Make your ideal student travel experience to Costa Rica a reality!
Costa Rica Explorations has over 15+ years of experience hosting student groups on cross-cultural, Spanish-immersion, adventure-learning experiences in Costa Rica. We are headquartered in both the United States and in Costa Rica, which allows us to be experts in Costa Rica student travel. We are responsible for setting up all in-country logistics and partner with safe, professional and approved in-country partners. We can help arrange international group airfare upon request as well. We are here to help make planning a student trip to Costa Rica a reality!
We are a small organization that is personally involved in every program in order to customize travel for each participating school group. We only run privately contracted courses and limit the amount of programs we offer each year. Each program is assigned two dedicated, professional Costa Rica Explorations guides who will be in charge of logistics and with your group 24 hours a day. This allows host teachers to focus on their students’ experience during travels. Many school and community groups are put at ease knowing we carry a US-based liability insurance policy.
As past classroom educators from the United States ourselves, we understand the expectations and goals for your students and school community. . . and we take pride in helping you integrate your school’s desired curriculum achieve these learning goals.
We understand that coordinating and chaperoning an international travel experience for students is a lot of work, as a reward, Costa Rica Explorations will cover the expense of the host teacher’s program tuition and airfare when 8 fully-paying students are booked on your trip.
Five Steps to Plan a Student Group Trip to Costa Rica
Step 1 – Contact Us to Customize Travel
This will allow us to assess the needs and goals for your group, set ideal program travel dates, select program travel itinerary, identify service project theme, which will enable us to send you personalized material to use to present to the school’s community.
Step 2 – Present and Approve Trip to Administration
We will supply you a link to our Marketing Video, Informational PowerPoint, and downloadable Teacher’s Resource Binder, all of which will contain the information needed to present and market this student travel program to your school’s administration. The binder will include customized information flyers, itineraries, applications and paperwork that you can pass along to the interested participants. A teacher and school reference list, our company’s umbrella insurance policy, and copies of the student protection policies purchased on behalf of each participant are also available upon request.
Step 3 – Hold Informational Meeting for Interested Students and Parents
Once your trip has been approved, the next step is to set a date and hold an Informational Meeting for the program. Our Informational PowerPoint and customized program itineraries provide excellent guides for you to explain the program inclusions to your group. At this meeting you will have interested students sign up and take an application. Deadlines will be set for turning in paperwork and deposits.
Step 4 – Collect Paperwork and Program Deposits
Your group of travelers will follow the paperwork and deposit schedule and turn in all paperwork and deposits to you to mail to our headquarters in the United States where we will process the applications. Some teachers like to plan various student meetings to prep for the trip throughout the school year in order to customize Spanish-language goals, fundraise and get involved in the Community Service aspect of the program before travel. We can help provide curriculum ideas for these meetings.
Step 5 – Pack Your Bags and Travel to Costa Rica
You will hold one last Students and Parent Meeting before heading to Costa Rica where you will present families with the program itinerary, emergency contact number, flight information, packing list, details about service project, student protection plan confirmation of benefits, etc. We will provide you with all of these resources for your to review before your meeting and will be available to answer any questions that may arise.
Throughout the planning process, don’t hesitate to ask us anything! We are here as a resource to you and have seen a lot of scenarios play out in the different schools where we have worked in the past. We have great ideas for fundraising money. Our knowledge should be used to your favor and we are here to provide ideas and creative in the initial stages of planning a trip to Costa Rica.
Please view our Student Applications and Airline Contracts below: