About · Safety
How we keep students safe.
Sending your kid abroad for a week is a big ask. Here's how we look after them, from registration to the flight home.
Most students haven't flown alone before they come to us. This is what's in place for them, in one place.
Before the week
Students apply, not their parents. We want the kid to want it. The application asks them about themselves, their fishing and what they hope to get out of the week, and our team gets back to them.
Registration is where the paperwork lives: the waiver, flight details and a Global Rescue membership, which every student buys at this step.
Global Rescue membership
Every student buys a Global Rescue membership at registration. We recommend the short-term individual membership, for a length that covers your full travel dates. It isn't included in the program price.
Global Rescue's membership provides emergency field rescue, medical evacuation and transport, and medical advisory services. Travel insurance is a separate product, and it's offered alongside the membership when you sign up.
The drug and alcohol policy is zero tolerance. Students sign a form before the program agreeing to it, and are sent home at their own cost if they break it.
There's no wifi at any location, on purpose: disconnect to reconnect. Trip leaders collect phones at their discretion, and they're only for music and photos.
Each program page has a packing list you can tick off, print or save as a PDF. Being fully covered from the sun and the bugs is the single most useful thing a student can do. Passports need to be valid for at least six months past the end of the trip.
Before the program, email info@fishforchange.org with anything at all.
During the week
Who's with them
Each program is built with a lodge partner whose guides grew up on that fishery. The guides teach the fishing. Our trip leaders, almost every one of them an alum, run everything else. Trip leaders are First Aid and CPR certified, and several of our leaders hold Wilderness First Responder certification.
Every group has at least two trip leaders:
- Honduras: 10 students, 2 trip leaders
- Girls Week: 10 students, 2 trip leaders
- Bahamas: 8 students, 2 trip leaders
- Mexico: 12 students, 2 trip leaders
- Costa Rica: 8 students, 3 trip leaders
On the water there's one leader for every few students.
Where they stay
These locations have preexisting fly fishing lodges that operate throughout the year. Each location has an emergency action plan and a direct line to the local clinic. We are connected to emergency action plans and teams in place, should anything happen.
At the lodge programs, students sleep two or three to a room and everyone eats together. The Costa Rica road trip is different: an assortment of food and places to stay along the way, with plenty of meals out.
Getting there and home
Trip leaders are waiting at the destination airport the moment students clear customs, and they help everyone check in for the flight home. If you'd like a travel companion, we can arrange for a trip leader or another student to fly with yours from the States.
- Honduras and Girls Week: trip leaders meet students the moment they walk out of customs in Roatán. A shuttle takes the group to the ferry dock.
- Bahamas: a trip leader travels with the group between Nassau and Great Harbour Cay and helps with every check-in.
- Mexico: trip leaders are standing outside customs in Tulum with a sign. From there it's a four-hour shuttle south to Xcalak, and Fish for Change messages families at every step of the travel day.
- Costa Rica: a Fish for Change representative meets students at the airport in San José, and the group travels by private shuttle van.
On the last morning, trip leaders help everyone check in. Students can reach home from the airport.
Hearing from them
You get a message when everyone has arrived, a direct line to staff for updates, and photos on Instagram from that day. On the Costa Rica road trip, you're told when the group reaches each evening destination on travel days.
More answers are in the FAQ. The steps from application to travel day are in How to enroll. Or get in touch.