Help protect turtles in an unique protected area famous for its nesting turtles. In one of the areas we work in on the Nicoya Peninsula, they reported over 5,000 turtle nests during the period of June to November 2008. Raleigh has been invited to help with the turtle egg collection and hatchery, construct a trail that runs behind the beach and plant trees to reforest the area behind the beach. Living on this stunning beach and interacting with these stunning creatures will be a once in a lifetime experience.

You could also be based in one of Costa Rica's National Parks, where volunteers live and work alongside park rangers to help maintain and improve the national parks. These environmental projects are hugely important in helping to preserve natural resou rces and habitats and protect important species of plants and animals.

For further examples of volunteer projects you may be working on, please see our website. Please be aware that these may change and are just a guide to the types of environmental projects we work on during a Raleigh expedition.

Raleigh is a youth charity that inspires people from all walks of life, nationalities and ages to get out there and rise to the challenges of life on expedition. We run programmes in Borneo, Costa Rica & Nicaragua and India. Our expeditions are a challenging, but extremely rewarding combination of sustainable community, environmental and adventure projects.

We run different length gap year expeditions throughout the year to fit your study or work patterns. Choose from our unique 10 week (with 3 and a half and 7 week shorter options) or 5 week expeditions. You will be working with other young people from all around the world, our volunteer managers (aged 25+) and local skilled workers.

Combine your environmental project with an adventure and community phase on our challenging, unique 10-week expeditions!