Volunteer In Asia
“Land of Smiles”
Fresh Fruit
Bike Rides
Teach English
Jungles, Mountains, Temples
Trip Highlights
Departure + Return
Thailand is a bit unique because we have more than 3 departure and return times per year (which is the norm for our other programs). Our schools here are very prestigious and prefer to have classes running year-round, so we’ve shifted the dates a bit and added in a couple more groups to minimize or eliminate the small breaks that typically happen between ILP semesters. This allows us to have as many ILP classes per year as we can, as well as more semester possibilities for you.
Spring
- Group 1: Depart early/mid January – return mid March/mid April
- Group 2: Depart early/late March – return early/late June
Summer
- Depart mid May/mid June – return end of Aug/early September
Fall
- Group 1: Depart end of July/early August – return mid/end of October
- Group 2: Depart end of September/mid October – return middle/late December, just in time for Christmas
Costs
The program fee is $3,970 which includes:
✔️ Roundtrip airfare to Thailand from the U.S.
✔️ Visa (if required)
✔️ Airport pick up and drop off
✔️ Housing
✔️ WiFi
✔️ At-home meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner)
✔️ Language and culture experiences
✔️ Pre-Departure + In-Country Training, and support throughout the entire experience
Additional items (like your passport and travel insurance) and in-country costs (like vacations, shopping, and activities) are not included. It depends on your personal spending habits, but most volunteers recommend budgeting around $1,500-3,500 for the semester to make the most of your time in Thailand.
We have custom monthly payment plans to help you make it work. That can be especially helpful if you’re saving up little by little, by working or doing fundraising.
An ILP Exchange Trip
This type of trip means that the kids you are working with pay a fee to attend our English classes. That fee is used to help subsidize your program fee, which is why we’re able to offer this experience to you at such an affordable price.
Your students typically come from middle to upper-class families who are looking to provide their children with the best education and every opportunity in life. Learning English from a native speaker can put the kids at such an advantage later in life.
Is Thailand right for me?
Each location is unique and therefore has its pros and cons. What falls into those two categories will really depend on the person you talk to, but we’ve put together common complaints we hear most about volunteering here. Knowing the typical pain points that just come along with the experience will help as you consider which country is best for you.
- Thailand is a hot and humid country, with limited (or no) A/C.
- There is a modest and conservative culture, so while it’s tempting to wear short, tight, and cropped clothing to keep cool, you’ll need to stay covered up.
- ILP volunteers are living on campus — you’re looked at as a teacher whenever you’re on campus, even when you’re not teaching.
- There are big bugs (like spiders and cockroaches) that you’ll see in your room, shower, kitchen, classroom, etc.
- This is an Exchange Program which means your students come from more affluent families (typically upper class) as compared to the Humanitarian Programs. They are looking to provide the best education for their children, which includes learning from a native English speaker.
- The school you’re teaching at is very prestigious and teaching here comes with high expectations.
About Your Group
This program has about 6-15 volunteers in a group which means you’ve got lots of new travel buddies! Due to housing limitations, our Thai program is the best fit for:
- Single females
- 18-about 25ish years old
- Volunteers from the U.S. and Canada
About Your Town
Volunteers live in the large city of Phitsanulok or the nearby smaller town of Phichit.
A semester in Thailand is a lot of what you’d expect — intricate Buddhist temples dotting the streets and thick jungles with lots of hot and humid weather. Typically, your vacations are all about the incredibly picturesque waterfalls, seeing temples and ruins, with a beach trip (or two). But during the week? You get to dive deeply into the culture that tourists don’t get to see. You’re living in Central Thailand, high up in the northern part of the country which is a flight away from the postcard beaches you’ve seen all over Instagram.
Your new home has lots to explore, with temples, ruins, markets, festivals, and even some elephants not too far away. You’ll be living on the school’s campus, which will also be a big part of your experience. The schools in our Thailand program are prestigious and filled with children who have dedicated and invested parents. Education is a big deal here: your students will likely be involved in several activities during their busy school day (including English classes) despite their young age. The teaching here is held to a high standard, with ILP volunteers expected to meet that standard. It’s a very personal way to connect with the educational element of Thailand’s culture: something most tourists miss out on.
Come experience life — not just a vacation — in Thailand. Come live in cities small enough that the locals know who you are. Come ride rusted bikes down to the central market to find your favorite smoothie place. Truly see how friendly the people are in Thailand. We can’t wait for you to discover all of this yourself.
Glimpse A Day In Thailand
Wake up on the campus of the school you teach at. You’ll be living all together with your ILP group right on the school grounds. While brushing your teeth, say “hi” to the friendly geckos hanging out in your bathroom, and laugh just a little when your roommate squeals at the creepy crawly beetles and spiders hiding in the shower (they are huge here). You can’t have that gorgeous tropical weather without a few bugs!
Time for breakfast. Sit down for tiny Thai bananas and fried scones drizzled with sweetened and condensed milk (that sweet stuff is everywhere here). Your ILP semester is all about having a local experience, and the food is a huge part of that. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all provided for you by school cooks — on special days, get your fill of warm curries: yellow, green, panang, Massaman, red, pumpkin … you name it. On other days, tuck into a plate of tuna fish sandwiches. Sometimes, you’ll see stir-fried veggies with a little chicken, but no matter what’s on the menu, there is always lots and lots (and lots) of rice.
For teaching, you put on a pair of sandals just to walk to your classroom, then take them off before entering the school … you’ll be teaching in bare feet here. Volunteers headed to Thailand should be excited to experience the culture during their semester. In general, Thai culture is very respectful and modest, so you’ll need to stay covered up whenever you’re on campus. You will be teaching in dresses and skirts. It’s much too hot to teach in something heavier than a skirt or dress anyway.
After teaching, it’s time for lunch with your ILP group. After that, you all hop on old rusted bikes to ride down to the central market. It’s smoothie time (for less than a dollar, in fact). You really like this smoothie spot because it’s delicious, cheap, and above all, because it has A/C. It’s very hot and humid in Thailand and you won’t find A/C in a lot of places. Take advantage where you can! As you ride back, you do a lot of waving: the locals tend to be very friendly — you don’t really ever run into people who speak English, but that doesn’t stop anyone from waving and saying “hello”.
After your lessons are over, the day is all yours. Volunteers say it’s more free time than they anticipated, which leaves time to check out that nearby wat (that’s Thai for temple). Think about shopping at the night market, and getting to know your Thai city in the afternoons. On the weekends, squeeze in a quick trip to Bangkok or head up north to the elephants and jungles of Chiang Mai. Vacation days give you even more options: explore destinations like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bali, and more. But don’t forget to plan vacations in Thailand! Besides the beaches, some of the highlights of the semester are found in northern Thailand. We really like the artsy mountain village of Pai and all of the waterfall-filled national parks.
Departure + Return
Thailand is a bit unique because we have more than 3 departure and return times per year (which is the norm for our other programs). Our schools here are very prestigious and prefer to have classes running year-round, so we’ve shifted the dates a bit and added in a couple more groups to minimize or eliminate the small breaks that typically happen between ILP semesters. This allows us to have as many ILP classes per year as we can, as well as more semester possibilities for you.
Spring
- Group 1: Depart early/mid January – return mid March/mid April
- Group 2: Depart early/late March – return early/late June
Summer
- Depart mid May/mid June – return end of Aug/early September
Fall
- Group 1: Depart end of July/early August – return mid/end of October
- Group 2: Depart end of September/mid October – return middle/late December, just in time for Christmas
Costs
The program fee is $3,970 which includes:
✔️ Roundtrip airfare to Thailand from the U.S.
✔️ Visa (if required)
✔️ Airport pick up and drop off
✔️ Housing
✔️ WiFi
✔️ At-home meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner)
✔️ Language and culture experiences
✔️ Pre-Departure + In-Country Training, and support throughout the entire experience
An ILP Exchange Trip
This type of trip means that the kids you are working with pay a fee to attend our English classes. That fee is used to help subsidize your program fee, which is why we’re able to offer this experience to you at such an affordable price.
Your students typically come from middle to upper-class families who are looking to provide their children with the best education and every opportunity in life. Learning English from a native speaker can put the kids at such an advantage later in life.
Is Thailand right for me?
Each location is unique and therefore has its pros and cons. What falls into those two categories will really depend on the person you talk to, but we’ve put together common complaints we hear most about volunteering here. Knowing the typical pain points that just come along with the experience will help as you consider which country is best for you.
Read More
About Your Group
This program has about 6-15 volunteers in a group which means you’ve got lots of new travel buddies! Due to housing limitations, our Thai program is the best fit for:
- Single females
- 18-about 25ish years old
- Volunteers from the U.S. and Canada
About Your Town
Volunteers live in the large city of Phitsanulok or the nearby smaller town of Phichit.
Glimpse A Day In Thailand
Wake up on the campus of the school you teach at. You’ll be living all together with your ILP group right on the school grounds. While brushing your teeth, say “hi” to the friendly geckos hanging out in your bathroom, and laugh just a little when your roommate squeals at the creepy crawly beetles and spiders hiding in the shower (they are huge here). You can’t have that gorgeous tropical weather without a few bugs!
Read More
Volunteering
Help Children Learn English
In this Exchange Program, you’ll be volunteering to help children learn English (you’ll spend about a half day on volunteering). No experience is needed, we provide training on our teaching method!
The school you are teaching at is very prestigious. It’s home to some of the top scorers in the entire country when it comes to the English exams required by the Thai government. They are high caliber schools, with parents who can afford to send their children to an English program taught by the very best — a native English speaker, like you. English is a top skill coveted by many Thai students, but to have classes taught by a native speaker is the best of the best, and exactly what the parents of your students are after. Teaching here comes with high expectations.
You’ll be teaching young kids who are very (very) cute, but can be a handful, too. For a few of them, this is the first time they’ve been away from home, let alone in a classroom! Teaching English some days may mean drying a few tears and handling meltdowns, along with some rowdy older kids (you know how kids are). In any case, the kids are the focus of your semester. They really do make for the hardest goodbyes.
Semester after semester, volunteers say that teaching is the hardest but best and most rewarding part of their whole semester. Despite high energy and difficult teaching days, the kids are so easy to love in Thailand, that’s for sure.
Help Children Learn English
In this Exchange Program, you’ll be volunteering to help children learn English (you’ll spend about a half day on volunteering). No experience is needed, we provide training on our teaching method!
Read MoreExperiences In + Around Thailand
You have every weekend off plus vacation time throughout the semester so that you can travel over Thailand. You’re probably already very excited to visit the beaches Thailand is so famous for, but don’t forget about some of the vacations ILP volunteers have absolutely loved that aren’t so famous.
Come stay on a floating bungalow on a blue lake or visit mountain cafes surrounded by flower fields … they’re just around the corner from what we call “Thailand’s most colorful temple”. If the many adventures in Thailand aren’t enough, several international destinations are just a flight, away like Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, and Bali.