I’m writing this review of Frontier to help others learn from my mistakes. While I can’t speak for every project, you should know this company is highly corrupt, dishonest and littered with false advertising.
By Alex Ushkin
I was looking for something that combined adventure travel with volunteering, which was a main reason I went with Frontier. However, from my experience they cannot do either adequately. So my advice would be to travel with a reliable company and find a separate avenue for volunteering. I signed up for a 30 week program with Frontier. My time was supposed to include 10 weeks in Southeast Asia, 10 weeks in Fiji and another 10 weeks in Central America, which turned out to be much less. The entire 30 weeks cost around $13,000 plus additional $1,700 for open water and advanced diver certifications for the Fiji marine volunteer project.
Frontier was so disappointing, a total scam and not worth the money. Let me be your lesson on this. Avoid Frontier at all costs. I made the terrible decision to go with Frontier so hopefully I can at least pass on some knowledge to prevent others from being swindled. I truly believe they are a fraudulent company.
SOUTHEAST ASIA TRAIL (October to December 2017)
If you’re traveling on your own for 10 weeks in Southeast Asia and spend $4,400, you’re probably only going to spend that much if you stay in nice hotels, eat out a lot or do expensive activities. But I spent about that amount with Frontier and I’m not sure why. We stayed in budget accommodations and there was nothing extravagant about the trip. I’m fine with hostels and cheaper restaurants, but 10 weeks in Southeast Asia should not cost $4,400 if you are traveling on a budget, which is what we did. What you get is a whole lot less than what is promised and falsely advertised. I’ve been to many hostels good and bad. The ones Frontier has volunteers stay in are largely in the not good category–though I admit some were fine or good. I paid the program fee in advance, but when you arrive you’re put on a budget, which was $10.00 a night. Even at 10 weeks that’s $10/night x 70 nights =$700, so I don’t know where the overpriced program fee I paid was going. In addition, their website claims meals are provided. When I arrived I found out some meals weren’t included and no drinking water was available to us. That was a separate cost. The budget for us was roughly $3.00 a day minus weekends so $3.00/day x 5days/week x 10 weeks)= $150. Also the guide wouldn’t pay for your meal if you got “western” food. This was not a real rule but one imposed by this guide.
VOLUNTEERING IN CAMBODIA
My volunteer experience in Cambodia was teaching English at a free local school for children that couldn’t afford English classes. The name of the school was Smiling Hearts in Siem Reap. I enjoyed my time with the actual school and children and thought they were doing good work–I ended up creating a fundraiser to donate to them directly.
The relationship with Frontier was already frayed when we got there due to the lack of financial support. Frontier’s only support was the volunteers that come through every few months. The school has since cuts ties with Frontier. Most of the Frontier volunteers were actually asked not to come anymore after a few weeks because a group that actually contributed was coming in. However, my partner and I continued because we had a good bond with our students. I would say overall I had a good interaction with the school and local community.
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That said, Frontier’s investment in the project was $0! It was extremely awkward on the first day of meeting the school administrator when she told us this. Many in the group immediately wrote emails to Frontier demanding an explanation. They use ambiguous and completely non transparent business practices. Basically they state that they never promise to spend the money on your project, but they can choose to spend on anything like “administration costs” and lawyer fees. If you actually want your money to support the cause you volunteer with, stay away from Frontier.
EXCURSIONS
According to the Frontier website several activities were included, but the guide denied this. Eventually the group persisted and indeed the guide was forced to give us a refund for certain activities. Other things the guide made up… Can’t jump in waterfall because too dangerous (as 10 year boys were jumping), limiting alcohol… She made up random rules like two drinks per evening, no more than two times a week. This was also protested and guide was told that’s not a rule. Curfews… Couldn’t go out after 6pm without signing out or having a buddy. I’m 30 years old, and was treated like a child. Not to mention this guide could not speak any local language, had no experience leading group travel and had only lightly traveled that region before so her usefulness was thus minimal.
I can’t remember all the travel fees but it’s safe to say they weren’t in the $3,000 range, probably like $500. So you’re getting possibly the value of $,1500 but getting charged over $4,000, with none of that money going to support your project. That is straight awful. A couple folks dropped out (one for medical issue, another due to complete disappoint with Frontier), most on the trip agreed it was a terrible value and would never use Frontier again but nothing we can do about it. Several sued or tried but it’s prohibitively expensive trying to go against on your own (remember all those lawyer fees??) so I don’t think anything came about. That being said I did get to meet some cool people and see some cool places. My advice… SEA is pretty well traveled so it’s simple to go it alone as you’ll meet plenty of people at hostels. Or travel with a reputable and reliable company (definitely not Frontier) for a short time until comfortable to go alone or meet some friends and travel. Or find a local NGO to work with and know your cause is actually getting your money. There was a girl at the school that just did this and volunteered for free, even got free room to stay for teaching meanwhile we shuffled thousands of dollars to a corrupt company instead of a well deserving school for impoverished children.
FIJI (January to March 2018)
So another 10 weeks here, $4,400 paid plus an additional $1,700 for courses. The situation here was different than SEA, which was more travel based. While Fiji was a more permanent camp, not really any travel included. The living conditions were pretty bad here. It was quite remote and self sustained living a lot ,which personally I do enjoy. However, if you’re paying a lot of money and get a dump you’d be upset, rightfully so, this is kinda like that. Obviously I didn’t expect a luxury hotel, but the water would constantly break and the camp was falling apart. Barely a workable shower when I got there. The solar panel was broken so nearly zero electricity. We had one light in the camp that worked. Everything else was personally brought by volunteers /staff such as mini solar lights and panels for charging phones /cameras etc. Obviously no WiFi (again knew that and didn’t really care) though can occasionally get signal on local sim card.
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The kitchen and all equipment was in pretty rough shape. The living conditions in general were disagreeable. Beds were a one inch foam mattress, my back was agony the whole time and extremely difficult to get anything resembling good rest on. The food was cooked by staff and volunteers on camp, typically. The food that came out was surprisingly good most of the time but that’s because I suppose we had some good cooks. Meals were typically rice, canned beans and vegetables. Once a week we’d get fresh fruit, vegetables, bread, eggs but that would always run out quick before next supply.
FIJI DIVING
As far as the diving goes Fiji has superb diving BUT getting certified was a nightmare. Ideally open water and advanced can be finished in a week. Sure there were lots of additional challenges when living on a remote island so they even say maybe two or three weeks. It took me eight weeks! You’re basically paying for the diving here since as we discussed you’re not getting much value from the lodging or meals. So to be low balled on diving was a major issue. Essentially I got 11 dives outside the training dives, which could be seen as the most expensive dives in the world compared to how much the project cost.
There were many issues, some directly Frontier’s fault, some indirectly, only one reason was neither (evacuated for hurricane, which at this point shouldn’t be surprising to hear that we were forced out of camp and off the island to the mainland at our own expense and actually charged by Frontier for using their mainland lodging! That is some reprehensible behavior!). FYI the other reasons were Frontier failing to pay for their dive insurance, constant boat and air compressor failures, dive instructor getting sick and requiring surgery on the mainland (I say this is indirectly Frontier’s responsibility because they should have had a backup plan rather than delaying training for another week). All that said the staff in general here were better, more experienced, and they were quite a few of them. Also the people I met here were mostly cool. Again I enjoyed Fiji and locals and most of the other volunteers but again it is not even close to being worth going with Frontier. Fiji is very easy to travel solo or find an NGO that won’t rip you off.
CENTRAL AMERICA (January to March 2019)
This was more travel based like SEA trail, but again was a disaster. It was so bad it was fraudulently canceled by Frontier after we refused to pay extra for transportation that was stated to be provided and then calling out all their lies on the matter. They refused to provide any refund at all. If you thought the other trips above were bad, this time I had enough.
I arrived in Mexico on day one, our guide (again someone with limited knowledge /experience but could at least speak Spanish), states Frontier won’t let us go through Nicaragua due to potential conflict. Okay we were never given any indication of this issue even though it was clearly known (they pulled this same stunt the previous year) and states in their terms and conditions that they are required to notify us of any major changes and we can choose to agree with those changes or receive refund. This never happened. The guide said Frontier will provide transport from Honduras to Costa Rica to avoid Nicaragua (via flight). Volunteers say okay, not ideal but we were already there and couldn’t do anything about it.
A week before this flight this guide says actually what he meant that first day was that we have to pay the flights completely out of pocket–about $400 at this point. Volunteers pushed back and told him that’s not what you said. Frontier and guide both lied about the origins of this “no going through Nicaragua rule” as a “force major clause, claimed they told us before which is most certainly false. We were told an email was sent to us informing us of this, but what wasn’t the case. They said, “that email was sent the week we were moving servers and it doesn’t show up now.” Well that’s not how email works and that they have the right to cancel without refunds because of this imminent danger situation that they basically invented.
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It’s almost hard to argue the stupidity that comes out of the Frontier office as the danger has been known about for over a year, they are required to notify us and give us options, well yeah none of that happened. They canceled around the four week mark effectively scamming us out of over six weeks of the trip. Also this guide frequently lied to us, failed miserably to communicate what we were saying since they wouldn’t answer our direct emails, and kept saying “oh well I’m not English native speaker so maybe you didn’t understand me” which he used as a cover for the lies. He also had no experience leading group travel and was quite terrible at it in all regards. He also made frequent creepy and unwanted advances towards one of the other volunteers to the point she wouldn’t feel safe near him or if alone with him. He also made frequent “jokes” in very poor taste (jokes about things like teen prostitution, indicating he might have taken part on other trips he’s done).
It was embarrassing, creepy and offensive, even to me, and I’m not one to get offended easily. I was looking up legal documents and talking to lawyers while on this trip to find out if they are acting illegally. Could you imagine doing that when you’re supposed to be traveling and exploring the world? In the end, the fight of one versus an international corporation based in another country was too much for me but I really hope they are exposed and taken down, it won’t be soon enough. In the meantime I hope to warn as many people as possible of this company.
All in all, I cannot overstate how bad Frontier is, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating at all. I have dealt with them over the course of two years, actively spending about 24 weeks with Frontier. Please learn from me and never book with Frontier. They are dishonest and misleading. Be careful because they spend a lot of money on advertising and if you want to take the chance like I did then good luck, but you’ll likely regret it.