Program Reviews

This is my second year coming to volunteer in Costa Rica with Hibiscus Travels, and it was wonderful! There is a variety of options for excursions and service projects. We went to multiple beaches and a waterfall and zip lining. Our service project was working with toddlers in the mornings to teach English and play with them. Hibiscus Travels really works hard to make this experience exciting, memorable, and rewarding. I hope I get to return again next year and for more years to come. Pura vida!

This was a fun trip!! I was happy to see a new place such as Costa Rica! I enjoyed exploring and seeing new parts of the country. I enjoyed the hiking and going to the water fall. I also enjoyed seeing several beaches. It was nice to interact with young children, but also go on fun excursions. I also thought it was cool to experience the culture of Costa Rica. I would recommend this trip to anyone wanting to experience a new culture while volunteering. I am happy I was able to go on this trip! It is something I will always remember!

I loved working with the children! It was a great experience and everyone we worked with was very nice. Teaching and shaping the children’s minds was such a rewarding experience. We also went to so many fun experiences. Zip lining and the waterfall hike were both wonderful experiences. Overall, the trip was a success and I would love to come again in the future. I would recommend this experience to anyone who asked me about it. I will never forget what I have experienced or learned throughout this trip.

Very supportive staff who oversaw our group and were very proactive with change, scheduling, excursion trips and even night activities after our provided dinners. Had a fantastic driver who was very entertaining on some long drives, and was almost a part of our group by the end of the week. Service was impactful and provided excellent learning opportunities for Spanish language and culture, especially for college students. Several stores and restaurants located by our private house was perfect for late night snacks also.

I am so thankful that I was able to find Hibiscus Travel through my school which is West Liberty University and I am studying Zoo Science. Hibiscus allowed us to travel to multiple different places to see what biodiversity Costa Rica offers. We went to Tortuga Parque de Nacíonal and help sea turtles by making nesting sites in the beach for their eggs to increase their hatching survival rate as well as went on many hikes looking for all sorts of cool and interesting animals, bugs and plants, the daily coconuts straight from the tree was just a bonus! Afterwards we went to Natuwa Macaw Sanctuary and helped out with the daily needs of the animals like feeding, filling water, cleaning and enrichment, there were many macaws flying all around and lots of native wild animals running, flying, slithering, and swimming around the park while we worked with the captive animals. I absolutely loved the tour guide, Celeste who helped translate the Spanish I didn’t know, socialized with everyone in such a friendly and caring manner and held almost daily yoga sessions while always being so cheerful. She helped organize everything and did a very, very good job at it. The food was absolutely amazing well, if you like rice and beans but, they also had lots of other yummy things like chicken, pancakes, fresh fruit and fruit juices, salads and much much more. While the food was amazing I can’t really attest to the sleeping arrangements because I slept in a hammock all week but when I went in to the bed rooms they all looked very clean and organized. You have to remember though that we were out in the wild rainforest and found a scorpion in one of the rooms but only because we are all biologists and were actively looking for them. Overall I had the best time ever and was living a complete dream and would recommend Hibiscus Travels to anyone and everyone wanting to explore the Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua areas. 11/10.

This trip was my first time out of the country and it was absolutely incredible! Celest, our tour guide, was wonderful! She was super happy and very helpful! The food was amazing and everyone was accommodating for being a vegetarian! We were able to get fully immersed in the culture and meet tons of new people! The animals and plants were all new and it was so amazing to read and learn about the wildlife at home and then actually see the animals in real life. I am a happy, stress-free student down here! Pura vida!

Our tour guide Celeste was extremely helpful and likable. Our arrangements for transport and accommodations almost always went smoothly and as-planned. Natuwa was a wonderful place and the director, Rodolfo, was helpful and kind. Natuwa’s living accommodations were also surprisingly agreeable. Also, as a biology student and naturalist, the flexible nature of the trip made it easy to plan different excursions and activities to see and photograph animals and nature in general. The price was a bit much for a broke college student, but I’d say it is worth it.

This program was an amazing experience. I got to see a lot of animals in the wild and got to do a lot of activities that I love doing. The turtle conservation in Tortuguero was great with its layback lifestyle and being able to help increase the hatch rate of sea turtles was cool. I’ve learned so much at the Natuwa animal sanctuary about taking care of the animals here and what they do differently then at zoos in the states. I also loved being able to see and do new things to learn about the culture here.

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip. I enjoyed the variation of events throughout the trip. I felt that I got to thoroughly experience the nature of Costa Rica. My group got to see animals from the rain forest and the desert. I was able to interact with people super knowledgeable of the wildlife in Costa Rica, and they were able to teach me a lot. If given the chance, I would love to come back. Our guide, Celeste was very kind and fun throughout the entire trip. She translated and taught us about Costa Rican culture.

I think this experience was unique to my group because we had an amazing staff from hibiscus and from the destinations along the way. Both our tour guide for the entire trip and the advisor over our trip made it and extremely enjoyable and life-changing experience. Additionally, I felt having going to the Turtle Research Project and the Natuwa Macaw Sanctuary were perfect destinations at understanding animal practices in Costa Rica. Overall, I felt this trip was not only good experience but was also a good oppurtunity for reflection and self-evaluation.