My boyfriend and I decided to go on the Thailand Gibbon Sanctuary project for 6 weeks in May.
While the actual trip was an incredible experience and I cannot wait to return, I would not book it through Frontier again.
I really don't think anyone from Frontier has ever been to the Highland Farm Gibbon Sanctuary, as they gave us a lot of information that was wrong.
They told us we would have weekends off, and trips into town 3 times a week. The work is 7 days a week and for the first 2 weeks we were there we did not leave the sanctuary at all.
Frontier would not even tell us the name of the sanctuary. They also told us that they could not tell us where the sanctuary is until we paid in full, so we could not apply for our visas or book flights until we had already paid... They claimed that this was due to their partners having issues with privacy, however when we arrived I asked Pharanee, the woman running the sanctuary, and she said that was ridiculous. As a result we almost booked our flights to Chiang Mai because Frontier told us that the sanctuary was near there. It was not. It was near Mae Sot. We assume that Frontier chooses not to give this information to potential volunteers before they have paid in full because if you visit the website for the sanctuary you can book the trip directly - for less money, and all of the money would go directly to helping pay for the food, vet visits and new enclosures for the gibbons, macaques, asiatic bear, binturong, jackal, birds, cats and dogs living at the gibbon sanctuary.
Overall, our experience with Frontier was awful. They wouldn't reply to our emails for days, or answer simple questions about our trip. We had to call a few times after our emails went unanswered for more than a week. They couldn't even tell us if the sanctuary was a registered charity (which it is - in fact, if you visit the sanctuary's website it says it is on the home page).
I would absolutely recommend volunteering at or even just checking out the Highland Farm Gibbon Sanctuary. However, I would also highly recommend booking directly through Pharanee
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