ISLS: Schools: Summer Youth Spanish & Adventure Program

2012 is a very special year for ISLS, as it is our 20th Anniversary! Over the past two decades we have been a world leader in Youth Spanish Immersion Camps. We have welcomed literally thousands of students, parents and families to our unique and educational summer Spanish programs in Costa Rica. Each of our Teen Spanish Camps is designed to combine the learning of the language with fun, adventurous, educational and culturally significant activities. Our Children’s Camp in Playa Tamarindo is the only one of its kind in Latin America.

To celebrate our Anniversary we are offering four exciting Teen Spanish Camps from which to choose in beautiful Costa Rica; including our one of a kind Travel, Adventure & Spanish Camp. The Spanish and Surf Camp as well as the Spanish and Adventure Camp are offered in Playa Dominical. The Spanish Immersion and Volunteer Program, with volunteering at an orphanage and living with local families, is offered in Turrialba. The Travel Adventure Camp is a two week experience that is not in just one location. Students will travel all around Costa Rica and visit different parts of the country. The Children’s Spanish, Art and Sports Camp is in Playa Tamarindo, which is a great place for a family vacation.

All four teen camps in Costa Rica are designed so that students can mix and match programs and locations in order to combine multiple options. If you would like to do one week in one program and one in another, this is possible. Enrollment in all camps is limited to 15 students per week. The only exception is the Travel Adventure Camp, which has a maximum of 12 students. Our student to counselor ratio is the lowest of any youth program in Latin America, 5 to 1. You will need to sign up in advance to secure your slot.

Youth Camp Discounts!

We offer two different types of discounts for our Youth Spanish Camps in Costa Rica; Sibling and Long Term. The Sibling Discount is for families that send two or more children at the same time. Each child will receive $100/week off the standard price of the camp. For the Long Term Discount, any student who attends for four or more weeks of our teen camps will receive a Free Airline Ticket to and from the USA. These discounts cannot be used simultaneously and other restrictions apply. For more information on these discounts, please contact us directly.

Start Dates

* Adventure Camp location: Playa Dominical.
** Teen Travel Camp location: Turrialba, San Jose, Playa Tamarindo and various other locations. (2 weeks only)
*** The Children’s camps will start the Mondays following the dates above.

Camp Prices

Camp Information

Below you will find a brief description of each camp. For more complete information including: itineraries, list of tours and references, please contact us. Also, if you give us your mailing address we can send you a photo CD-ROM.

There are six different weekend adventure tours, one each weekend during the summer. These tours are designed to showcase the diversity and beauty of Costa Rica. During these tours students will river raft, zip line, horseback ride, snorkel, repel down waterfalls, visit volcanoes and get up close and personal with Costa Rican wildlife. No other teen camp in Costa Rica has as wide a range of locations and adventure activities!

Teen Surf and Spanish Camp (Ages 14 - 17)

This is our signature program and is what we believe to be the most unique Teen Summer Spanish Camp in Central America. Students from ages 14 to 17 are eligible to participate in this exceptional Spanish immersion program. The camp offers interactive Spanish classes, surf lessons, and weekend adventure tours, as well as group and cultural activities.

This is the perfect program for high school students looking for a fun Spanish learning environment, while at the same time either learning to surf or practicing their skills on some of the best breaks in Latin America. Each week long session includes 5 days of Spanish classes, 4 hours/day, along with 4 afternoons of surfing. Students are lodging together in a local 3 star eco resort near the beach. Each weekend, students will participate in a 2 day adventure tour to a different part of Costa Rica.

The ISLS Surf and Spanish Camp is located in Playa Dominical, Costa Rica, at our private language institute. This is a small beach pueblo on the central Pacific coast of Costa Rica. There are about 800 permanent residents in the town and the area is very tropical and undeveloped. There is abundant wildlife in the surrounding rainforest as well as miles of unspoiled beaches and coves. It is truly a topical paradise!

Each week students will participate in a beach clean up effort to protect the natural environment. Other volunteer activities are also available.

Teen Spanish Immersion and Adventure Camp (Ages 14 - 18)

This camp combines interactive Spanish lessons each morning with afternoon and weekend adventure tours. 5 days a week, from Monday through Friday, students will attend Spanish classes for 4 hours in small groups. In the afternoons, Monday through Thursday, they will take part in half day adventure tours. Then, each weekend, they will participate in a 2 day adventure excursion. These excursions are designed to display the diversity and beauty of Costa Rica.

This camp is designed for students who are interested in exhilarating and challenging adventure activities. Students will visit local national parks, kayak, river raft, zip line, hike and rappel. When you combine intensive morning Spanish classes, afternoon tours, evening cultural activities with exciting weekend adventures you get an amazing Costa Rican experience.

For summer 2012 we only have 2 weeks of the Adventure Camp. The first week of camps each summer is always the Adventure Camp. It is a great way to kick off the summer in Playa Dominical, Costa Rica. We have added a 2nd week later in July for those students who cannot make the first. Dominical is a small beach pueblo on the central Pacific coast of Costa Rica. There are about 800 permanent residents in the town and the area is very tropical and undeveloped. There is abundant wildlife in the surrounding rainforest as well as miles of unspoiled beaches and coves. It is truly a topical paradise!

While volunteering is not a part of the surf camp, we have added one week of the Volunteer Camp to our Playa Dominical campus. Please see below for more information.

Teen Spanish Immersion and Volunteer Camp (Ages 14 - 17)

Our Teen Spanish and Volunteer Camp in Turrialba is a true Spanish and cultural immersion program. The camp combines four hours of intense Spanish classes in small groups in the morning with volunteer activities four afternoons a week. Students will volunteer at a local orphanage as well as a state run senior home. There will also be projects in the area that will help the environment and sustainable living. Students live with local, specially chosen, Costa Rican host families. They receive two meals a day with their Tico families. There is also time to interact with the families and experience the culture.

This is the perfect program for those students who are very serious about learning Spanish. Along with staying with local families and volunteering, students participate in different afternoon and evening cultural activities. These activities are designed to promote the Costa Rican culture. These activities along with volunteer opportunities help the student to speak the language outside of class and host family. On the weekends there are fun and exciting activities that showcase Costa Rica’s natural beauty.

The town of Turrialba has 35,000 inhabitants and is located in a mountain valley, 1½ hours from the capital city, San Jose. It is a very safe and accessible town with none of the traffic and congestion of the capital. Three rivers crisscross the valley with a large man made lake about 10 minutes outside of town. The temperature in Turrialba is very mild with daytime highs in the mid 80s and nighttime highs in the mid 60s.

We have added one week of the Volunteer and Spanish Camp to our Playa Dominical campus. This gives us the opportunity to explore the different service options that are available in this rural beach community. The main volunteer activity in Playa Dominical will be volunteering to teach English at the local elementary school. We will also do beach cleanups and visit an organic farming co-op. Students can combine the volunteer program in Turrialba with the week of volunteering in Dominical.

Teen Travel, Adventure and Spanish Camp (Ages 14 - 18)

Last year we did this as a one week camp and it was such a success that we decided to expand it. It is now a two week travel camp that includes the Capital City of San Jose and the northern beach and dry forest areas. The emphasis is on seeing different parts of the country and enjoying exciting adventure activities. We will only have two days of Spanish classes each week for a total of 16 hours. The Spanish classes will take place Monday and Tuesday mornings at our private language institutes in Turrialba and Playa Tamarindo. Students will stay the first two nights, Sunday and Monday in Turrialba with local host families. This is the cultural immersion part of the camp.

Every day of the camp we will have at least one challenging and exciting tour or activity. This is the perfect program for students who are looking to experience as much of the tropical rainforest as possible, while at the same time learning some Spanish and culture. Students can add this camp on to the end of either the volunteer or surf camps. It is a great way to finish off an exciting adventure in Costa Rica. Besides the four days of Spanish classes, students will: zip line, river raft, rock climb, repel, hike, swim, surf, kayak, join a field project and see a show at the National Theater. Space on this program is limited to 10 students. All students must be in good physical condition and know how to swim well. We will have a trained naturalist with us that will be our guide on the day and night hikes. Most wildlife in the tropical rainforest is nocturnal, so we will see animals that most tourists never do in areas where most never go.

The town of Turrialba has 35,000 inhabitants and is located in a mountain valley of the same name. It is a large valley with a number of different small ones in the area. We will spend much of our first week in remote areas of this region. We will spend time in La Marta Nature Preserve and on the Pacuare River. These are two of the most beautiful and remote areas of Costa Rica.

San Jose is the Capital City and the metropolitan area is home to half the population of the country. We will spend two days getting to know the city and visit the different cultural sites. The highlight of our time here will be seeing a show at the historic and architecturally significant National Theater.

The beach town of Playa Tamarindo is located in the northwest of the country in the Dry Forest. This means that the region gets more days of sunshine then the rest of the country. The beaches are long and the sand is white. It is the perfect place to spend a couple of days learning to surf. We will visit the nearby Rincon del la Vieja National park, which is home to one of the most spectacular volcanoes in the country.

Children’s Spanish, Art, Sports & Adventure Camp (Ages 6- 12)

The Children’s Spanish, Art and Sports Camp is for families looking for an educational and fun vacation for their children. This is the only camp of its type in Latin America and is designed to fit in with family vacations and holidays. We combine a number of different activities throughout each day to keep the students motivated and engaged. This is a much less intense language immersion experience than our teen and adult programs. It is an age appropriate atmosphere for younger children to learn Spanish and have fun.

Students can participate in this camp from 1 to 6 weeks. It is open to all families traveling to Costa Rica with children between the ages of 6 and 12. Parents can take part in our adult Spanish language courses or they are free to relax while their children participate in the camp. Playa Tamarindo is a great place for a family vacation. It is a true tropical, dry forest paradise with plenty of things to do for all ages. It has a safe swimming beach, as well as a great surf break.

The camp is from 8am to 2pm, Monday through Friday. The weekends in the middle are open for families to travel and do their own thing. Every morning parents will first drop their children off at ISLS’s private Spanish Immersion Center and then pick them up in the afternoon. During the day there will always be 2 hours of fun and interactive Spanish classes. There will also be at least 1 other featured activity each afternoon. These activities are art lessons, crafts, surf lessons, zip lining tour, soccer matches with local Costa Rican children, beach volleyball games, swimming at the beach, visit to a nearby animal rescue park, and boat tour of the estuary.

Playa Tamarindo is a beach on the northwest coast of Costa Rica. It is in the tropical dry forest and is one of the most popular family friendly destinations in Costa Rica. There are a number of reasons for this: Tamarindo and the surrounding area has the best weather in all of Costa Rica with the most days of sunshine. The beach is large with white sand and stretches around a mile in front of the town. There are a lot of different lodging options available. No mater the budget you can choose from inexpensive hostels to ritzy 4 and 5 star resorts. The infrastructure in and around the town are some of the best and most modern in the country. The Liberia airport is only 45 minutes from Tamarindo and services most international carriers.

Put it all together with the diversity of wildlife, the abundant national parks and the many adventure activities and you have a wonderful destination for the whole family.

2012 Summer Youth Spanish Camps (20th Anniversary Year)