Ask a child what they want to be when they grow up and you’ll often hear the same answers. Astronaut. Firefighter. Scientist. We are born curious, and particularly fascinated by the natural world around us: the ladybird on a finger, the petals flying off into the breeze, the rockpool that could keep you occupied for hours. We’re instinctively drawn to the way it all works and why it matters. We want to touch it, understand it, be part of it. But for many of us, as life gets busier, and the world gets more serious, that curiosity shifts. We begin to step back.
The novelist Richard Powers wrote about the need to close the gap between people and nature. To replace abstraction with encounter, because we protect what we love, and we love what we know. That idea struck a deep chord with us at Journey. We have always felt the weight of a particular responsibility – not just to show our guests the world’s most extraordinary places, but to ensure those places genuinely benefit from their presence. Our Citizen Science program was born from that belief, and from a conviction that travel can reconnect people with the natural world with inherent care and curiosity.
Listening for Whales
At dawn, Costa Rica’s Golfo Dulce is blissfully still. The water is glassy, the light soft and gold. The only sound is the low hum of the research vessel carrying you out across the gulf, one of the most biodiverse marine environments in the Americas. But you’re certainly not on one of those ‘tour boats’. There are no commentary speakers, no other passengers jostling for position with cameras at the ready. There is a marine biologist beside you, and a hydrophone in your hands.
You lower it into the water. You’re listening for whales.
What comes back is a signal. Your heart starts to beat a little faster. And then, without warning, the surface thirty meters ahead of you breaks open. A humpback whale rises, breathes, as if in slow motion, and then it’s gone. For a moment, nobody speaks. Then you get to work. With the researcher at your side, you record what you heard, what you saw, when and where. Data points that will feed directly into the population monitoring of this species. Data points that didn’t exist an hour ago.
Work Alongside Researchers
This intimate encounter with a humpback is a glimpse into Journey’s Citizen Science program; one of a series of experiences we’ve created to form part of a wider itinerary in Costa Rica. At its heart are deep, long-standing partnerships with leading NGOs and research organizations doing vital conservation work across the country. Through these relationships, we offer our guests something that may just change the way you see the world. This is the opportunity to step beyond observing as a tourist and into active conservation work; work usually reserved just for trained researchers – until now.
This makes for a different kind of travel altogether. One in which the experiences you have and the memories you make come with something extra: a tangible, lasting contribution to the destinations you visit and the species that depend on them. A chance to rediscover that childlike curiosity, and to give something back.
From Turtle Nests to Jaguar Trails
Across Costa Rica, these experiences take many forms. Over on the Osa Peninsula, as night falls, a hawksbill turtle has come ashore to nest. Headlamps on, you work side by side with a marine biologist to watch, assist and record, as she moves with a slow, ancient certainty. As she turns back toward the ocean, you watch her go. You’ve developed an undeniable affection for this remarkable creature, knowing that your contribution feeds directly into a monitoring program working to bring these turtles back from the brink.
Osa offers more still. Head out with Misión Tiburón aboard a dedicated expedition boat, assisting scientists as they tag and track hammerhead sharks, an endangered species navigating increasingly threatened waters. Back on shore, knee-deep in the waters of the Golfo Dulce with the team from Osa Ecology, replant seagrass, restore coral, and rebuild the underwater architecture that reef fish, sea turtles and marine invertebrates need to survive.
Inland, at the wildlife sanctuaries of Proyecto Asis in Arenal and Alturas near Dominical, the work is just as vital. Go behind the scenes with the sanctuary team, preparing food and caring for recovering animals: howler monkeys, toucans, sloths, and many more displaced by the relentless pressure of human activity. In the old-growth forest of the Horizontes Reserve in Guanacaste, walk carefully selected trails with a wildlife biologist; paths that are shared with some of Costa Rica’s most elusive species. Imagine how it must feel as you wait for the footage to load. And then, there it is. A jaguar, staring right back at you.
And Then, a Good Night’s Sleep
There was a gap in luxury travel. A distance between people and the natural world, much like the one Richard Powers describes. Guests were being shown nature but rarely invited into a relationship with it. The citizen science model gave us a way to change that, responsibly, and to do so without asking travelers to compromise on the quality of experience. Our guests travel with high expectations of comfort, curation and personal attention, and those expectations don’t change when they step into a conservation project. It’s the balance we’ve learned to strike: days that push you just far enough into the wild and the purposeful, followed by evenings that return you to a sense of ease and care. A long soak in your outdoor shower. A massage at the on-site spa using local botanicals. A cold drink beside your infinity pool as the sun goes down. A locally sourced dinner beneath an open sky. One makes space for the other. It isn’t a trade-off.
Ever since your first moments with the natural world, the curiosity has always been there. Costa Rica, and the extraordinary people working to protect it, has a way of bringing it back to the surface, making it possible to leave your mark.
If you’re ready to travel differently, to do more than just pass through, we’d love to start talking about how we can weave citizen science into your bespoke itinerary.
