Gap Year in Costa Rica
filed in Costa Rica on May.13, 2009
What makes Costa Rica a HOT HOT HOT destination for Gap years? Let The Leap list the ways…
1. Culture
Costa Ricans, also knows as ‘Ticos’ are notoriously warm and welcoming people and make the country a fantastic destination for gap years. Whether it’s coaxing unsuspecting Leapers out of their seats for a bout of traditional boogying-on-down, or sharing their wonderful culture and home life with volunteers, Costa Rica’s unspoilt hospitality makes for gap year you’ll never forget.
Leapers teach English to local kids...
...and help in the organic dairy farm!
The best way to understand Costa Rican culture is to become part of a village, living and working alongside local people, making real friends and helping with community and conservation development.
The Leap offers volunteers a gap year in Costa Rica to remember, join a team for 6-10 weeks and you’ll help members of the El Silencio Cooperative community with organic farming projects, teaching and care of their rescued exotic animals in a wildlife refuge.
Live with a real family and make friends for life (not to mention ‘adoptive’ Costa Rican parents, brother sand sisters!). Because El Silencio is a cooperative, it’s members work together and share their profits equally, which gives the village a wonderful atmosphere and close knit community.
2. Environment
Choosing a gap year in Costa Rica you get alotta for your dollar! Though the country is fairly small it boasts an incredible array of different environments and eco-systems, with both Caribbean and Pacific coastlines, Tropical Rainforest, Cloud forest, thundering rivers and placid lakes, some of the world’s most spectacular volcanic landscapes, Arenal, one of the world’s most beautiful active volcanoes and the wide open cowboy territory to the north.
What more could you ask for!
3. Wildlife
Considered to be one of the most bio-diverse regions in the world, anyone taking a gap year in Costa Rica might as well be backpacking in the garden of Eden. It’s suggested that the country supports over half a million species including jaguar, sloths, toucans, macaws, tree frogs, butterflies, howler monkeys and myriad bird species.
One of the reasons for Costa Rica’s extraordinary wildlife is the country’s great variety of habitats: rain forests, mangrove swamps, beaches, cloud forest, rivers, etc. And any two of those ecosystems, with their resident animal species, are often only a short distance apart.
A rescued monkey makes it's way to the Wildlife rescue centre
...with a little help from our volunteers!
Volunteers with The Leap spend some of their time on the project helping to care for orphaned and rescued animals in the community Wildlife Centre. The centre houses tropical birds and mammals that have been injured or abandoned, or rescued from the illegal pet trade. If you want to spend your gap year in Costa Rica learning about it’s wildlife and making a difference in a practical way, join a Leap team and get stuck in!
4. Ecotourism
When it comes to conservation the Costa Ricans really know their stuff, boasting more conservation areas per square meter than any other country. With 20 National Parks, 8 biological reserves and a number of wildlife refuges Costa Rica has developed an approach to tourism that works with and not against nature.
From Totuguero Park, made famous by the many thousands of sea turtles that nest there each year to the dripping wet cloud forests of Monte Verde where visitors can fly through the jungle canopy on zip wires, Costa Rica has enough to keep Attenborough in business until the end of his days! Choose to take your Gap Year in Costa Rica with The Leap and you’ll be living on the edge of pristine rainforest, close to Manuel Antonio National Park- a coastal forest reserve teeming with Monkeys and colourful Macaw parrots that you can observe from the comfort of your beach towel.
Manuel Antonio = Beach Heaven!
Check out the national Parks you could visit in a Gap Year in Costa Rica…
5. Adventure
Costa Rica is one of our top destinations for Adventure activites and offers water sports and adrenaline thrills that are hard to beat! Take a gap year in Costa Rica with The Leap and you can spend your weekends white water rafting on the Savegre River (Class III), fishing, surfing the best breaks on the Pacific, taking jungle canopy tours on zip wires (!), visiting unspoilt beaches of Dominical, Matapalo and El Rey, horse riding and visits to the Manuel Antonio National Park…and that’s before you’ve even completed your Leap placement, most of our volunteers decide to stay on in Costa Rica and travel independently with the friends they’ve made on the team.
Make like Tarzan and Zip through the trees
6. Health and Safety
Costa Rica is one of the safest countries we send volunteers to, with peaceful politics (attributed to the fact that the country abolished the military 50 years ago) good infrastructure and an excellent free education and health care system. Volunteers are often surprised by how ‘westernised’ Costa Rica feels and how developed it’s tourism network seems.
The Leap runs a safety awareness course prior to departure for volunteers taking a gap year to Costa Rica, with practical travel tips and advice. Leapers also have a project leader to look after them in the community and our hosts in San Jose will make sure you’re picked up from the airport and escorted safely when travelling.
So, if you want a gap year destination that welcomes you with open arms, gives you the adventure of a life time and stays true to the ethics of eco-tourism, offering a totally tropical experience that makes a minimal impact on the environment then a gap year in Costa Rica is for you!
Check out The Leap’s Summer and gap year placements in Costa Rica now!
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