak to us and that you would need to leave Bali in 4 days - zero details. We responded in less than 20 minutes from your initial message. A day later, we were finally able to get in touch and you let me know that you were leaving Bali immediately to go to New Zealand to ensure you could get your NZ visa. You informed me that you were not going to be coming back to Indonesia because it would be too expensive and you were almost out of money. There were no questions, no discussions - just letting me know what was going on. In normal situations, leaving your placement for any unapproved vacation time is automatic grounds for dismissal. However, as we were still making decisions about COVID-19, I said that I wished you would have communicated with our team better, but we would try to work this out.

When we made the call about COVID-19 to the other interns, you kept moving the conversation towards whether you still had to do all of the work. In the face of a global pandemic and the possible collapse of all your placement companies, all you wanted to do was let me know that you didn’t think it was fair that you had to still do all of the work you agreed to in the beginning. It is 100% true that I told you that changing the responsibilities was “not up for discussion”.

All other interns told us within the week whether they wanted to end the program or continue on. But that didn’t work for you. You went radio silent for about a week, texted me you’d still be working with Paradise Interns, missed required communications, missed the mandatory revised strategy meeting, asked what happened in the revised strategy meeting even though I had already posted a full recording of the meeting, said you still didn’t want to do all of the work, complained about the original deposit penalties, went radio silent for another two weeks and then messaged to tell me you wouldn’t be continuing. So yes, I did let you know in the final meeting that you needed to work on your communication.

Had you stayed with the program, you would be receiving your remaining deposit back along with all other interns who stayed on. You had a choice and you chose to leave the program and lose your deposit.

Without doubt, there are lots of places Paradise Interns can improve. We are a young company and are always looking for the best way to evolve. I can also say that there are a lot of places that I, as a founder and manager, can improve. I try to take on all constructive criticism and apply it to my business. It’s why we employ surveys of interns after the first month, midway through the program and after completion. However, when the feedback is that the workload is too much and we’ve successfully graduated over 80 interns who haven’t lost any of their deposit, you can see why we don’t weigh all feedback evenly.

I am truly sorry for the way that your internship was interrupted by COVID-19 and wish you the best of luck.

Sincerely,

Anna Kloth

Default avatar
Chris
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

What a Ride!

I was thinking about combining scuba diving with some marketing-related long before even before hearing about Paradise Interns. After stumbling across their website for the first time, I labelled the whole thing as a scam - it just sounded too good to be true. Well, after a few restless nights and a never-ending search through my browser history, I took the plunge and applied.

From this point onwards, the whole application process was pretty straightforward. My last doubts were quickly erased when I got to speak with Anna, the founder of the program personally during the one-hour skype interview. A few weeks later, after trying to explain the whole shebang to family members and friends (with limited success), I hopped on a plane to Bali. It turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life!

I had some experience in different fields of multimedia, but I was pretty much new to social media marketing at the start of the internship. However, looking back at the first month of the internship, Anna, Pim and Elisha taught me more than I could have ever imagined. In fact, it made me wonder what schools are doing wrong as I've never experienced such a steep learning curve before. It was intense (they call it "the Bootcamp" for a reason), but I loved it. Also, hanging out in Bali with all the other interns was hella fun!

After the first month, we all got placed at different dive shops or companies. My placement was kinda special as it was split up into two different dive centres within the same company. I got to spend the first half of my internship in Malaysia and the rest of it in Komodo!

The first few weeks at the placement can be daunting, and I found myself chased by deadlines while trying to settle at the new location. Not being a native English speaker didn't make things easier too. However, I quickly got the hang of the marketing part of the internship and was diving almost daily! The more you get used to to the tools and practises used for the company's social media presence, the easier it gets and I had loads of time available to just soak up life in the tropics, dive and hang out with amazing people!

I came into the internship full of energy, keen to learn more about social media marketing but mainly to get into diving and to live abroad in the tropics. After six months, I can happily tick all the boxes, so I'd call that a win!

What is your advice to future travelers on this program?
It's important to remember that it's all about learning and working in a real business environment (although a damn cool one) and definitely not just another volunteer program. You commit to six months of living in Indonesia, and you will certainly run into up's and down's during the period of the internship - much like you would with every normal job.

However, an experience like this was exactly what I was looking for, and Paradise Interns delivered.
35 people found this review helpful.
Default avatar
Jan
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Wonderful 6 months in Paradise

Truly unique and extraordinary 6 months full of learning, friendship, challenges and stunning Indonesia's nature. Paradise Interns is a small group of passionate marketers and divers who love to share their knowledge and experiences. I had an absolutely fabulous time taking the internship with them. It wasn't always easy but totally rewarding. I have improved greatly in social media management and also became a very skilled divemaster which helped to open the door to this industry in which I wish to continue my journey! I highly recommend this company to everyone seeking a new challenge and wanting to. Improve his digital nomad skills!

What was the most surprising thing you saw or did?
If you dive every single day there is a lot to surprise you down there but for me, it was undoubtedly being surrounded with 6 sunfish on a single dive! The best diving experience I have ever had!
46 people found this review helpful.
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Ebony
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Paradise Internship in Paradise

I am so glad I took the jump to move overseas for 6 months. This program really pushed me out of my personal comfort zone and pushed me to grow for the better.

This internship aided perfectly with my existing graphic design degree and has added more skills to my belt. Bootcamp is exactly what I hoped for, lots of learning with space for on the job placement learning. I really enjoyed all the parts of social media management and digital design.

Living overseas has really broadened my horizons and expanded my network of people around the world. Living overseas for the first time really can be a challenge, especially in some parts of Indonesia and Paradise Interns understands that. They were there with me every step of the way with support. Especially as most of the mentors have lived and worked in the same town as my placement (Labuan Bajo/Komodo).

This experience has made me consider returning back to Indonesia to work and continue the adventure in paradise.

What was your funniest moment?
Spending time with new friends/interns laughing, exploring and making new memories together.
41 people found this review helpful.
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Natalie
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Live the dream

Paradise Interns provides a platform for you to be able to really live that island dream. Live on paradise and dive pretty much everyday! But it's not all just fun and games - this experience also gave me plenty of professional and personal development opportunities too.

During the intense first months boot camp you get a lot of information thrown at you, which can feel a little overwhelming. But with the support of the Paradise Interns team and all the other wonderful interns that you'll share this experience with, you'll get through it!

I then got placed on the wonderful Gili Air. Anna really does a great job at placing you in places and companies that fit you. While at the start it wasn't easy, I soon found my way with the work, the company and the social life at Gili Air. I totally loved my time there.

Finding a work life balance is something that is drilled into you from boot camp - and for a good reason. There is so much going on between the work, diving and socialising and you wouldn't want to miss out on one for any of the others! But if anything goes a bit askew
you'll have weekly check-ins with the Paradise Interns team were you can raise any issues you're having - be they work related or anything else, and they'll do their best to help you out.

But of course, you get what you put into this experience.

If you did this all over again, what's one thing you would change?
I would try achieve a good work life balance as early as possible, settle into the island community even quicker and done even more diving so that I could even more out of this awesome experience!
39 people found this review helpful.
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Natasha
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

I went scuba diving every day and learnt a lot about digital marketing!

Paradise Interns gave me the opportunity to learn an amazing set of digital marketing skills and then implement them in real life during my five-month placement on Gili Air.

The digital marketing Bootcamp in Bali was an amazing foundation to understand so much about the field of digital marketing. Being able to put what I learned into real-life practice was awesome. Especially as it was within the field of scuba diving and conservation which I'm so passionate about.

I met amazing people from Paradise Interns - including interns and staff from all over the world! And I built a community and life on Gili Air - which would have been hard to do without having the internship as a way to set that up.

Overall it was an epic experience and an amazing opportunity. I learned so much, met amazing people, and have a killer addition to my CV!

I highly recommend to everyone.

What was the most nerve-racking moment and how did you overcome it?
Leaving home for 6 months seemed daunting at first but once you meet everyone from Paradise Interns you won't look back!
40 people found this review helpful.

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