Affordable Sea Turtle & Marine Conservation Programs with IVHQ

2 weeks volunteering in Costa Rica was such an amazing experience thanks for IVHQ. They helped us plan the trip and pick the best time to go. We were so surprised how smoothly everything went as we had a lot of travelling to do to get to our volunteer location. Everything was planned out from the taxi to the bus station to the actual cash we needed to pay for the bus. This made it much less stressful for us volunteering as we didn't have to worry about getting around.
Something that would have been useful though would be to know the charity you are supporting before you go. We would have loved to raise money to give to the charity and promote it before we went. It would have also been useful to have a list of donations we could bring. We got to Costa Rica a day earlier so had the chance to see the city, at this point we could have bought useful items that we used throughout our volunteering such as buckets, gloves etc.
Living in a house with the other volunteers was really fun and we all made friends really quickly. We got weekends free to explore the area and take trips with each other. The work we did was really hard work but it was so rewarding and everyone loved helping out as much as we could.

I was so impressed with this program! From the very beginning (online preparation), we were met with so much guidance and kindness. For a group of girls traveling to Indonesia for the first time, we were so grateful for the assistance. When we arrived in Bali, it only got better! We did a two-week program. The first week was in Ubud. The accommodations were so lovely, the food was great and our leaders were incredible. The first week focused on immersing volunteers in the Balinese culture. We loved this part! It was so wonderful to have informative tours of the monkey forest and rice fields. We also had a traditional cooking lesson and art lesson. It was awesome! My favourite part of the introduction week was visiting the Tirta Empul Tampak Siring - Bali Holy Spring Water Temple. Having a guide was an essential part of this experience for us because we wanted to make sure that we were respecting this sacred space. This experience was life-changing. Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we headed to Nusa Penida for the week of volunteering. The accommodations and food were more basic here, but still quite wonderful! Here, we cleaned beaches, made signs to raise awareness with locals, and went crab catching. Most notably, we got to learn about and work with sea turtles. What amazing creatures! The staff at the turtle conservation were so kind, informative and fun! We got to experience releasing a turtle back into the ocean! It was so cool to be a part of that moment - truly something that I will never forget! We celebrated our new friends and time together with a dinner and bonfire. I would take this trip again in a heartbeat! I recommend it to anyone and everyone who will listen!

This was my first time volunteering abroad, as well as my first time being in Bali. Everything was simply amazing! From it being the accomodation, the food, the CULTURE <3, the people, and the animals! I had such a breathtaking time being able to volunteer while submerging myself in a beautiful island full of luscious nature and rich culture. I have recommended IVHQ and it’s Turtle Coservation program to all of my colleagues and family. I look forward to my next adventure volunteering!

Sampai jumpa Ubud and Nusa Penida!

Life in Bali has not just allowed me to satisfy the wanderlust craving in mine. It has also allowed me to reflect on the life I once lead, and how I should be grateful for the littlest things in life.

With regards to the turtle conservation program, it was a superb one since it combines a 1-week orientation program together with your remaining weeks being put into turtle conservation activities. The 1 week allowed me to settle down, adapt to the culture and life there, and mingle around with other volunteers. Various opportunities to explore around were offered together with simple culture and language classes to ensure that all flows smoothly during our remaining stay. It was indeed a relaxing, zen-like first week which constantly reminds me of my childhood days in Malaysia and how we should strive to preserve all these rich cultures in our respective homelands. It also reminded me about how life should be about interacting with people you meet and not just being on technology most of the time.

Then, with regards to the turtle conservation effort, this really challenged me from the physical and mental aspect. Physical in a sense that a lot of muscle and energy is required to carry buckets of water, transport the turtles around, and wash their enclosures. Mental in a sense that we need to be prepared to get dirty throughout the day with the numerous enclosure cleaning and rubbish collection we do on the beach on the weekdays. Coupled with the scarce resources we have on the island at times, we really had to be appreciative of the littlest things we had. It made the volunteers appreciate each other's presence more, thus leading to banter, card games, and drink nights.

All in all, even though things are not fully developed yet in Bali, it has led me to reminisce about life in the olden days, and to be more grateful than ever with all that we have in our home countries. We must strive to preserve culture, encourage individual interactions, and most importantly help out in causes which are similar to that faced in Bali. :')

While on Bali I also taught environmental education and taught at a kindergarten. But at the turtle conservation you could really tell that a difference was being made as you had concrete tasks like beach cleaning, feeding the turtles, cleaning their tanks and giving them medication. All stuff that had to be done multiple times a day.
The project is also very social as there is not a lot of people compared to Ubud, which means that it is easier to get to know everyone.

I just recently completed the turtle conservation program in Costa Rica. It was by far the best experience of my life! I got to release a nest of 95 baby turtles, plant trees along the beach, do recycling projects, and just overall make a difference in the community. Living arrangements were tight, since there were many volunteers during my stay, but it honestly added to the experience. I learned so much about different cultures and made life long friends. I would recommend this program to anyone with a love for the environment and looking to make a change.

I have travelled all my life and I've been all over the world, but nothing compares to my volunteer experience in Costa Rica! I spent 6 weeks volunteering in an orphanage, on a coffee plantation and on the Caribbean coast in the turtle conservation program, and nothing is as rewarding as travelling and working as a volunteer, it is so rewarding! You stay with local families and the cultural exchange is so enriching, the volunteer work is a blessing to every community I went to, helping them financially and also making them feel that someone really cares and that their wellbeing does make a difference. Working with the kids was an amazing experience because I felt so much love coming back to me from them , I never expected that and I left with tears in my eyes! I also loved working on the coffee farm, it was a very small organic farm that did not have the means to buy big machinery to sell their coffee commercially and make lots of money, instead they relied on us volunteers to help them and in the meantime also helping them financially by paying them for room and board, the farmer's family expressed their gratitude to all of us volunteers and they really made us feel very welcome! The coffee farm was located in the cloud forest of Montaverde, right in the middle of some spectacular nature! My last 2 weeks of volunteer work were spent at the Caribbean coast on the turtle conservation project, and again here I felt like I could really make a difference because without volunteers coming to help patrol the beaches and stay with local families and thus helping them make an alternative income, these turtles would already have been extinct by poaching, since these poor communities used to kills the turtles and sell their eggs to make a living and now they get an alternative source of income and are willing to contribute to the conservation of the leatherback and green turtles. Seeing these turtles crawl out of the sea onto the beach at night to lay their eggs made such an impression on me, what beautiful, amazing creatures these are and I felt such gratitude that I could experience this and am hoping that my children and grandchildren will also be able to see these creatures in their natural habitat just like I did!
Thanks you so much IVHQ for all your support to make these 6 weeks a success and I can only recommend this organization to anyone considering volunteer work abroad!

It was my first time ever leaving the country and I went all by myself. I told myself not to expect anything and go with an open mind, and because I did that I had the BEST experience of my lifetime. Being on the actual job site was my favorite part. Going out for 4 hours every night and tracking turtles and getting a hands on experience with animals I hand't ever dreamed of getting to work with was truly amazing. I learned so much in so little and now I go back and chat everyones ears off about sea turtles. Myself and two others were also selected to help national marine biologists on their Olive Ridley study done in Ostional, Costa Rica. Which means I got to be a part of for something that I had no idea was even an opportunity. I also learned and experienced so much of the Costa Rican culture because I wasn't staying at a resort or anything fancy. It taught me about life, experience, and what it really means to travel.