GVI レビュー 1,093

The teaching program in Madagascar is very well organised, I had a lovely time teaching. Loads of pocket money is necessary to go through the experience. People that don´t have access to large financial resources end up cutting the program short or being very sad, as they can´t participate in (or organise) any activities during their free time. To clarify, in my opinion, one has to “rich” to fully enjoy this. Otherwise you’re stuck on base with instant noodles. Meanwhile, the way you manage your free time and whether or not you make friends impacts a good 90% of the experience.

This year, my 15-year-old son participated in the GVI U-18 program (volunteer program) held in Nepal for the first time.

I was worried about my son travelling to Nepal alone, but I now feel that the interactions he had with his fellow participants in the program and the people he met through local volunteer activities have helped him grow even more.

The first half of the two-week program focused on volunteer activities, where he learned the importance of helping others. The second half involved a three-day trek through the foothills of the Himalayas. Despite the harsh weather, they encouraged each other and finally reached their destination, where they were greeted by the breathtaking natural scenery of the Himalayas. This experience left him with an unforgettable sense of accomplishment and a memory that will stay with him forever.

This wonderful experience was made possible thanks to the GVI staff who explained everything about the program and the support of the local GVI staff in Nepal. While it takes a great deal of courage for any parent to send their child abroad alone for a program, we are overjoyed that my son was able to gain this once-in-a-lifetime experience through this program.

Special thanks to Ms. Jamie, GVI Support Coordinator, who helped and supported us throughout the application process and Mr. Tara, GVI Country Manager in Nepal, who looked after our kids through the two weeks. Thank you very much!!

I had an amazing experience volunteering in Costa Rica. The staff were really friendly and supportive and we did lots of fun and memorable activities.

My 17 year old went to Costa Rica - having gone to Mexico in 2024. She had an unforgettable experience visiting beautiful locations, observing unique wildlife, getting up close to turtles and giving back via volunteering in the local communities and beach clean ups. Lots to include on her personal statement for university and experiences to share in university interviews - well worth it!

Please please please do not send money to this organization. They cancelled my daughter’s trip 5 weeks before she was due to start in Mexico and are refusing to refund the money I paid to them, starting in February this year. Having chased them to ask for the refund of the first payment, made in February, which according to their 180 day refund policy is due this week, they have just written to me to tell me that the 180 days starts from the date I requested the refund (which was the day they cancelled the trip), so now they are saying November for the refund. None of this was my fault, it was entirely their doing and I am still hugely out of pocket (not to mention the lost cost of flights and insurances that I have not been able to get refunded as the changes made by GVI were too late). They will say ‘we didn’t tell you to book flights so early’ I think 5 weeks before a trip to Mexico for a 15 year old is certainly not unreasonably early - some would say I left it a bit late…really shocked at how an organization that promotes itself as one that meets UN sustainability goals can get away with behaving like this.

My daughter Lilly who is 18 and Autistic decided she wanted to go out to Ghana to volunteer. I was lucky enough to have a friend whose daughter had been with GVI the previous year.
I can highly recommend going with GVI the support is commendable, there is no silly question and no question unanswered. We were fully supported throughout the whole process. We booked a year in advance as the whole experience is quite pricey with the fee, flights, visa and vaccinations, but they worked out a payment plan which was affordable to me.
I felt my daughter was going to be 100% supported and kept safe and she was.
Lilly has had the most amazing and memorable time of her life, not only doing good for the children of Kokrobite, Ghana but making friends for life, giving her the self worth she is, the confidence to progress, and the footing to progress with travelling.
The Base she stayed at was homely and welcoming. She staff was friendly and always on hand to chat about anything. The gardens were beautiful surrounded with fruit trees.
Lilly is planning to go out there again next Summer and can highly recommend GVI.
The programme Lilly participated in was the Education with primary school children.

My experience with the actual on site (Costa Rica) GVI employees was great. They, and the locals, were very kind and the chef made great food. However, I was told I should have received a a discount as I referred a friend who was on the same trip as me. She has completed and received a discount, it was just me who was not given it. When complaining in December I was told I was owed £500 and this would be refunded to me.
It has been 8 months of waiting patiently and chasing up the money but I do not receive and response from GVI anymore so I’ve had to resort to Trustpilot! It’s kind of ridiculous that they’re blatantly ignoring me after agreeing I was owed this in emails.

I went on the South Africa trip, and I couldn't recommend it more. The program leaders were incredibly passionate and approachable, and none of us wanted to leave.

Misleading advertisement, harsh upscale of price in comparison to other services

I booked for my daughter to go on a Dugong marine conservation trip in Thailand. Unfortunately the whole trip that she went on was not accurately described on the website and it felt as though the sales team would do anything to have my daughter commit to the programme. Here are the issues.

1. The trip originally was advertised as being located in Ao Nang when she booked. The camp had since moved to Trang. A member of the team called her up to say that the trip had moved to Trang. However not knowing what this meant she said it was ok but when she went on the induction, she saw that the Trang site was not offering the same programme as in Ao Nang and the accommodation did not look as nice.

2. When she found out from other GVI attendees about Trang they had told her that the Trang camp is indeed on the beach but the sea is full of jellyfish which makes it impossible to swim. This obviously is not described in the brochure. There is also virtually nothing to do in Trang, it is very much a backwater. I would not recommend staying more than one night there.

3. My daughter was allowed to switch back to Ao Nang camp, and GVI said that the same programmes would be offered there so they would not have to refund. However there were no marine conservation programmes offered at the Ao Nang camp. The company that runs the conservation project mainly deals with beach cleanups and forest and seedling care. While this is good for some clients, this was not what was advertised originally and definitely not the original programme. The team that are running the conservation project have said that the GVI sales team often go above and beyond to promise potential participants stuff to lure them onto the project. This is not fulfilled and there are many unhappy participants on the project who are not getting what they came for. When I spoke to GVI about this, they said it was my daughter's decision to change camps so of course she would not be getting what she had originally booked onto. This response subverted what the team had said to my daughter when she was thinking of cancelling and asking for a refund.

4. Accommodation is basic which is what was advertised however please take into account that what GVI are offering is a bunk bed in a dorm and you can get that for around £6-10 a night in Ao Nang. So they are making quite a bit of profit on that.

5. The team don't like me to be in contact with them. I am the person that paid for the trip and my daughter is a YP who may not have so much experience of these types of businesses. However I have to say that unless you are wanting to work in conservation as a profession, GVI is not really the place for you and you are being charged through the nose for something that can be booked directly yourself, with a better environment and helping the local companies. This is without GVI skimming off a large amount of the profit.

As a result I do not recommend GVI except if you like to spend about £1K to £2K more than you should be paying for volunteering on a conservation project. I am very sad to be writing this review but it has been such a disappointing experience given the rave reviews that we saw on trustpilot before ours.

Such an amazing experience where i met life long friends and gained so much knowledge. Everyday was packed with new opportunities to help the turtles as well as presentations so we can inderstand our impact!

Will overcharge you and then ignore you for weeks, then lie about payments due. The whole thing feels very dodgy. No support when I am emailing, and fees seem to be made up at a whim. My friend has been charged more than me for an identical trip and no one can tell us why.

Also the bring a friend discount comes as a refund which takes a year to arrive… so I very much doubt I will see that money. also feels very dodgy.

Would recommend The Great Projects instead, great customer service and feels professional and safe.

What an incredible experience this has been I did the school program in the Maldives for 1 week and then 3 weeks still in the Maldives on the sports program I have learned now skills and met amazing people along the way an experience I would recommend to any person that wants to experience this kind of thing and my advice for anyone interested is just do it and go for it and every opportunity you get on it take it cause for me this meant swimming with whale sharks Manta rays turtles reef sharks boat rides seeing dolphins going to other islands to watch volleyball games just an experience of a lifetime that will never be forgotten. Thank you GVI

A life changing experience for my 16 year old son: big game spotting, conservation work and immersion in the local culture. A huge thank you to Norman, Michelle and the team for organising.

IMPORTANT: I am writing this as a genuine warning about GVI, in an attempt to prevent this from happening to others. In 2022, I paid them over $9000 for a project in Belize, which was to take place in the Spring of 2023. In the Fall of 2022, I was informed that the project was postponed until 2024. In the Fall of 2023, I was informed that the project was cancelled altogether and that I had the option of choosing a different program or receiving a full refund. I chose the latter. I was then informed that it would take 6 months for me to receive my refund (which I thought was odd), i.e. February 28, 2024. It is now almost 18 months later, and I have received a total of $867. I have made numerous phone calls. I have sent many e-mails. I have spent hours researching the company, to try to ascertain who the key players are and where they are located. I made a complaint to the Better Business Bureau. I sent registered letters from a lawyer, to 3 different GVI locations, and they all came back undelivered. Essentially, they are ghosting me by dodging every attempt I have made to contact them. This is tantamount to THEFT and, at best, it demonstrates that GVI lacks integrity. I advise you not to trust them with your money.

Not worth the money you pay: accommodation and food is very-very basic, not as advertised. Also not sure how much actually of volunteering was done. It felt not much knowledge was gained in this program. The only valuable part in this experience was to meet new friends.

I went to the GVI Sea Turtle & Marine Conservation Teen Volunteering in Kefalonia. I’m 16 and want to be a marine biologist, so I joined to learn about marine life. Online it promised turtles, conservation work, and proper teaching. Reality? Absolutely not. And I paid £3,000 for this.

They don’t show the accommodation online for a reason. We slept in filthy tents with little to no privacy, some on paper thin mattresses where you felt the dirt. Councillors came in at any time, even while we were changing, despite being asked not to. Toilets were literally a hole in the ground. The nearest proper bathroom was a 10-minute walk away and off-limits after 10pm. The ones we could use were public, with strangers walking in and out. The kitchen was crawling with cockroaches, completely unhygienic.

We couldn’t walk anywhere alone. Not even to the playground a minute away or the “reception” (3 minutes away with drinks and ice cream) without at least two councillors following us. This was in a gated community with 24/7 monitoring yet we still had zero freedom or privacy, which was awful as a 16-year-old.

I also got injured early on, something to do with my knee, and they refused to let me participate in any activities. Instead of offering alternatives, they made me pay for taxis (about €20 each way) just to sit and watch everyone else. I spent over €150 on taxis alone and still missed more than half the activities I’d paid for.

And the turtles? In two weeks I saw about five, all from a public harbour we visited once. No eggs, no hatchlings, nothing like the website showed. The 4am “beach patrols” found nothing, and the staff couldn’t answer basic marine biology questions. Any “data” we collected would be useless, no serious conservation group would rely on untrained teenagers for scientific accuracy.

I went through two weeks of awful conditions, no privacy, injury, extra costs, and no actual conservation work. Complete waste of time and money.

Very helpful staff and wonderful biodiversity in the tropics.

It was sound at kekoldi Costa rica, all the staff are brilliant they actually do give a shit about the project and also about you as a participant and that really shines through. You'll make some good friends too and see some cool stuff. Would recommend. Thank you

I did the Wildlife Conservation Internship in Kekoldi and it was probably the best four weeks of my life. It was communicated well that it would be very physically demanding and at times it really could be, despite that it was still incredibly fun. I learned so much from the staff and even some of the participants about animals and even a bit about the culture of the people around us. I really felt at home being there with so many people with similar interests and just a really accepting atmosphere. The food may not have been the best to most people’s standards but it was pretty good considering we were that far in the jungle and with the amount of people he would feed each day. The sleeping accommodations weren’t an issue for me, I really was only in there to sleep, I spent all my time out on the balcony or in the dining area with friends. The rules all made sense as well and were communicated with me before I arrived, such as cold showers, and limited electric. I didn’t expect a lavish lifestyle coming into this and that’s fine with me. Instead I got an amazing experience not everyone has a chance to get. What I didn’t expect were the friends I made. I didn’t expect to get so close with so many people so quickly. Not once did I ever feel alone or lonely either at base or on the weekends. We’d always be watching a show on the balcony (if there’s WiFi), playing games downstairs, or watching watching birds from the dining area, it could get boring at times, but I definitely enjoyed every second I was there. I always felt safe around them and had some of the greatest weekends of my life. Honestly the worst thing about this trip were watching my friends leave or leaving them. This trip has taught me so much about myself and the world around me and made me realize I’m not limited to my little town back in America and pursuing a career in conservation is actually possible without a degree. I can’t wait till I can schedule my next program with GVI.

For anyone who’s thinking about going to Kekoldi:
Don’t do this trip if you expect some easy hikes and a lavish lifestyle, you’re in the middle of the jungle. However you’ll make lifetime memories and have so much fun. You’ll see some of the most amazing sights you’ve ever seen and make the greatest friends. Go on surveys and go down to town on weekends. Take advantage of every moment you have there, it’s all worth it as long as you put effort into it and come here with an open mind.