Family volunteering holidays overseas

On one of our bestselling family volunteering trips, you child is given full responsibility for a baby monkey for 24 hours – feeding and caring for it, its life quite literally in their hands. That’s the kind of experience our family volunteering holidays offer: the chance to truly effect change as an individual. It’s an empowering experience for both children and adults. Working together, whether you’re planting trees or helping baby turtles get to the sea, you can bond, get confidence, and make those all-important core memories.

We offer many conservation trips – both wildlife and marine – where you’ll work with researchers and conservationists. Slightly younger children who might not be ready for the great outdoors will thrive on our animal welfare volunteering holidays, where you spend your days at a sanctuary or rehabilitation centre instead, helping cats and dogs, or wild animals like orangutans, elephants and bears who sadly cannot be released into the wild. What we don’t offer is any kind of orphanage volunteering, which is often exploitative, or volunteering in animal ‘sanctuaries’ that expect animals to perform for tourists.

As a rule, volunteering holidays tend to suit families with slightly older children. They can be brilliant for teenagers looking for, say, a Duke of Edinburgh residential or some experience relevant to their career ambitions. Volunteering with elephants in Thailand, for example, is for children over the age of 14, and horse rehabilitation in South Africa is suitable for kids aged 12 and over. Younger children benefit too – but as a rule we’ve found that children older than 10 get the most out of trips, as they can take lessons learnt away into their daily lives. That being said, children as young as eight can take part in turtle conservation or volunteering with primates.

Your family volunteering trip might start with a Zoom call – where you’ll meet a programme manager who can talk everyone through what to expect from the trip. You’ll usually volunteer from Monday to Friday and have weekend days off, and you might wish to extend your stay at either side of your volunteering so that you can have some downtime. Accommodation is usually basic but comfortable. You may be staying in a local community – a great way to get to know the guardians of the environment in which you are operating. What to wear is important. If you’re working with animals and nature, expect to get a bit mucky, and if you’re staying in a community, there may be cultural dress codes to follow.