Program Reviews

Wow! One word: Challenge. But a good one. It was a great experience, and I grew a lot as a person. Why challenging? Because you will have to adapt to another lifestyle, living with a family you do not know and far away from your friends and family. But that is exactly at the same time the beauty. Your host family will guide you and will make you feel at home, so no worries! It is almost guaranteed that you will grow! so dont doubt it and just go for it. to me it has been an experience i am happy i did not missed it.

This past summer, I spent two months in Galicia, Spain with a wonderful family I met through Destino Idiomas. Ana was very helpful in guiding me through the family-selection process, as this was my first time as an au pair. After I arrived, Ana checked in with me to see how I was doing for the first few weeks, and even after she stopped checking in, I knew she was still a resource for me. It was very comforting to know that if something went wrong, I would have help nearby because my family was back in the United States. In fact, one time, I had stomach issues and went to the clinic, and Ana was on the phone and able to translate for me. I improved exponentially in my Spanish through little effort on my part because I was constantly surrounded my Spanish. I learned so much about Galician culture and fell in love with their wonderful food. During my free time, I took weekends trips with other au pairs from Destino Idiomas that Ana put me in contact with. Although this experience was ony two months, I grew and learned so much and made lifelong friends.

During this past summer I had the amazing opportunity to live with a great family in Valladolid, Spain. This was an experience I will never forget, I was able to meet many new people, both locals and others in the Au Pair program. My Spanish improved exponentially even with minimal effort on my part. And I met an amazing little girl that I was lucky to take care of for 10 weeks. I also had the opportunity to travel every weekend which allowed me to get a greater cultural experience. Through my agency I was guided from the beginning of my experience when I was preparing to leave, throughout with phone calls to check in, and at the end with follow up messages to make sure I enjoyed my time in Valladolid, Spain. I would recommend this experience to anyone looking to go outside their comfort zone and learn about a new culture.

I had a great time in Spain! I've been an au pair in Barcelona for 6 months and really enjoyed my time here. I was able to meet a lot of people from all over the world, learn and improve my spanish and learn more about myself and what I want in life. Being an au pair is truly an amazing experience and you will definitely become more independent.

I am Dutch and was staying with a dutch family, so if you want to learn or improve your spanish my tip would be to stay with a spanish family. This way you will learn quicker because you only hear spanish and you don't have to switch between languages.

I would definitely recommend this program! Ana always let us know when there was a national holiday or when events would happen near you and she also checked up on you every once in a while.

I've been an au pair in Santiago de Compostela for 8 months. The day after I arrived, I went to the office of Destino Idiomas to introduce myself. Ana, from Destino Idiomas, told me a lot about the city and we had lunch together. My hostfamily was amazing, they showed me the city and made me feel at home. Ana was checking on me every once in a while. I didn't have any troubles, but it was nice to know that there was someone in case I needed help.

I've had an amazing time during my stay in Santiago de Compostela. I've visited lots of places, I've made new friends and I feel like my hostfamily became my second family.

Unfortunately, I had to leave Spain earlier than planned, because of a small accident. I've been in the hospital for a surgery and Ana from Destino Idiomas came to visit me. She supported me in my decision to go home earlier and she helped me with everything she could. I would've prefered to finish my gap year differently, but I still look back at it with a big smile.

I had a good time in Spain! To be honest it is hard to give a review because I was really lucky with my family. I have a sweet loving family and we get along very well, but it is never sure if it’ll be like that for someone else. I stayed in Ourense and I am glad i chose this city. There are not that many aupairs but there is a big English community here and the people here in Galicia are the kindest people i’ve ever met. The food here is good and it’s easy to travel around with for instance Blablacar or bus.
I feel like it will be really difficult for me to go back to my own life and leave my hostmother, children and friends here behind, but i am glad i will always have a home here in Spain if I decide to go back. Which I probably will. Groetjes Michelle

Although some parts of my experience proved to be difficult, I can hands down say that this was the best part of my life so far. I was able to meet so many different people from all over the world, learn so much about life, grow as a person, learn A LOT of spanish (I knew a few words at the start), find a second home and family and just generally live a life I loved. I would absolutely do it again and recommend it to anyone.
Ana was great in terms of checking up on you. She was in regular contact so you never would feel overwhelmed or alone, and helped talk to me about my issues, which I know other au pairs using different programs were not as lucky to have access to. She even organised a meet up for the fellow au pairs of Galicia that she had in her agency!

I would really recommend this program, as I have many great and warm memories about Spain and my host family. I was really lucky to get into this family as they treated me like a family member. I always had help and support.
Family alway took care about my interests and helped with social life.
Many interesting places were shown me, many interesting people were introduced to me.
I`m very grateful everyone!!

For future participants I can say that there is no doubs about this family. If they invited you, you shoud go :)

Some tips about Lara)) she is active, positive, likes chocolate, cartoons, painting, swimming pool and swings)))

I have had the absolute best 2 months of my life. In such a short time I have grown as a person and experienced so many new things. Although I have the upper hand because my family lives here, I have had an amazing time with my new host family as well.

Destino Idiomas and Ana specifically has been so helpful beginning with our first interaction with my curiosity about the program. Ana was able to match me with the perfect family that was also close to my family that lives here in Spain. Throughout my trip she also helped me resolve small issues that I had and also connected me with other Au Pairs in the area.

My host family were so welcoming and treated me as one of their own. The two children were so sweet and so eager to learn. I am still currently with the family and it pains me that this is our last week. The children are so loving and fun to be with. The family was also very flexible and I was flexible so we were a perfect match.

In my free time I had the luxury of going to the beach or adventuring the town each day. I met various people through social media apps and au pair groups. I have now met other people from all over the world and it was so easy and fun! I also was able to go on a trip to Porto, Portugal by train.

I highly recommend au pairing to everyone! This experience has been amazing and I will definitely be doing this in the future as well. I have also only spoken to people that have also had amazing experiences. DO IT and you will not regret it!!!!

I am an avid Ultimate frisbee player and wanted to be an Au Pair in a town where I could play with the local team. There are not a lot of ultimate frisbee teams in Spain but this program went out of their way to research the different ultimate frisbee teams and then see if they had families near by those towns. That is how I ended up in A Coruña and it was a perfect match.

The first family that this program found for me was an immediate match. They were so nice and when I got there, they welcomed me with open arms, my own room and bathroom, would buy me any food I wanted, and were very flexible and reasonable with working hours and time off. My main goal was to learn more Spanish and learn about a culture and this family was perfect for that. Even after two weeks, my Spanish abilities had improved so much and my perspective had broadened by being adopted into this culture.

I am so thankful to have found this program, they helped me find the place perfect for me and a great family.