Program Reviews

I went to Belize two summers ago and it was the most amazing thing I've ever done. Everything about it was so incredible - the safety, the service, the excursions, the staff, etc. I went on the three week trip and it was everything I could have asked for and more. We taught a three week summer camp for kids at a local primary school. I really liked how we stayed in the same classroom each day, so we could make meaningful relationships with the students. After 10 days of camp, my class was like a family. It's crazy how close you can become with someone in that short amount of time. It's been a year and a half since my trip, and I still talk to the kids through Facebook. I even got to go back to Belize with my family for spring break and visit all the kids I taught at. Although the trip eventually ends, the relationships and memories are lifelong. The service was definitely my favorite part of the trip.
In the afternoons, we would go on excursions! My favorite was the weekend trip to Caye Caulker - one of the many beautiful islands of Belize. We went snorkeling, swimming and got to relax on the beach and reflect on all the amazing memories we made. Some of the other excursions we did were cave tubing, orange picking, going to the zoo and many more!
Safety is definitely GLA's main priority. The homebase is super safe and the staff makes it feel like home. I can't speak highly enough about GLA. I had such an amazing time in Belize that I went on another GLA trip this past summer!

I recently traveled to Guatemala through Global Leadership Adventures and had the most awesome experience! I met so many new friends that I am still in contact with while learning and helping out in a different country. From traveling to Guatemala there are so many different goals I have set for myself to reach corresponding to the service work we did there. The staff members are so welcoming and I felt safe all the time, so I would totally recommend GLA!

Over the past summer, I went on this program and I was pretty nervous to travel alone and not know anybody. Little did I know that I was going to have the time of my life! This program helped me meet people that I can call my long lost bestfriends! I developed relationships with people who amazed me everyday with their kindness and generosity! I developed myself as a person through many different aspects. First, this trip helped grow my love for community work and missionaries. It makes me feel better about myself when I am helping others and this program was all about that. Second, I went out of my comfort zone and was able to have a fun time without having to worry! There is so much more I could include but I reccomend that everyone goes on a trip with Global Leadership Adventures and sees for themselves. The staff who accompanied me on this trip was awesome. I couldn't of asked for better people to lead my way to bettering myself as a human and bettering the people of Belize. The housing of this trip was awesome and the beds were comfy. The food was out of this world! I’m currently missing the abnormously large amount of plantains that would be accessible to us at all moments. This program has influenced me to want to be more involved with my community at home and the world around me! I will be going on another missions trip just because of how awesome this one was. My favorite memory about this trip was working with the kids. I worked with the younger age group and they were all so adorable and excited to learn. What I really took out of this experience is the fact that kids in Belize wanted to learn so bad while people at my home complain about going to school everyday. The kids in Belize would showup to the school we taught at running up to the friends I made and I hugging us! They would say thank you as much as possible just because we taught them the alphabet or some numbers. This really amazed me and made me realize that I need to be more grateful about how lucky I am to be able to go to school everyday. I reccomend that everyone who can goes on this trip and makes a memory close to this one. A memory that can change their outlook on life and make an extraordinary impact just like Belize; The Iniative for Children did for me :)

My daughter traveled to Ecuador and Galapagos the summer of 2017.
She had an amazing trip and now is taking her second GLA trip this spring break 2018. GLA staff was great. I recommend GLA for teens who are independent, spirited and looking for a way to give back to the world. Although I am just a parent and didn't get to go myself it was amazing to see the oppuertunity spark her interest.
Pam Prast mother of 15 year old traveler.

The global leadership adventures is a beyond extraordinary program. I am 17 years old in high school and I wanted to go out and do something new I came upon the program as a basic ad lurking on social medias. I spent hours roaming their website from looking to videos, blogs, and pictures. I decided to enroll into the beachside service program in Costa Rica, Global leadership adventures helped step by step they even had checklist for me ! This team made my experience breath taking, I met people from all over the world, learned to be more independent, and I even keep in contact with my mentor. If anyone is looking to travel abroad I would highly recommend global leadership adventures. The trip impacted my life in so many ways I see the world differently I interact with people differently even myself I learned to be more open and willing in many situations. On GLA trips they make you feel like your at home!

This past summer, I traveled to Anloga, Ghana for three weeks on the Children of Africa program with Global Leadership Adventures (GLA). In simple terms, this trip was a life-changing experience. Between the perfect balance of service, culture, and the incredible people I met, I will forever remember my time in the amazing country of Ghana. Our days began at 7 am with a delicious breakfast, then we broke into our three mentor groups to go to our schools. At Zico Primary, my mentor group’s school, we started by making bricks; these bricks would go toward building school facilities because there is an issue of overcrowding. After brick making, we taught for an hour. My two partners and I taught first graders english, science, and math. I had never taught before in a classroom setting so it was quite challenging but very fun and rewarding by the end of the three weeks. I made an incredible relationship with my students and learned a bit of Ewe, the local language, along the way. After returning from school and eating lunch, we did a variation of activities each day. For example, one day we shopped in the Anloga and Keta markets. There, we bought traditional fabric which we then brought to seamstresses who sewed clothing for us. When we returned from our afternoon activities, we ate dinner and began our evening activity. Days were packed full with lots to do and each activity had the purpose of meeting new people and learning about Ghanaian culture. Aside from the schedule, I want to acknowledge the amazing staff on site. Each mentor group has a mentor and a local staff member; there is also an international director and a local staff director. Everyone is extremely nice and approachable. They accompany you on every adventure and they are great people to get to know and talk to; they each come from such interesting and different backgrounds so make sure you get to know them! GLA does an amazing job at finding incredible staff, providing a fun, activity-packed trip, and ensuring our safety. I cannot recommend this company enough! I will never forget my experience in Ghana and will remember all of the wonderful memories I made there.

Global Leadership Adventures does the best high school volunteer trips hands down. From their staff to their housing everything is so well done! I got to experience life on the other side of the world and come home to apply what I learned into my daily routine. I participated in the Cultural Kaleidoscope program that worked in Thai classrooms to teach English. Even though there was a language barrier I felt empowered by my students and could see the impact I had made. Away from service work, I got the opportunity to be immersed in local culture-my favorite part of Global Leadership Adventures. We got to learn about local history, Buddhist religion, and the poverty issues Thailand faces. I can also now say I have ridden an elephant! How cool is that?!? If you are looking for a trip of a lifetime, a trip to Chiang Mai might just be the one for you!

This past summer I traveled to Fiji for three weeks with Global Leadership Adventures and I can honestly say it was the best experience I have ever had. Every new place we went we were greeted with the warmest welcomes and friendliest smiles I had ever seen in my life. The program director, mentors, and local staff were so incredibly helpful, supportive, intelligent, and fun. The food and housing were always great. The balance between service and adventure was awesome, we worked for long hours in the villages on a variety of projects but it was always fun. When we got back we had free time to jump in the ocean or hang out in a hammock. The excursions to see stingrays and the long mountain hikes were incredible. And the nightly meeting where we talked about leadership and our views on the world were so engaging and informative. While I was there I also became best friends with the other students on the trip, and since then have flown across the country to visit them. Everyone was so welcoming and nobody was left out, we all had so much fun together. My time in Fiji was without a doubt be the best experience I have had to date, and I know when I came home I was a changed person. I expanded my horizons and immersed myself into a new culture. I gained new knowledge of people around the world, and new insight into the vast world that is out there. My trip challenged me, it pushed me and tired me out but at the end of the day it proved to be so incredibly rewarding. I recommend this program so much to anyone who wants to do service in another country and expand their horizons. The spirit of the country was indescribable, one of the best things I have experienced in my life. The GLA staff did an amazing job organizing this and I'm so happy I was lucky enough to be a part of it!

Over the summer I traveled with Global Leadership Adventures to Costa Rica where we stayed for 10 days and did so many fun activities and meaningful service. We were located in Parrita and we worked at a local school and built a playground out of painted tires. Seeing the children happily playing was so life-changing and I am so lucky I was able to help. In Costa Rica I made so many wonderful friends that I still am close with today. Despite being nervous traveling alone to a foreign country, everyone made me feel so comfortable and all my nerves disappeared. The staff at GLA were so helpful and always answered any questions we had. The activities we did were so incredibly fun and thrilling, from zip lining to horse back riding to white water rafting we did such cool adventures. My choice to travel to Costa Rica with GLA was the best decision of my life and my trip was unforgettable.

This past summer, I went to Costa Rica with Global Leadership Adventures. My program was called Beachside Service Adventure and consisted of 10 days in Parrita. There were about 60 people in my group (mostly girls only like 10 boys) and we were split up into mentor groups of like 8-10 ish.

M y group worked with a startup plant nursery which was amazing. We worked with two locals, Nicholas and Mau who's nursery it was, and spent our service time basically hardcore gardening in the rainforest. One day we were clearing the land for the nursery and we got to be super cool with machetes and hack through the jungle brush which was awesome. Other groups did stuff like paint a mural at a school, build a tire playground, plant trees at a farm, build a garden at a school, etc.

One of my favorite parts was our nightly mentor group talks. Since gla does focus a lot on leadership we did discussion groups about leadership in our lives and how we can be a leader in our community and we talked about globalization and the relationship between developed/developing countries and some economics so it was really cool to get kinda a crash course foreign policy and how it applies to us kinda thing. And we totally had to open our minds to new ideas which was cool

Honestly the best part was just being immersed in the culture like eating rice and beans and drinking pineapple juice we ate SO MUCH fruit it was amazing

I thought the GLA people were really cool like every program has to have a native who works as an advisor so we actually had two: one woman who has just finished up in the peace corps and one woman who was from Parrita. They were really organized like being at the airport was stressful at first but once you find the GLA people they take care of you the whole time which was great and my parents weren't stressed at all

I would recommend on program length so I did a 10 day but I would recommend the 14 day ones just cause I really started to form close bonds right as we left and didn't really get the chance to develop those friendships. If you have any interest in the peace corps or mission work it's so great cause a lot of the staff did the peace corps or at least extensive volunteering so you get tons of cool people to ask lots of questions.

If you're nervous about doing GLA I'd definitely recommend the programs in Latin America/Caribbean. I know my parents were a lot happier knowing I was in the same time zone and it was easy to call me and my flight wasn't too bad. Plus it's less of a culture shock than, say, Thailand. I would definitely say whatever program you do, find someone who did that one before because there were a lot of confusing things just cause they can only fit so much in a brochure.

One of the lasting effects of GLA on my life is I feel a lot more down to earth and focused on nature and being in the present and I worry way less about social media or texting or television now which is nice.

-Miranda Wilson, GLA Ambassador