Both of my teens went on separate trips with this group, and I can't recommend them enough! They had a wonderful home stay/ service project aspect to the trip which was very enriching. The company is really respectful about asking the community where they want help, instead of forcing any type of project on them. One of my kiddos had a fever for about 36 hrs and, not only was the communication flawless (on a Sunday!), they did everything for him that we would have done at home, and filled me in on all the medical services they had access to if it was anything serious. It was really wonderful! read more

This was an amazing travel tour group. My son went with his high school and everything was amazing. There was excellent communication before the trip. They picked up the group and really held everyone's hand the entire trip, including the parents at home. The photos they took were better than I could have done if I were there myself. Every child was included in many photos. The places they chose to visit were spectacular. My son would go again in a minute and we have recommended it to many other families. read more

My daughter (recently graduated from 8th grade) just returned from Costa Rica with Walking Tree. We were so impressed with Gabriel and the company and its organization & communication (we loved the kid-written blog that was published during their trip!). Our kid had the most amazing time bonding with classmates & trip leaders while experiencing a different language and culture. She loved it all! It was the perfect mix of culture/service/home stay and tourist/adventurous things they experienced as a group. She returned with so many stories and memories, and we think that this trip has set her for a lifetime of wanting to study abroad while in school and travel as an adult. read more

My 16-year-old son and 23 of his classmates recently returned from a trip to Spain and Morocco that was led by Walking Tree Prior to departure, the parents participated in a Zoom with Luke Mueller who gave a very comprehensive overview of the itinerary, what the kids should pack, meals, safety measures, etc. The trip was truly an immersive program with the perfect balance of fun, adventure and educational experiences for the students. My son was exposed to so much history and culture and he even loved the food! I really enjoyed reading the daily blog and seeing the photos of the boys that the guides took. My son said the guides even taught the boys how to manage their money and what to spend it on! All in all, a truly memorable experience. Thank you, WTT! read more

Walking Tree Travel - Travel Services Near Me

Our son traveled to Spain with his middle school and had the time of his life! The trip was very well organized. The activities were amazing (nice to have a well rounded experience of museums, hiking, exploration, cooking, flamenco, everything!). We also enjoyed the blog and the fact that the students were responsible for putting it together with photos and text. Highly recommend Walking Tree Travel! read more

At age 16, a group of my son's high school classmates visited Costa Rica with Walking Tree Travel. Gabriel and his staff were very professional and responsive whenever I reached out to them. And they handled the Covid protocol at the time with ease. No hiccups. It's a fun and educational mission trip for students and teachers:). The students earn volunteer hours and create memories that will last a lifetime I highly recommend Walking Tree Travel. Thanks for everything, Gabriel:) read more

BUYER BEWARE! Be very careful to read all the fine print with these folks. Back in January of 2020 I went to an information session at my child's school for an upcoming trip being organized by walking tree travel. Gabe, the walking tree representative, was very eager to please in answering parent questions. So eager to please that he didn't seem to mind contradicting both himself and the company's written material in order to tell parents what he thought they wanted to hear. My general impression was that it would be an ok trip if nothing went wrong, but in case of emergency these people would be totally out of their depth. So, I did more checking and found lots of glowing reviews, THAT WERE WRITTEN BY THEIR OWN STAFF!!! Then I contacted the Smithsonian since they touted being accredited by The Smithsonian Institute. Turns out they just pay a fee to use the Smithsonian name and logo, there's no other qualifications! At that point I opted out of the trip before having had to part with any money. Other parents were not as lucky and had to fight for weeks to get their money back when the trip canceled due to COVID-19. read more

Amazing company staffed with professional and caring humans. I would send my kiddo to travel afar with them again in a heartbeat. Highly recommend Walking Tree! read more

I went on one of their trips to Costa Rica, and it was horrible. Very expensive considering the living conditions, and much of the time is spent doing volunteer work. In my case, that meant doing back-breaking labor digging trenches and pouring concrete under the sun for hours. I knew it wouldn't be a fancy vacation, but you are essentially paying them to do work. And they were not very transparent about that beforehand either. On top of that, the team is very careless, often rude, and did not provide a safe trip. They told all the students to leave their backpacks in the bus while they made us pick up garbage on the beach, saying they would lock and guard it. When we return, however, half of the backpacks had been stolen. No apology was offered nor any kind of compensation for all of my lost valuables. Unprofessional and disappointing. read more

My high school aged daughter had the time of her life in Costa Rica this summer. It was an amazing once in a lifetime trip, she was safe, well fed, and experienced so many great adventures - from whitewater rafting, surfing, ziplining, hiking, staying overnight in a cave behind a waterfall, to important environmental work (helping sea turtles, planting mangroves). Gabriel at Walking Tree was extremely helpful throughout the entire process, and Walking Tree provided plenty of communication and updates before and during the trip. Also, the kids had a blog that they updated with pictures and their daily adventures. I can't say enough positive things about this memorable experience my daughter had - thank you Walking Tree! read more

In August of 2019 my daughters school booked a trip to Costa Rica for June 2021. Obviously the worldwide pandemic has made traveling internationally a bit more stressful. In a time when many, many businesses are adjusting policies due to the pandemic to be more customer friendly, I was very disappointed to learn that Walking Tree was not budging on their cancelation policy which requires a $500 penalty. After much deliberation we decided that we did not want our 13 yr old daughter to travel out of the country at this time and we would eat the $500 penalty. If that was not enough after I requested the refund I was then told I also had to pay the 3% credit card fee which was another $55 I lost out on. I don't know how a business can be so inconsiderate of it's customers. I know that the school is looking to make this an annual trip, I really hope that the district considers looking for a more customer friendly company to use for future trips. read more

My high school aged daughter had an incredible trip to Costa Rica this summer with Walking Tree. I thought the trip was a perfectly balanced mix of cultural exchange and adventure. Staying in a community, speaking the language, getting to know a family and the people, working with them toward a collective goal, eating and dancing and playing soccer in the evenings - what great way to experience a new culture. And then there's the magic - the surfing, the beaches, the whitewater rafting, the sloths, the paddle-boarding through mangroves - the stories are still coming and we love hearing them all. First-class communication and management from Walking Tree, they were awesome at every turn - I'm thrilled we could make it happen this year. read more

My daughter went on a service trip to Costa Rica with Walking Tree. While the experience was OK and she generally liked the trip, I found that the cost of the trip was quite high for the low quality of food/accommodations that were provided (outside of the time spent with host families). I believe Walking Tree is a for-profit company, which may not be obvious from their glowing literature, so I guess they are entitled to charge what the market will bear. But the biggest complaint I have is that the highlight of the trip, a visit to Manuel Antonio National Park, was cancelled because it was scheduled on a Monday, and all national parks in Costa Rica are closed on Mondays. And Walking Tree, which runs multiple trips to Costa Rica every year, was somehow not aware of this?! Major fail. read more

"It was the trip of a lifetime." That's what my 17 year old son said when he was asked about his trip to Costa Rica with Walking Tree. He spent 2 weeks on the trip, staying part of the time with a host family and working on their land and the rest of the time in hotels. He also had a chance to take surf lessons, raft, and swim. He totally bonded with his classmates on the trip too. They are all meeting today here at home to celebrate the connections they made with each other. It was a great confidence builder and a fantastic trip. I recommend it thoroughly! read more

DO NOT TRUST THIS COMPANY! If your child's property is stolen like our daughters and several other students, Walking Tree Travel will not make it right. During our daughters' $3000 Costa Rica trip several student travelers had their bags stolen from the travel bus. Our daughter was one of the victims. Walking Tree staff acknowledged that the bags were in their care and they were at fault, but they did not offer to help replace any of the items stolen. My daughter's experience was not a pleasant one. A loss of all her personal items, including her glasses, clothing, gifts, and her journal. I have contacted Walking Tree about this, they have not offered to help my daughter recover the loss. She saved for two years for this trip and we are still paying to replace items because of Walking Trees mistake. Now our daughter is afraid to leave her backpack unattended. Shame on Walking Tree Travel. read more

My high school senior traveled to Belize and Guatemala with Walking Tree Travel and it was an amazing trip. The itinerary was full of awesome adventures and the communication before, during and after the trip couldn't have been better. We received photos and daily reports from Walking Tree while they traveled so as parents we knew what they were up to and how they were doing. My son had lots of great stories to share when he came home, and we didn't hesitate for a minute to sign our youngest son up for a trip with Walking Tree this year. Unfortunately that didn't happen when travel screeched to a halt with covid-19, but Walking Tree lobbied hard to get as much money back to us as possible. I highly recommend Walking Tree and would absolutely plan another trip with them with life returns to whatever the new normal will be. Thank you Luke and team!!! read more

I was 100% AGAINST my daughter going on the Costa Rica trip (COVID, general safety issues, etc.). After Gabriel took (a lot) of time addressing each one of my concerns, I changed my mind and let her go. And boy, am I so glad I did. I felt 100% confident that she was in good hands during the trip. They had a solid plan in place in case anyone did test positive (no one did). And WOW - the difference in my daughter when she came back was just incredible. I could totally see a boost in her confidence and her relationships with her friends. Hearing the excitement in her voice as she eagerly shared every detail of her trip with me - it just made me so happy for her. Yes, there were moments where she was roughing it and I got a few testy texts. But at the end of the trip, even she recognized how it helped her develop some much-needed resilience...which, in addition to so many happy memories, will stay with her for a lifetime. Thank you, Walking Tree! read more

This company had such great reviews that I was confident when I booked a trip with my son's school through them, and based on the limited information we received upfront we decided to make it a family trip. I should have known from the start they were unorganized because when it came to payment we were misled. We were told that we would receive a 10% discount for any else in our family who enrolled after my son. Well our bill came in with only one 10% discounts when there should have been 3 (myself, husband, and other son). This would have equated to a bit over $200 per person, so over $600. Back and forth we went with them and they even admitted the language was unclear and that's why our representative had told us that but at the end of the day they wouldn't honor it. We had already paid a deposit and just decided that fighting over the $400 difference wasn't worth it because my son really wanted to go on the trip and we went ahead an paid for the trip in full after I got in writing that given our family size we would have two rooms (with separate beds for our sons) at all times. We kept waiting for a full itinerary to be posted and when it finally was (about a month prior to departure) we looked it over and felt like many of the aspects of the trip were not as had been described so I contacted them to cancel and was told we couldn't. We would have had to cancel three months before the trip to get our money back yet at that time there was very minimal information provided. So we went, determined to make the best of it. Our group was 75+ people. They had 3 buses waiting for us at the airport but the buses were too small for the 3 groups they divided us into. We were crammed on with several people having to sit in jump seats. Sadly, whoever planned that thing must have been unprepared. We arrived to all of our rooms being cancelled. Apparently the hotel had double booked (and they hadn't confirmed reservations or they would have known in advance of our arrival) so they were scrambling to find hotels at the very last minute that could take us. As you can imagine, only the most disgusting places that no one wants to stay had openings. Not only that, my oldest son got placed into a room with three other boys where two had to share a bed. The accommodations were frightening. Then I heard from a friend that got placed in a different hotel that they had 17 people sharing 4 rooms with only 1 bathroom for all of them. She was miserable to. Then it seems that everything they planned was many hours ride away (like 4-5) and yet they thought nothing of cramming us back on those same small buses where several unlucky folks ended up on jump seats for those ridiculously long rides. I literally could write novel about how awful nearly every part of this trip was, simply because it seemed like they were doing each thing on the fly and we were paying the price for their poor planning. People were injured, people were crying. people were starved by their host families, people were begging to get off the bus, people were begging for bathroom breaks, people were collapsing and having to be ATV'd out of treacherous conditions. I mean, in all honestly it was a trip from hell. There were only 2 positives on this trip. First, we got lucky with our host families; they were gracious and fed us. Sure the accommodations were rough but we expected that and were just happy to be immersed in their lives and culture so there are no complaints there. But other people didn't have it so lucky and had to deal with un-vetted families who were only in it for the $300 they get paid to house tourist. The other highlight was rating the Pacuare River. However, the 4 hour bus ride there and the 5 hour ride back because of an accident, made the great experience turn into sheer torture after being crammed into an even smaller bus with no air and windows that couldn't be opened. Plus they had us back at the disgusting hotel, where I kid you not there were boogers in the towels they gave me, and dirt in the bed because they don't change the sheets between guest. For the $9,000 we paid for our family of 4 to go on the trip to Costa Rica we should have a luxury vacation during the time we weren't doing service in the remote village, but instead we were housed in poor conditions in hotels not fit for animals, crammed into overly small buses, taken on treacherous hikes with no extra water, taken on adventures that were overly far from where they housed us when good hotels were nearby, and then because of traffic our "fun" times were cut in half because they hadn't planned for that. There were so many disgruntled people on our school trip that the school will no longer be using them for future travel. We calculated the value we got versus what we received and discovered we received less than $4,000 value for the $9,000 we paid. read more