Got questions about the Costa Rica program? Because each program and location is different, we have included answers to our most frequently asked questions about Costa Rica. If you don't see your question, or would rather speak to us directly, please feel free to call any time on 1.800.808.2115. For general questions about Lifeworks, please look to our Frequently Asked Questions section.
- What is the main focus of the Costa Rica program?
- How many people go on this program?
- What is our accommodation like?
- Who are the home stay families and how do you choose them?
- Who will be my staff?
- What is the weather like?
- Can I call home?
- How will I pay for calls home?
- How can parents find out what's going on during the program?
- Can I send mail to my student on the program?
- Can I e-mail home from the program?
- Do I need any specific immunizations for this program?
- What about the travel arrangements?
- Can I use frequent flyer miles to get there?
- Do I need a passport or any special visas?
Lifeworks aids the Humanitarian Foundation with its ambitious mission and projects, as well as provide students the opportunity to experience the ecology, culture, and adventure sports of this beautiful country. Service projects include construction for rural schools, direct care and activity leading for children in low income communities, painting projects, beach cleanups for turtle nesting sites, and much more.
Students also spend approximately 5 days living with home stay families, which offers a unique opportunity for cultural exchange and Spanish language study. Adventure activities include white-water rafting, horseback riding, hiking, and ziplining. We also have educational visits to coffee and banana plantations, indigenous cultural reserves, Costa Rica's "mini-Amazon" (including lots of wildlife watching!), and, of course, beach time on both the Caribbean and Pacific coasts!
Session 2 students interested in increasing the fun and adventure of their program, and those students looking for a shorter 7-day program, should consider our Costa Rica Extension. Students have an action packed week of surfing, kayaking, windsurfing, and/or other water and land-based adventure sports.
The Costa Rica programs are two of the larger programs we offer. We maintain a 5:1 student to staff ratio with a maximum of 22 students per program.
Most nights will be spent in beautiful eco-hotels overlooking the San Jose valley. The views are breathtaking, the community safe, and we have easy access to our project locations. For the 5-day home stay portion of the itinerary, we split the team up into gender appropriate groups of 2 to 4. This allows for greater immersion in to the culture and language. Feel free to give us a call for more information on this year's accommodation.
Gail Nystrom, Founder and Director of the Humanitarian Foundation, individually interviews all potential host families. In addition, the foundation has a full-time home stay coordinator in charge of ensuring compatibility between the families and students. Gail has known most of the families for more than 10 years, and most of them have 5+ years of experience working with student volunteers. Additionally, Gail holds monthly meetings with the families to discuss cultural differences, teach a little bit of English, and exchange recipes (especially vegetarian ideas!). She also encourages the families to visit the foundation's project sites to get a sense of the work she does. Many of the families do have children of their own, a lot of them are teens, and some are younger. The families work really hard to make sure the volunteers are comfortable and feeling at home, and pride themselves on their diverse and delicious meals. In the rare occasion that a family and a student volunteer are incompatible, Gail is able to relocate the student immediately. In all her years of working with volunteers, this has only been necessary twice.
Lifeworks maintains a 5:1 student to staff ratio for this program. Our staff travel with the students full-time, available to the students 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Lifeworks students also work closely with Gail, Founder and Director of the Humanitarian Foundation, as well as other foundation workers. For many of the adventure activities, we additionally hire local guides and naturalists, ensuring authentic experiences with the highest safety standards. Take a look through the Staff FAQs for more information on the Lifeworks staff.
Costa Rica lies in the inter-tropical zone, which gives it a relatively stable climate. The main influencing factor in temperature change is altitude. The capital city of San Jose is 2,900 feet above sea level. Temperatures vary from the mid 70s during the day to 60s at night. At this time of year, rains usually occur in the late afternoon or evening. The coasts are hotter - the Caribbean averages 70 at night and over 86 during the day, with the Pacific coast being one or two degrees warmer.
We'll be sending you more information on what to expect (and pack!) after acceptance into the program.
Of course! Generally, the phone system is quite good, and public telephones are found all over Costa Rica. Many of our students find that their cell phones work in Costa Rica as well. However, personal calls can be distracting during program activities and disrupt the group from its goals. Therefore, staff collect cell phones after students call home for the first time on arrival day. We will readily make phones, public and cell, available to the students at appropriate "free time" portions of the itinerary.
The best way to call home is to buy local phone cards. Both CHIP (can be used in blue CHIP public phones) and 199 toll-free number cards (can be used from any touchtone phone) can be purchased at grocery stores, pharmacies, and street stands as well as other places.
The easiest way is for students to place a quick call home to let Mom and Dad know what's going on! Sometimes this doesn't happen though, so we also have a trip update system in which, at the end of each day, the "leader of the day" journals the day's activities and stories in our "program log." When time and local internet service is on our side, we type up student entries and post them, along with photographs, on the Lifeworks website. On certain occasions, we are able to post podcasts as part of these blogs as well.
Letters to Costa Rica will not arrive in time, but just because you can't send any letters doesn't mean that you shouldn't get any yourself! Insist on a postcard from your student from every major location. Even if it just says -- "Hi! I'm swimming under a waterfall below a volcano and you're not! -- HA HA -- love you! -- gotta go!" At least you can look at the pictures and dream...
Many places that we visit and stay have e-mail, so it should be possible to stay in touch this way. The group also makes occasional stops at local internet cafes. However, internet in Costa Rica can sometimes be slow and unreliable. We mention this so parents understand there may be occasions when insisting on an e-mail is not feasible. Lifeworks staff do, though, make every effort possible to provide students opportunities to reconnect with people back home.
As required and recommended vaccinations often change for countries around the world, please visit the CDC's (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) website at www.cdc.gov, and check with your physician or a travel health professional for the most up-to-date information regarding vaccinations for Costa Rica. Please allow plenty of time before your trip (CDC suggests 4-6 weeks) to see your health care provider.
Students come from all points of the compass, so coordinated air travel is of vital importance. For this reason, we ask that all students flying to Costa Rica book through Reservation Services International as they regularly obtain the best fares available, arrange group seating and provide close monitoring on travel days in case of flight difficulties. As airlines often change their schedules, Lifeworks cannot be responsible for the coordination of air flights that are not booked through Reservation Services International.
For those booking through Reservation Services International, a Lifeworks representative will meet the group at Miami International Airport to help with this transfer. In most cases, this representative will also be a guide for the program, so will fly to San Jose with the group. Additionally, it's often possible for us to help families connect with other families in their area to coordinate students flying together on the domestic portions of their itineraries.
For more information on flight itineraries and travel information, please contact...
Leah Hernandez
Reservation Services International
1.800.329.9000
Texas +1.281.528.7727
leahctn68@hotmail.com
We require all of the students to fly together on a specific flight to San Jose. For this reason, using frequent flyer miles, though not impossible, is sometimes difficult for the international portion of the itinerary. Please contact our travel coordinator Leah Hernandez for our flight information to see if it qualifies for your frequent flyer program.
Please visit the Costa Rican section of the U.S. Department of State's, Bureau of Consular Affairs travel.state.gov website or contact the Embassy of Costa Rica in your home country for the most up-to-date information regarding passports and visas. At the time of this writing, U.S. citizens need valid passports with expiration dates 30 days or more after their arrival date in Costa Rica. Tourist visas for U.S. citizens are issued upon arrival.
