Sea Turtle & Marine Conservation Volunteer Programs with IVHQ

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.

I signed up for 6 weeks..
I ended up doing one week of intro, one week of teaching, one week of construction and one week of turtle conservation..i decided to take off the remaining two weeks to explore and do some trekking.
Overall it was an awesome experience.. It was a great program to get out of my comfort zone, talk and meet new people.
As for the programs, it was definitely a lot of money for what you got to experience. For example, the construction program was an additional $50 per week, which they say covered the supplies and concrete, but there were about 15 people working on the same project during one week. Thats a lot of money for a bunch of bricks and concrete. Plus the project wasn't that organized as many of us were just standing around for half the time.
The teaching project was not that organized as well. We weren't given ciriculim and were responsible for teaching whatever we felt like each day. Sometimes the students had already learned it.
Overall the teaching was challenging but I think it was a good experience in that it taught me to think on the go, and improvise.
The turtle project was probably the most fun. We got to feed the turtles twice a day, clean their tanks, pick crabs/seaweed and on the Friday, we got to release a turtle. It wasn't that much work since there were so many people doing the same project at once, but the turtle project was the most memorable. Also the food was a bit better than in ubud. There was also a cafe on the beach that you could go to if you got hungry during the day.

Overall I wouldn't say I made a huge difference, as I only did each program for a week. It would have been nice to have stuck to one program, but on the other hand I'm glad I did a variety of tasks while in Bali.

Life moves slowly in Costa Rica ... so does service work. Although we didn't do much work during the day (and spent it mostly with host families, other volunteers, or on excursions in the area, I loved the night patrols - 4 hours each night. Although most nights were very dark, some during rainstorms, I really enjoyed the walk on the beach. Although exhausting walking through soft sand, tripping over stumps and branches, and, on occasion, getting soaked by a rogue wave, nothing could be more rewarding than running into (literally, sometimes almost stepping over) a nesting leatherback sea turtle. Their impressive size and methodical nesting ritual are like no other, and the work of relocating the nests to hide from poachers meant a lot to me and the other volunteers. As frustrating as it would be to find some of our relocated nests poached, or of nests we missed beating the poachers to, I felt we were truly helping make a little impact in increasing the odds of survival of the turtles. More importantly, however, I felt our presence and work in the community contributed to helping show the value that's placed on conservation work like this to the community, and hopefully poaching practices will be nonexistent in the near future.

Absolutely amazing experience with IVHQ and their local coordinators Green Lion. The first week is the orientation programme, where activities include language lessons, cooking class, temple visits and rice field treks. There is enough free time to explore Ubud and you also have the weekend free - I did the Mount Batur sunrise trek (highly recommended!). On the 2nd Monday you are transported to Nusa Penida and start your volunteer programme. The food on Nusa Penida is really good, better than Ubud! The accommodation is slightly more basic but there is wifi! Everyday activities are normally turtle feeding and cleaning (tanks and turtles) and seaweed collection at 9am - 11am, lunch served at 12pm, either beach cleaning or teaching at the local school 2pm - 4pm, turtle feeding again at 5pm. You teach on tuesdays, wednesdays and thursdays for two hours - this is compulsory but is very enjoyable! Some children don't have pens and paper, if you are volunteering here for a long time I would recommend bringing resources with you from the mainland to make things easier for yourself! You have weekends free to do whatever you want, the local coordinators can organise boats to take you to other islands if you want. I would recommend this programme to anyone! You are very hands on with the turtles everyday and it is very rewarding seeing the difference you make whilst cleaning and collecting food for them! I wish I could have done this for twice as long, an amazing experience :)

Bali is an incredibly beautiful country and the best place to volunteer!! I had the time of my life staying on Nusa Penida, working at the Turtle conservation. This is a fairly new program and is improving day by day. I got hands on experience with the turtles, feeding and cleaning them and also cleaning their tanks. At the start of the program we had two days of presentations where the coordinators explained few things about the turtles and the kind of work we would be doing there. The volunteer house is situated two minutes from the beach which was very convenient and we spent most of our free time swimming and chilling on the beach.

From Tuesday to Thursday we taught at the local school on Nusa Penida. We taught them basic English, starting from numbers, animals and colours to writing and forming sentences. It was difficult teaching the students due to the language barrier but it was rewarding to know that we were making a difference. Every two or three weeks we had the chance of releasing some turtles and this was the most rewarding part of the program. It was truly amazing to see the turtles go back to their natural habitats.

The coordinators were all very helpful and made me feel at home in no time. I made so many friends on this program and it was always fun exploring the rest of Bali on the weekends! There are so many things to see in Bali so you'll never have a boring weekend.

The volunteer house is fairly new so don't expect the best of accommodations. Nusa Penida is not a touristy place so it is very quiet and there's not much to do at night. There is a beach cafe close to the house which is where we mostly spent our nights drinking beers and playing card games. It's a very chill place so if you're looking for a relaxing holiday while volunteering, this is the perfect place!