£6490 Camps International trip

[saskia80]

Has anyone's child done the Camps International Ecuador and Galapagos trip? The cost is £6490 but with jabs and extras is likely to be nearer £8000. They have 16 months to raise the money. The presentation made the kids think the fundraising wouldn't be too hard despite the fact our town is in the 10% most deprived in the country. My child is very torn over the idea as would love to go but knows it's a mammoth amount to raise. My biggest concern is the mental health impact of having financial deadlines looming over them. If they miss a payment the trip is lost without refund. Not something 13 year old should be worrying about. Also massively hypocritical when the school doesn't allow non uniform days so poor kids don't feel left out! Meanwhile Camps International are turning over £17 million per year

These trips are outrageous, and we did not entertain them for our own DC. They teach nothing of value and are a scam in our opinion. Do not feel bad, we could have afforded it but didn't. They've got the rest of their lives to travel.

For me, that would be a big teaching moment... To educate my child against being ripped off by greedy companies looking to target them.

Id then explain that for 8 grand, we could pay for a great holiday for the entire family, or for 8 grand they could have a gap year and travel far further and in more exciting ways if they aren't giving a load of it to this company.

Come up with a more reasonable travel plan together with them, and let them forget being ripped off.

Wowzers that’s a huge amount. My DC both did something similar, for half the amount so still a lot of money. They went after GCSEs and for only 2 weeks. One went to Malaysia, in the jungle, and came home completely humbled, left all their clothes with the local kids who had nothing of their own, won’t touch anything with palm oil having seen the de-forestation and wildlife impact, and came home with an awful bug that took months to get rid of. They doubtedly had a thought provoking time. The other went to South America and although it wasn’t the same hard day to day experience, they still came home with some unusal experiences that we as a family wouldn’t ever replicate (they’re very well travelled kids).

So I generally support these types of trips. I think I’d question the need for 4 weeks at only age 15. £8,000 is a huge amount. My DC missed out on all secondary school trips because of COVID and an apathetic year group so I didn’t mind the cost of ours.

I think it would be a “no” from me.

£8000?

NO!

It's ridiculous and bonkers. Wouldn't even consider it. £8000 for a teenager's trip is a scam.

And fundraising will be extremely hard! No matter what these companies tell your children or you. £8000 is £500 a month to either fundraise or save up for a trip like this if you have 16 months.£500!

If you get minimum wage as 21 yo you'll need to work full time for 4 months or so for having £8000 in hand.
It't really a crazy amount of money for most people.

I would buy a £2 cake at a fundraising stall and a £2 coffee - and that would be it if I was asked to put in a fundraising pot for a teenage trip like this. It's a lot of work to organise and carry out though and the children need to attend school. It's in their spare time.

I would pay the minimum wage of £8 an hour for 16/17 yo if they want to make money for a trip but they would need to do a proper job. It's many hours of babysitning, cleaning or gardering!

I wouldn't expect a lot of people to just hand over £ to fund a £8000 teenager's trip. Cost of Living 2026 is a real issue for many.

I would not sponsor a kid to take a trip like that. It’s outrageously greedy to think others should fund an adventure of a lifetime.

I agree with others. £8k raised for a hospice charity or something similar I could get behind the target and would support as much as I can. But £8k for one young person to have an experience they could fubd themselves when older then no.

No way. Neither of mine wanted to do these trips as their friends weren’t.

Dd backpacked rounds Central America with a friends for 4 months for less than that.

I really wish schools didn’t allow these companies in. Your child won’t be able to raise 8k. Some family and friends will begrudgingly chip
in a few quid but that’s it.

Completely agree.

It's not great asking kids to spend hours fundraising for a holiday. Why would others want to sponsor someone to have a holiday? As PP has said, you could take the whole family somewhere very cool for that money.

Why would people donate money to pay for a holiday for your child? I've seen people trying up raise money for these trips & it's a nightmare.
I'd far rather give my money to a genuine charity rather than a commercial company pretending to do good work.
I recently went on an upmarket trip to the same area & spent nowhere near that sort of money, including excellent hotels, all my food & premium economy travel.

I’d not heard of these and would probably be gullible enough to say yes, thanks for posting this.

Looks like a rip off.

I haven’t heard of these camps - are they similar to Camp America? I’ve heard of Camp America and would be keen on that or similar - but not at £8k!

I agree it sounds like a scam.

it also seems very young. I would have thought 17 was a better age for this type of thing as opposed to 15

As I always say on these threads, bear in mind that half the cost (£3,245) is the company’s profit. Out of the remaining £3,245 is taken the total cost of paying for the teachers accompanying the trip, probably between £1,000 and £1,500 per student depending on the number of students and teachers going. So the remaining £1,745 - £2,245 is what will be spent by the company on your child’s trip.

The good news is the trip is so
expensive most families will just say hard no and most teens just want to do what their mates are doing so ours weren’t bothered about going either.

Not unless you’re willing to cover the shortfall yourself. Surely people won’t donate that much for your child to go on a holiday?

A family member was second in charge of this camps International trip this summer. She was paid £1200 for the whole trip-outrageous

They did this trip at my DC's school when my youngest was in 6th form. My DC knows and shares my views on trips like this and showed no interest in going but a few of their friends went. By the sounds of things they had a lovely holiday and saw some fascinating things. If it had been marketed as just a straightforward holiday I might have contemplated DC going but I have pretty strong ethical objections to voluntourism and think the fundraising aspect of these trips is a sham. I'll happily support fundraisers for genuine good causes but not for mainly privileged young people to go on holiday with a commercial company who dress their activities up with allegedly vital projects. 🙄
We live in a fairly small community and there were multiple kids all holding coffee mornings and doing car washes for the same thing. People got fed up of it. I think most of the parents and extended families ended up doing a lot of the work and/or subsidising their children's efforts. It's not a level playing field - pupils from better off families where grandparents will make a thousand pound donation to their Go Fund Me are obviously going to find it a lot easier to reach their target than those from less affluent backgrounds.
I'm all for travel, and if families can afford to fund expensive trips to far flung places then that's great for them - the young people will benefit I'm sure. The Galapagos Islands look absolutely amazing and I'm sure it is an enjoyable and educational experience. But I object to such things being dressed up as "good works" and sold as being accessible to all when they are nothing of the sort. As I say, my DC didn't ask but I would have said no of they had.

This is insane and disgusting. I hope all parents boycott this.

As well as asking how on earth they can fund that, I would also be asking if the children should be having that much of a distraction from school. That’s a huge sun of money to raise on a holiday of a lifetime

At that age surely they would be better off spending the fund raising time studying?

Absolute madness. Do NOT let yourself or your 13-year-old get sucked into this.
You are completely right and your instincts are 100% spot on. F
Point out that for £8k, they could do a proper, independent gap year at 18 for a fraction of the cost—without a corporate middleman taking a massive cut.

I don't think it's fair to tout these kinds of trips in schools where the cost puts them out of reach of the vast majority.
I am sure that those who go on them learn from their experiences.
But for most kids, if their families can't afford to stump up directly, or they don't live in an area where it would be easy and supported for the kids to raise it in sponsorship it is just dangling something unnattainable.
There are other ways for kids to have their horizons opened, experience different cultures and lives, give back to communities.
If you can't afford to pay, say at least half, I would say it's not an option.

For context, a 10 week similar trip to Borneo with Raleigh International is £5,250. The difference being that once they are 18 they don’t have to have chaperones, child protection etc.

I agree that the fundraising is ridiculously hard. Some children at my daughter’s school had to raise £4k for a World Challenge DofE trip. This is a naiiice private school. Every single one of them needed the amount topping up by their parents. There was actually negativity around a lot of their fundraising activities as it feels like you want other people to pay for your exciting (but very expensive) holiday.

Use it as a way to start looking at programmes they can do once they are 18. Camp America, Raleigh International etc and they can start saving for those with none of the pressure of a time limit or an obligation to fundraise.