Camps International Expedition

[SoulMole]

I might be getting ahead of myself here as the meeting for parents is this week, but…

My son’s school are running a Camps International expedition to Peru in 2026, when he will be 15. The cost is absolutely eye watering. He is very keen to go and we are minded to try and make it happen, although they money will be difficult for us to find. He’s not a super sporty / popular kind. More nerdy. But he has been going on camps with scouts and cadets since he was very young and never gives us a backward glance. He has no siblings and he can be a little self-absorbed, so we feel it would be good for him to be involved in conservation and community projects to appreciate what he has. As well as a great experience overall. He loves getting stuck in to ‘helping’ with anything and is intent on going.

So, a couple of questions.

Has your child done one of these expeditions, and what was your view on the enterprise and how the trip was organised?

How feasible is it to fundraise a chunk of the costs? They’ve made the kids feel that this is quite viable. I am not as sure.

Thanks for reading.

Anyone? ⛺️

A bit off topic but if he's in scouting already, I would have a look at the costs for Scout expeditions and compare prices/duration with what the school offers.

Check with your county HQ if you aren't sure - they should know of various county and national expeditions. My area has scout trips to the Australian jamboree, Ghana and Madagascar amongst others. There is also the next World Scout Jamboree in Poland, plus closer to home European adventures which are a bit cheaper.

Can't speak for the school option but I know scouts fundraise for these types of trips.

That's a good point, thanks. The group he goes to are awful for organising and communicating but I do sometimes get emails from HQ.

Would this comparison help?
8 days Switzerland with scouts, all meals, accommodation, travel, activities 1k. Also for a child who sounds like yours!

Personally, I don't contribute to fundraising for anything that's not a charity. If they need more cash to pay for the trip they need to say it up front.

My son's school have just announced a similar trip.

I must admit the whole thing makes me slightly uneasy - it’s so much money. I feel like if I was going to go to the bother of raising all that, I’d rather give it to people who know what they’re doing to build a wall, dig a well, whatever, rather than a half-arsed bunch of British teenagers. And what is costing £5k? They won’t be staying in a luxury hotel.

I agree with @Cheshireflamingo. These camps are similar to gap years where a bunch of kids go somewhere and cuddle brown babies and build unnecessary structures. I worked for a charity that provided gap years. Most of the "building projects" were knocked down after one batch had gone home with each new batch re-building the same thing year on year. There is no reason on earth why local people couldn't be employed to do necessary jobs anyway. The gap kids were also assigned to work in orphanages where many of the children had complex emotional needs and some weren't even orphans. It's all very "white saviour".

My daughter recently fund-raised for a scout expedition. She sold cakes at various scout events, and raised about £100 per cake sale (ok, we paid for the ingredients and electricity). She took an occasional paper round, which raised some more. Then got a grant from a local charity that supports these things. It was only Europe, though, something like £1500 in total.

@SoulMole What did you decide, I am literally in this position at present with my currently 13 year old son.

My daughter is going to Kenya next year with Camps International.
I also had my doubts over the kinds of money mentioned being acheived by fundraising alone, but it is possible and you'll be surprised how much and how many people are willing to help you succeed.
It needs a lot of effort and commitment though and dont think there's "one thing fits all" solution.
You're not going to raise 4k+ by JUST selling cakes, or JUST getting a paper round etc...
We've had to have fingers in several pies simultainiously throughout the process in order to stay on track.
The main advice I would give is look at what any potential sponsor can offer you from what they do as a business to help you.
Cold calling on a business and simply asking for cash isnt going to work, but if they can offer you a service they already provide for free or at a discount then you have more of a chance.
Such as clubs/pubs giving you a venue free for fundraising nights and events.
Printers producing posters and flyers for you.
Free parking spots at car boots / fetes.
If you're doing car boot sales, speak to storage warehouses for free/discounted rooms to avoid your house becoming a garage.
Sites like Go Fund Me are great at raising awareness and a convenient way for people to donate, but be aware that they take a deduction for every transaction made AS WELL AS a percentage of the amount donated.
Try to set up a seperate bank account solely for the trip funds and ask people to donate directly to this to avoid costs. (Setting it up as a childs account also gets a better interest rate).
Invest in a card reader.
Keep funds going in and out of the same account.
Dont be scared to spend money in order to make money.
But most of all....
Enjoy the experience together.
🙂

My DS did this. It was not possible to fund raise all the money. To do so would have meant him - and me - making fundraising our sole focus and spending all our spare time on it. This just wasn't possible with his school work (at a very academic school) and my job. Also the cost of essential equipment to take was very high.

On the other hand, he had a great time and loved the expedition part of the trip.

However, the community project made him very uncomfortable. They lived in a village where they were supposed to be helping build a school. The villagers were very unfriendly and made it clear that they had already seen too many foreign teenagers without any real skills.

Overall, he had a very good time and it equipped him very well for a subsequent totally independent gap year, travelling. But it was very expensive.

Thanks but the thread is long out of date and te deadline is long past. I read a few horror stories about families losing all money due to bereavement, injury and illness and I just daren't risk it. We don't have a lot of money as it is.