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Tanzania Dive, Teach & Wildlife Adventure

  • In Brief
  • The Project
  • What to Expect
  • Reviews
  • News
  • Gallery
  • Extras
  • Dates & Costs
Tanzania Dive, Teach & Wildlife Adventure Tanzania Dive, Teach & Wildlife Adventure Tanzania Dive, Teach & Wildlife Adventure Tanzania Dive, Teach & Wildlife Adventure Tanzania Dive, Teach & Wildlife Adventure Tanzania Dive, Teach & Wildlife Adventure Tanzania Dive, Teach & Wildlife Adventure
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How To Apply

Simply fill in our no-obligation application form and we will get back to you with full project details

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PADI Qualification

Get trained up to Advanced Open Water on many of our marine conservation projects.


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Find out more about Tanzania

Start your adventure now by reading our country guide for Tanzania!


Frontier Group Project

Working in collaboration with institutions and NGOs with the country, projects are research-based, creating sustainable and biodiverse programmes.

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Enjoy a whirlwind adventure taking in the best of this seductive East African destination, that with its vast, dynamic animal populations and complex cultural expressions combines ancient and modern Africa in a spectacular fusion. 

Begin this magical journey with a stay at the Frontier marine conservation camp by the beach, located in the Mafia Island Marine Park just south of Zanzibar. Here you will find a picturesque idyll, with communal bandas surrounded by coconut palms and moments from a stunning beach overlooking the pristine tropical reef.

You will enjoy learning to dive in the crystalline waters, eventually completing your PADI Open Water. Dive with your fellow volunteers in the heavenly waters of the Indian Ocean that fringes the coastline, spotting a dazzling array of spectacular and fascinating creatures including minute tropical reef fish, turtles and rays which glide silently through the sunlit waters.

As well as all this, help teachers in a small school in a local village on glorious Mafia Island. Here you will absorb the real Tanzania as you become a part of local life. This fulfilling phase of the project will see you become truly involved with the lives of those who live in small Tanzanian villages; you will find the people to be cheerful and welcoming despite the deprivation that characterises their day to day lives.

Complete this unforgettable experience by appreciating the majesty of raw nature as you learn to track native wildlife such as bushpigs and elephants, learn to spot the tracks of large mammals across the expansive wooded plains; from lion to hartebeest, you may be lucky enough to spot any number of species in this true wilderness representing the unexpurgated Africa of long ago.  Enjoy the life-changing experience of camping in this most fascinating of settings, falling asleep under the vast African sky filled with equatorial stars, as a cacophony of exotic sounds fills the night air.

This memorable journey will give you a real taste of this magnificent country and you will return home with incredible memories and with the new friends you are sure to have made!

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

  • Help to monitor & conserve rare African wildlife
  • Earn your PADI Advanced Open Water certificate
  • Make lifelong friends
Airport Pickup Camping Beach Community Emergency Ground Transport Hotel Meals Research PADI Trekking Wildlife
FAST FACTS
Location Tanzania
Activities PADI dive training
Teach English
Wildlife & biodiversity surveys
Transport Airport pick-up
Bus journey to project site (Kilombero Valley)
Short flight to & from Mafia Island
Accommodation Varies

WHAT'S INCLUDED
Before you go Pre-departure support & documentation
Travel & medical advice & documentation
Advice on visas & equipment
Discounted medical kit
Free Frontier t-shirt
In-country Airport pickup (long haul flight into Dar Es Salaam & flight to Mafia Island)
Project orientation and training
Camp site accommodation
2 or 3 meals a day
Ground transfer to wildlife conservation camp (this project requires considerable in-country travel)
Project equipment & camp diving equipment
24-hour international HQ back-up 
In-country emergency support PADI qualification available  

WHAT WILL I BE DOING?

Sample Itinerary

Day 1-2: Arrival & Orientation

Arrive in the bustling port city of Dar es Salaam, where you will be met by our local staff. Spend a day getting oriented, try out some basic Swahili, and explore the city's museums, markets, and nightspots!

Travel by internal flight down to Mafia Island, we will arrange the booking for you: the return flight will cost an additional £100 and takes about 40 minutes. Enjoy this breathtaking flight soaring above the stunning sight of the tropical atolls that thrive in the sparkling waters of the Indian Ocean. Once you have arrived, you will be met at Mafia's small airport and escorted to the Frontier marine conservation camp. 

Day 3-16: Diving at Marine Camp

Complete your dive training at one of the world's most enticing dive sites in Tanzania's first marine park. As you explore the emerald depths of the crystal waters here, you will see a host of marine wildlife, including amazing coral reefs, colourful reef fish, endangered turtles, rays, dolphins and possibly even the enigmatic whale sharks!  Read our past volunteers' accounts of their whale shark encounters in our volunteer diaries! You will reach PADI Open Water scuba diving qualification by the end of your stay.

Day 16-28: Help teach in a local school

Remaining on the marine camp, you will be introduced to your teaching project where you begin your programme helping the teachers in the under resourced local school. You will help teach English and organise a range of activities for the students, under the guidance of the staff there. The teaching is based on Mafia Island – the most beautiful of Tanzania's Spice Islands, where tranquil white-sand beaches, friendly villages, and world class scuba diving sites combine to make this a true tropical paradise.

Day 28-29: Dar es Salaam

Spend a one day stop over in the bustling coastal city of Dar es Salaam prior to travelling inland to the Kilombero Valley, giving you the opportunity to rest and recuperate and pick up supplies. The taxi fare from the airport in Dar and your overnight accommodation is at your own cost, project staff can help you with advice and bookings before you get there.

Day 29-41: African Wildlife Conservation Camp

Travel by bus to the Frontier African Wildlife Conservation camp where you begin the final stage of your project, assisting on the programme of wildlife research that is taking place there, and exploring the natural beauty and plethora of biodiversity that inhabits this African wilderness. Camping on Igota village land you will be living amongst true African savannah, surrounded by the diverse and bountiful wildlife populations that thrive on the wooded flat lands of the Kilombero valley.

Day 41-42: Travel

Return to Dar es Salaam for any last minute souvenir shopping and sightseeing before you fly home.

This is a specimen itinerary and the order and duration of the projects is subject to change. Please note that this project requires considerable in-country travel in order to experience this variety of stunning environments. Volunteers should be prepared to travel between project sites independently, and cover minimal in transit costs.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I ARRIVE?

You will be greeted in Dar es Salaam by our staff and escorted to a local hostel where you will spend your first night. Spend a day getting oriented, try out some basic Swahili, and explore the city's museums, markets, and nightspots! If you are arriving before the project start date you will meet at an agreed rendezvous point. Enjoy a breathtaking flight soaring above the stunning sight of the tropical atolls that thrive in the sparkling waters of the Indian Ocean as you travel by internal flight down to Mafia Island. Once you have arrived, you will be met at Mafia's small airport and escorted to the Frontier marine conservation camp at Utende on the east coast.

WHERE WILL I BE STAYING?

Your accommodation on the project will vary. During the teaching and marine phases you will be staying on a beach camp at Utende on the east coast of Mafia Island. During the wildlife phase you will live on an African bush-camp in Tanzania's Kilombero Valley alongside other Frontier volunteers and project staff. You will be staying in communal bandas; huts made from makuti (woven palm leaves), poles and mud, sleeping on beds constructed from sustainably harvested wooden poles, your "shower" will be a jug or a bucket of water and you cook over an open campfire: so prepare for the basic, unencumbered lifestyle!

WHAT WILL I BE EATING?

Camp food is simple and nutritious and consists largely of rice, beans, noodles and fruit, all of which are purchased locally in order to help support the local economy. Luxuries such as chocolate, biscuits, peanut butter and drinking chocolate have to be brought from Dar es Salaam, so make sure you stock up before heading to the field! Part of your role on camp will be to help with the cooking, so get your cookbooks out now and start practising!

Teaching on an Island Paradise  | 18 Jul 2011
The journey to Mafia camp was an interesting, breath taking and wacky experience! The plane w...

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Week 3 on Tanzania Teaching and Diving  | 26 Apr 2011
The teachers and divers had to do some last minute improvisation at the Environmental Education d...

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TZD Update Week Four  | 5 May 2010
I have arrived at Mafia from Savannah camp after an amazing flight in a small twelve seater plane...

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My Tanzanian Adventure  | 10 Oct 2009
Tanzanian Adventure has been the best and hardest weeks of my life so far!! The first half of my ...

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1 to 4
Respect the Transect  | 25 Nov 2010
The Tanzania Marine team have been busy undertaking commercial fish surveys, to gather valuable data on the health of fish populations in Mafia Island Marine Park.
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ADDITIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

The camps are great fun and in your spare time, depending on your location, you'll have opportunities to swim in waterfalls, play football and beach volleyball, socialise, or sit around the campfire. The sites are all very remote so forget going down to the local pub in your spare time. Instead you will enjoy plenty of evenings spent relaxing around a roaring campfire, under a sky lit up by millions of stars and filled with the calls of exotic tropical animals. Of course diving is a highlight of the project but if you are interested in snorkelling round other areas or taking a boat or fishing trip and travelling a little further out into the ocean there are many local providers who can provide this.

COSTS

6 weeks US$ 3,045


DEPARTURE DATES

First Monday of January, February, April, May, July, August, October, November 

DURATION

6 weeks

WHAT'S INCLUDED

Before you go

  • Pre-departure support & documentation
  • Travel & medical advice & documentation
  • Advice on visas & equipment
  • Discounted medical kit
  • Free Frontier t-shirt

In-country

  • Airport pickup (long haul flight into Dar Es Salaam and  internal flight to Mafia Island)
  • Project orientation
  • Camp site accommodation
  • 2 or 3 meals a day
  • Ground transfer to wildlife conservation camp (this project requires considerable in-country travel)
  • Project equipment & camp diving equipment
  • 24-hour in-country & international HQ emergency support & back-up

WHAT'S NOT INCLUDED

Flights

Flights aren't included, but shop around to get the best deal. The earlier you start to look the cheaper it'll be!

We have recently commissioned Longreach Travel to help our volunteers find the best flight deals for their trips with Frontier. Longreach Travel are a specialist agent in the Expedition and Gap Year Market and will source the best possible fares for you, whilst offering you an outstanding level of service and support at all times. We ask that you contact Longreach Travel for your flights rather than book online, as they will not only offer you the most competitive fares but also offer a range of benefits to you which include:

  • Your credit card details are not in danger of being fraudulently used.
  • Longreach Travel are bonded to ensure your financial protection.
  • Every ticket issued by Longreach Travel is covered by Airline Failure Insurance, except for those airlines which are in financial difficulty, which will be advised.
  • You have access to a support system should you encounter difficulties, or you find it necessary to change your travel arrangements for whatever reason.
  • Longreach Travel wil help you with any other travel requirement such as overnight hotels if required, Sim cards for your mobile phones, travel insurance and lounge passes.

You are not obliged to book with Longreach Travel, however we at Frontier believe they wil offer you the best possible deals for your flights. Longreach Travel have assured us that should you contact them for a quote, your details will remain strictly confidential and will not be held in their system or added to any future mailing lists. To receive your quote or to seek any advice for your flights, please contact Frontier’s dedicated consultant at Longreach Travel, Michelle Cumbo on 01932 753 411 or by emailing fares@longreachtravel.co.uk

Visas

Depending on your destination country and your country of origin, you might require a visa. Please see the appropriate country consular website for details. Please note that your visa will usually start on the date that you enter the destination country regardless of when it was issued. Please check with the relevant embassy or high commission. If you are purchasing your visa or paying entry/exit fees in-country you will probably need to pay in US Dollars. If you have any questions please consult the relevant embassy or high commission. Please check the visa information regularly, as changes often happen without warning.

Insurance

You'll need to buy appropriate travel insurance covering your participation on the project. You won't be able to go without the right travel insurance so double check to avoid disappointment. Please make sure that you're covered for the whole duration of your trip – from the day you leave the UK to the day you return. It's also best to get your travel insurance at the same time as paying the deposit for your project. Depending on your policy, this will cover you for any unexpected cancellations.

Your insurance should include the following:

  • Medical cover, including medical emergencies and medical evacuations (up to £2,000,000);
  • Personal liability (up to £1,000,000);
  • Cancellation and curtailment of your trip (up to the value of your project contribution).

If you are going to be scuba diving you should get coverage for scuba diving up to 30m, including hyperbaric therapy treatment (unlimited). You should consider obtaining insurance to cover you for any additional activities which you plan to do during, before, or after your Frontier project. We recommend that you obtain cover for your baggage and personal effects.


LEGAL STATEMENT
Frontier supported projects and Frontier group projects are run in partnership with in-country NGOs, small community based organisations, local research institutes, academic organisations and conservation agencies. Project descriptions and information are supplied directly by our partners or field staff and are accurate at time of publishing.

We aim to keep information up to date and accurate, however, the nature of our projects and in particular the fact that they are constantly evolving and developing in response to changing needs means that project activities, travel schedules, tour itineraries and daily timetables can change overnight and without notice.