Program Reviews

I am so thankful that ISV came to my University to recruit students. I fell in love the moment I went to the informational meeting. When I found out I was going to South Africa summer of 2015, I was more than ecstatic! It was truly the best decision I have made in my life so far! I met so many wonderful people from across the world. My volunteer group was fun and outgoing. It was so easy to connect with everybody and create a lifelong friendship. My volunteer leader and the project leaders were more than amazing. I learned so much from every one of them. They were such wonderful people which made them some of my new role models. They care about everything and put your safety and fun first. Leaving my volunteer project was so hard. I did not think leaving people I met after two weeks would be so hard. They really changed my life. Then I got to go on a two week adventure tour. My tour leader was awesome! He was so fun, outgoing and hilarious. We could really relate to him and bonded with him immediately. He made all of our adventures great! I got to go cliff jumping in Blyde River canyon (which was beautiful), crawl through caves in Swaziland, shop at local markets. Help donate food and toys to an orphanage in Swaziland then playing with the kids. Swam with wild dolphins in Mozambique, and even scuba dive with out a licence through a great beginners program called "back to basics." We traveled a lot over our adventure tour (3 countries) and we got to meet so many wonderful people and see breathe taking sites! Every day I miss Africa. I would go back in a heart beat and I would go with ISV again. They are an amazing program that opened my eyes and helped me learn and grow. I would highly recommend them!

This was the most amazing experience of my life! I had travelled outside of the US before but only to close places, Mexico and Canada. This was my first real international flight, and first time flying anywhere by myself. Africa is my second home because of this trip. I met so many amazing people, eager for my return, so many awesome animals that I miss dearly, and have memories to last a lifetime. I hope to go back someday soon! Hopefully I will have the money to go back soon, I can't wait to explore more of Africa, and even more of the world! Travelling is one of my favourite activities.

I could tell a million stories from that wonderful adventure. It is most certainly something I will never forget. One of my favorite stories is about a baby elephant. I worked at an elephant rescue center on my trip. One day we were riding a taxi (a very different kind of taxi, the whole back was open!) into the elephant center. Once we got there, we started to get ready to start working. All of a sudden, we heard this big group of elephants making noise you could hear from miles away. They were making the noises you'd expect to hear but also making noises that sounded like a Tiger growling! I had no idea before coming on this trip that elephants could make sounds like that. Anyways, we looked over and there was the baby elephant in the middle of a circle of several adult elephants, protecting the baby between all of them. It turns out that the baby elephant had gotten on the nerves of another "teenage" (meaning moody and bossy) elephant, and the teenage elephant started to push back at the baby elephant. It was incredible to see the instant love that those elephants had for that baby and to see them form a circle around him to keep him safe. This stuff is what you'd only see in Elephants nearly in the wild, and not anywhere else. Elephants are such loving and caring creatures, with so many social aspects to their lives. It was an eye-opening experience just being around them and seeing how they let you in, even to the most vulnerable parts of them.

Going to volunteer with ISV in Thailand was the most life changing experience I have ever partaken in. We worked at a school that educated children who were at risk for human trafficking. I have worked with many children where I live because I am an elementary education major, but getting to know these kids and impacting each other's lives for the better is something I will never forget. Not only was I able to make a difference in the lives of people across the world, I made some of the most genuine friendships. I live in the US and I have plans to meet up with friends from Canada, Egypt, and Italy next summer. We have all kept in contact even after knowing each other for only two weeks!

How do I even describe this adventure... To start off with I traveled with my boyfriend of two years, Samuel, the love of my life. Together we booked this trip one cold evening almost 9 months before the departure date. Both of us scraping our student bank accounts to meet the bill. Together we volunteered in the northern most part of Thailand next to the border of Burma in a little tiny village called Lesu, that mostly consisted of people that had fled the harsh life in Burma. We hand mixed cement until our backs felt like they were breaking and together our group of 12 built a cinder block and concrete wall around the town church and volunteer "house." We visited an integrative agricultural farm that was breaking the tradition of herbicide and pesticide use to better the environment. We drove to the local hot springs in the back of a truck enjoying the warm wind in our faces, the smiling people we passed and the heavy exotic smell of all the tropical plants. The village was small and poor, most people had no flush toilets and there we chickens EVERYWHERE and I mean everywhere. You don't understand the crow of a rooster until you've heard the dammned noise of 300 of them crowing at the same time!!!! After the two volunteer weeks of sleeping on a mat in a dirt floor shed we engaged in the adventure tour side of the trip. What a change, it was culture shock, we stayed in 4-5 star hotel on the beach with showers, beds, air conditioning, warm water, pools, paved roads, american-ish food, running water, all this unbelievably grandeur that was completely eye opening after the past two weeks of absolute minimalist living. We visited Elephants at a conservation park, went zip lining, snorkeling, horseback riding on the beach, beach time, swam in the ocean, kayaking, boat rides around Kao Sok national park, kickboxing, cooking lessons.... and so so so so much more. Thailand is a beautiful country, the food is manageable for a picky white girl and a digestively challenged white boy so i'm sure anyone can survive it. Would go back in a heart beat.. just need to not be a broke ass student.... <3

Being at Costa Rica was a life changing moment. From the moment I got there to the very end was a learning experience. For the fist time I saw some great animals, helped saved a rainforest, and was living with excitement and thrill everyday. Trailing up the red mountains, waking up to the Pacific ocean, and living with a family that had different values than mine. One of the most memorable part was when a woman was about to give labour, but could not get to the hospital that night because it was dark and the boat couldn't get to town. We stayed up helping her. This experience helped me realized how loving, passionate, supportive and cultural the community in the Osa Peninsula island was. Really miss my family there right now.

I was so lucky to get to go on the adventure tour and go black water rafting. They taught us how to repel down a 250 foot hole in the ground and then we ziplined, floated, jumped, and climbed our way through a dark underwater cave speckled with glow worms. It was on of the most vivid, amazing, memorable, strange, exhilarating experiences of my life

Traveling through Costa Rica offered an insight into a whole different world. The ISV program got up close and personal with the locals so us students really had the chance to interact. While with a guide/ISV rep most of the day, nights and afternoon were full of freedom to take a bus somewhere else, go to the beach, hangout at the bars, take surf lessons, and do SO much more. Samara Beach was our last stop and we made it the most fun filled and wild days! Surf lessons, ocean kayaking, plenty of guacamole breaks, then hanging at the clubs with the locals or other tourists at night. Traveling in a group allowed you to go outside your comfort zone at first to get to know everyone and then have that comfort to fall back on as you explore new places and meet even more people in stops along the way during the trip. While an experienced traveler and backpacker may feel like this program is too coordinated, for someone who is traveling abroad for the first time and just needs a tiny but of support when you're there, it's great. It was perfect for me at the time to help me find the confidence in myself to take on a foreign country alone and I cannot be more thankful for that.

I know it sounds super cliché, but my experience with ISV Thailand was TRULY life-altering. Living and working with a group of people you've never met before can be daunting, but I can attest that you will make friends for life. Everyone comes to ISV with similar intentions and interests so you're guaranteed to meet people with the same passions as you. The staff at ISV are also beyond incredible. They are helpful and funny and I am so happy to call them my friends. Besides the people I met, I had such a wealth of experiences in such a short period of time: I went white water rafting, scuba diving, bungee jumping, hiking through bamboo forests, kayaking, and so much more. I even bathed (rescued) elephants in a river. Cramming so many wild experiences in such a short period of time made it even more transcendent. The volunteer project itself was also phenomenal. I worked with animals rescued from illegal trade. I want to pursue a career in animal rehabilitation so this was exactly the experience I needed in an extremely welcoming environment. I could go on and on! I cannot sing ISV's praises enough: they are remarkably thorough and ethical and it is obvious that they care deeply about how much people enjoy the program. ISV Thailand had it all: cultural immersion, language exposure, AMAZING people, valuable and rewarding work, and once-in-a-lifetime experiences. I would recommend this program to everyone.

During my time in Costa Rica, I was hosted by a local family in a very small, rural, mountain community. The language barrier was very evident, as I didn't speak much Spanish and they hardly knew an English. However, during my two weeks of living with this family and learning their traditions and quirks, I was opened up to a whole new world of communication that didn't necessarily include verbal language. We spoke by gestures and motions in order to understand each other. This was the most unique position ive even been put in; to adapt to a completely different culture with must verbal communication. It was absolutely amazing and challenging. By the end of the trip, when I had to leave them, there was no language barrier needed to interpret tears. We all wept because it was understood, without any words, how much we would all miss each other. That was the most rewarding and impactful part of it all. I now have a new family in a different country that I know cares about me, as I do them.