9 Beaches Where You Can Volunteer with Sea Turtle Hatchlings

Most travelers of the millennial set or older associate sea turtles with catastrophic endangerments and cries for conservation efforts across the globe. Well—there’s good news. The last few decades’ conservation efforts have paid off.

In October, the International Union for Conservation of Nature reported that the global green sea turtle population is rebounding (per NPR), and the species is no longer considered endangered.

Meanwhile, earlier in the year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that most sea turtle species are rebounding across the globe, thanks to conservation measures ranging from reducing or removing artificial lighting near nesting grounds that can confuse baby sea turtles, to just general changes in public sentiment. Now, the organization said, most younger generations see sea turtles as valuable parts of the coastal ecosystems where they live. Still, NOAA noted that further work is needed, particularly in relation to climate change, bycatch, plastic pollution, and habitat restoration.

If continuing the recent, positive progress with sea turtle populations is a cause that’s near and dear to your heart, you may just want to get involved with this further work yourself. Here are nine places where you can volunteer with sea turtle hatchlings and similar sea turtle conservation efforts.

St. Augustine’s main draw may be, for many, the beach town’s long history (it’s the oldest European-settled city in the United States, dating to the mid-1500s), but St. Augustine Beach is also a nesting location for sea turtles!

You can find a variety of sea turtle-related volunteer opportunities in the community, and some may even be conveniently organized through your hotel or resort. For example, Guy Harvey Resort has its own Turtle Team program, which offers activities. Then, there’s the nearby University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, where you can apply to volunteer in several different areas. The lab needs volunteers in its sea turtle hospital, where work can range from prepping sea turtle food to transporting turtles between the beach and hospital, as well as in the research lab, where work might include collecting data in the field or collecting specimens.

The GTM Research Reserve also conducts volunteer beach cleanups, protecting the hatchlings’ precious nesting grounds.

Coconut Bay Beach sits in front of the aptly named Coconut Bay Beach Resort & Spa, where, during a stay, you can see multiple sea turtles nesting between March and November, including leatherbacks, green sea turtles, and hawksbills. In addition to educational turtle conservation programs for all ages, the resort also offers nest identification and protection programming.

It’s possible to view sea turtles frequently at other properties throughout St. Lucia as well, even if the programming isn’t quite as extensive as what you’d find at Coconut Bay. Calabash Cove Resort & Spa has its Turtle Beach, for example, a popular yearly nesting ground between April and September.

For volunteer opportunities beyond a resort setting, look to the Saint Lucia National Trust, which organizes nighttime beach patrols in the Grande Anse Marine Reserve. There, nesting leatherbacks face myriad threats, including egg poaching. Illegal sand mining and fishing also pose a threat to the sea turtles throughout the Caribbean island. 

On Nicaragua’s Pacific coast, Poneloya is a black sand beach near Leon, where you have a few options for interacting and volunteering with sea turtles.

To start, you can book a stay at the appropriately named Surfing Turtle Lodge. The lodge has its very own turtle hatchery on-site, supported fully by lodge staff and guests. (If you specifically want to experience a hatching, then you need to plan your trip for between September and February.) The hatchery works with several different turtle species, including the Olive Ridley, leatherback, and green sea turtles. Since its founding, the hatchery has released more than 50,000 baby sea turtles into the ocean.

Global Vision International, or GVI, also offers sea turtle volunteer opportunities near Poneloya. The organization will help you plan your entire trip, with trip times starting at a minimum duration of one week. During the experience, you can patrol beaches, observe egg laying, relocate nests as needed, and monitor the baby sea turtles.

If you want to travel a bit further afield, you can jet off to Malaysia, where the remote island of Pulau Tioman sits in the South China Sea. The entire island is a nature reserve and provides some of the most picturesque beaches imaginable across its 24-mile length.

Week-long volunteer opportunities are available via the Juara Turtle Project, with sea turtle nesting season beginning in the spring and peaking in the summer. Through the project, guests come out and stay for a week, and during that time, they’re asked to volunteer for a few hours per day (three to four) and then they can do whatever they like with the rest of their time (pro tip: the island is known for its scuba diving, so schedule that in!).

In addition to sea turtle conservation projects, the organization also runs a coral rehabilitation project, and volunteer opportunities are available in that vein as well.  

Want your conservation efforts with a side of luxury? You can get it when you travel to Pinney’s Beach on Nevis, and book a stay at the Four Seasons Resort. There, the property has paired up with the Sea Turtle Conservancy and the Nevis Turtle Group, to offer various conservation programming that guests can partake in.

For example, you can go on an expert-led night walk, joining the pros as they gather data about nesting sea turtles in the field. You can join the sea turtle release, wherein adult hawksbill turtles are fitted with location trackers before being released into the Caribbean. Additionally, in July, you can participate in Sea Turtle Conservation Week activities, during which you’re invited to find and tag turtles for monitoring.

If your travel budget can’t quite accommodate a Four Seasons stay at the moment, you can still volunteer with the Nevis Turtle Group, with volunteers monitoring the beaches at night, tagging turtles, and gathering valuable data.

The Sea Turtle Conservancy offers several turtle-focused volunteer trips, including one to Soropta Beach, in Panama. The black sand beach is one of the largest leatherback nesting sites on the Atlantic. 

During the trip, you’ll spend five nights at the conservancy’s research station, where you’ll get training and enjoy a unique experience monitoring and tagging turtles on the beach. And, since leatherbacks are some of the largest sea turtles on the planet, you’ll be actively working with nesting turtles that weigh a whopping half a ton, and measuring as much as six feet long.

Another Sea Turtle Conservancy opportunity, you can travel to Tortuguero, on the Atlantic side of Costa Rica, where you’ll work with green sea turtles—which are still quite large, but about half the size of the leatherbacks (in case you’re just not up for dealing with a half-ton turtle).

The eight-night trips allow you to participate in tagging and monitoring during the nesting season.

Make no mistake that the conservancy’s volunteer trips are not for the faint of heart or just the casual volunteer. While the trips are open to travelers 15 years of age or older, they often take place in more remote locales and the expectations are somewhat rigorous. For one, when you’re patrolling beaches at night, you’re doing so without a flashlight, and you have to carry a pack, while walking for at least five to seven miles over five hours. Before booking your trip, be sure you’re up to the challenge.

The ABC Islands—Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao—are a great pick if you want to travel to the Caribbean during hurricane season, as the three southern islands sit outside of the hurricane belt. Bonaire, in particular, though, is a good choice out of the three if you want to volunteer with sea turtles and sea turtle hatchlings. 

Right off the western side of Bonaire, Klein Bonaire is an uninhabited coral island with bright white sands and vibrant turquoise waters. There, volunteers with Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire gather to patrol the beach, multiple times per week, as the beach is home to an average of 70 nesting sites per year, making it one of the island’s most important such sites.

Other volunteer activities with Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire include removing fishing lines from reefs and shores, which can entangle sea turtles, as well as cleaning up beaches to keep them safe for the hatchlings.

Lastly, while you may associate sea turtle volunteer opportunities with tropical locales, you don’t have to choose between your love for conservation and a European getaway, if you’re torn. Thanks to Archelon: The Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece, you can book voluntourism experiences all across the Grecian Isles, including in the fashionable beach community of Glyfada, near Athens.

It’s in Glyfada that you’ll find one of the very first Mediterranean sea turtle rescue centers, established in the 1990s. You can volunteer there, working with injured or sick sea turtles, but many other opportunities exist, including working with nesting sea turtles and hatchlings in Crete and the Peloponnese.

Do note that these volunteer opportunities do require a bit of a longer time commitment, though, two to four weeks.