Program Reviews

I loved the 4 weeks ! It was an amazing once in a lifetime adventure and the perfect way to spend a gap year. You feel young, wild and free :) being in a group made it a lot easier, because you know someone and have an itinerary that gets you to the best places in a certain amount of time. I liked the amount of free time, but sometimes it didn’t feel quite flexible enough. For instance if you would have liked to stay in one place for a bit longer that wouldn’t have been possible. But overall there is really not much negativ to say. I loved it and I would totally recommend.

I had never thought of traveling in Asia until my friend invited me join him on this trip. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made.

I would have been very stressed about planning everything because it was my first time backpacking or doing any travel of this kind. Gapforce and my great guide Stefan took all of the stress out of this for me and allowed me to fully enjoy the trip.

I bonded with one of my great friends and made other friends that I will have forever.

Thank you Gapforce

It was a very fun experience, but overall the itinerary was overbooked and the food wasn’t very good. they didn’t take into account the food culture of London and only booked at chain restaurants that served generic food. The complimentary breakfast at the hostel was also bad and offered almost no protein options. The days were long with almost no breaks, so we were on our feet for hours at a time. We ended up having to cut some activities short because the group was so exhausted. There definitely needs to be some reworking if/when this trip happens again.

This was such an educational, exciting and overall amazing experience- allowing you to meet new people from all over the global and share your desire to learn and travel, all of which was supported by two fantastic travel expedition leaders who shared that love for travel. Gapforce made sure safety was a priority which led to everyone getting the most out of the trip.
Such a fantastic experiences that I would recommend to anyone willing to get outside of their comfort zone and embrace new cultures, people and places.

It was an amazing experience and good start to solo travelling. You grow together as a little family and it's so nice to have different activities but also enough time to do your own thing. We also learned important things for life such as basic medical training which was an amazing opportunity and something our teamer didn't even have to teach. They also taught us things about different animals and survival skills which was super interesting.
I enjoyed every minute of my trip and wouldn't mind if it took even longer than 7 weeks!

Travelling to Costa Rica with Gap Force was incredible. We had the opportunity to volunteer throughout our trip including reforestation and hatchery guarding. We saw lots of different things I would not have experienced had a travelled on my own such as seeing turtles laying eggs on remote beaches and staying with the BriBri tribe. I also loved the ziplining and the Tarzan swing. Through this trip I have met so many great people and formed amazing friendships. I would definitely recommend this once in a lifetime trip!

My review of the course expedetion leader from gapforce Februari 2022.

First off I have a lot more confidence in myself.
The jungle is the hardest environment on earth. There is a reason why the special forces train in the jungle. Gapforce agrees with me, if you can lead groups in the jungle then you can do that everywhere on our planet. After this course there is the feeling that you can handle everything everywhere.

I always had the spirit of adventure and a small dream to travel to beautiful remote places, but I had no idea where to start and where to learn the essential skills of planning, surviving and taking a group with you. Either as work or as your own expedetion with mates.

I also learned medical stuff. I was never a fan of medical procedures and I didn't know anything about it. But during this course I learned a lot of medical procedures and I liked it. I know now how to set up an evacuation, give CPR and how to handle an emergency.

Before this course I never thought of risk assessments and how to keep people safe. Now everywhere I go I think of emergency scenarios and how to fix them. It is a little bit like a mind puzzle. I enjoy that very much and it makes you feel like you're prepared on anything.

I learned a lot but it doesn't mean that there weren't any fun things. For example we had a barbecue and during a volunteer project I measured a leatherback turtle and reburied its eggs to protect them from poachers. We visited a local tribal Bribri village and we did a 7 days trekking through untouched jungle.

To get the most out of this course I would recommend already having the basic lead/survival skills but even without it you can make it and end up working as a expedetion guide. It is important to know that this course is focussed on training you to become a expedition leader. This is more of a training course then a adventure course

Such an amazing experience that I doubt you can get from anyone else! Gapforce really made sure our trip was stocked full of such rewarding and great experiences; Volunteering in the local community, hikes to waterfalls, zip lining, surfing, and plenty of afternoons off where we could explore our local environment! I don’t think I could have asked for a better trip, money well spent if you’re looking for an engaging and fun adventure. Our trip leader Jeremie was great, really helped the group gel and such a good motivator; you always felt supported by him and he had such good advice (and dad jokes). The trip all in all felt so well organised and you never felt as if you were out of things to do. I’ve made friends for life, working hard as a team and reaping the rewards brings people together so well and gapforce has managed to create a trip where exactly that happens!

Amazing experience, I really enjoyed the work and the social side of it, the rest of the group were all great and will hopefully travel with some after the trip, the weather was great and the food was good except from rice and beans.

I enjoyed seeing a new culture and new people particularly in monatverde. The accommodations are good with good service.

I would recommend the trio to anyone that wants a safe start to a gap year And learn how travel.

The activities were all really good and fun especially the surfing

Pura Vida

I‘m an experienced Survival Expert and Outdoor guide from Germany but I thought there’s always something to learn and I wanted to get more experience in leading groups through the jungle and getting a good fundamental mountain leader training from a british company.
The GapForce ELT program seemed to be perfect for me, because of it’s adventurous content and schedule.

What I got and experienced was really good. We did many day hikes through the mountains in Wales with navigation, rope work like abseiling and much more. And we also spent many many times in the jungle in Costa Rica. That helped me to develop my skills and behavior in the jungle a lot. We‘ve seen fantastic places, gorges, hills, mountains, a lot of wildlife and also bad wet weather.
The instructor are very nice, helpful and experienced in what they doing and they gaved me everything I‘ve wanted from this course. We did a lot of river crossings, water safety and some rope work too. There’s also a big part of wilderness and survival training wich was also a reason, that this is the right thing for me.
We did the jungle training in many different camps with different conditions wich is really good to get as much experience as possible.
There was also a lot of theory content in terms of safety, leadership, presentation etc. included to help beginners becoming a leader and organizing and leading trips. Really good to get into this industry. It’s also good to prove yourself and get a better life experience.
Over all I was able to gather many knowledge and skills that I can use for my private expeditions or for my company.
But this is not a holiday trip! You should be fit, healthy and tough and bring some outdoor and life experience to get the best out of this incredible journey!