Frequently Asked Questions

If you are an international volunteer, please ensure you have the following things in order to volunteer with Marine Conservation Philippines:

• You must have a valid ticket out of the Philippines*
• Your passport needs to be valid for at least six more months at the point of departure from the Philippines

* The Bureau of Immigration has confirmed that tourists A) need a ticket out of the country within 30 days from original arrival, but that B) they can extend their tourist visa once they are in the Philippines. So, enter the country with an exit ticket within the first 30 days, and then rebook or cancel it as you need. This applies if you enter the country without a visa and get the free tourist visa on arrival (valid for 30 days). Please have this ticket booked before you leave home. In most cases it’s checked by your airline at check-in, before you even board your flight to the Philippines, so it’s not something you can sort out after you arrive.

We ask all of our interns and volunteers to have travel insurance that would cover them in case of involuntary cancellation pre-departure, hospitalization or recall for family emergencies at home. Note that you are highly unlikely to be covered under any sort of national health service from your home country while abroad, and MCP has no insurance policy that covers you either. Please don’t skip travel insurance. If you have to cancel before arriving, refunds follow our refund policy, and close to your arrival date there may be no refund at all. At that point, any compensation is a matter between you and your insurance company.

Marine Conservation Philippines only accepts volunteers aged 18+. We make exceptions for families wishing to be involved with marine conservation (children must be aged 16 and be able to participate more or less as a grown-up), as well as high-school students accompanied by their teachers. In either case, the responsibility for the children lies with the accompanying adults. Various paperwork, including liability releases and assumption of risk, must be signed by a parent or a legal guardian. The work is physically demanding, with potentially long swims and heavy gear to carry, and in our experience it gets very hard going past sixty. For that reason, we can’t recommend the project to anyone over sixty.

Unfortunately, we aren’t able to organize itineraries or book flights for our volunteers, but here are a few pointers to help you plan. For domestic flights from Manila or Cebu, we recommend Cebu Pacific, as they usually have affordable fares. Your destination is Dumaguete airport (DGT), where we’ll be happy to pick you up. If you’re arriving in Dumaguete by ferry from elsewhere in the Philippines, please make your way to the airport so we can meet you there. It’s only about ten minutes from the ferry terminal.

We recommend booking your domestic flight to Dumaguete, whether you connect through Manila or Cebu, directly with the airline as a separate, stand-alone ticket. Adding it to your international flight as one combined booking through flight comparison and booking sites such as momondo often costs a few hundred dollars more. Just keep in mind that two separate tickets aren’t linked, so leave yourself a comfortable layover in case your international flight is delayed.

Cancellation: If you need to cancel your stay, this follows our usual cancellation terms and procedures, and how much you get back depends on how close to your expected arrival day you are when you cancel. If you have booked your stay with us through a travel agency, they are technically the arranger of the trip, and you have to go through them for cancellation. In any case, if the cancellation is based on health reasons, we suggest you get in touch with your airline and insurance company to make any claims you can.

Rebooking: We try to be flexible, and if you let us know three months in advance, we offer rebooking of your stay free of charge. There are a number of restrictions on your rebooking:

1. The rebooking is personal, and you cannot give your spot to anyone else.
2. The rebooking cannot be used to circumvent normal cancellation terms.
3. Your rebooking is subject to availability on the desired new arrival date. If we don’t have space, we cannot give you a spot and you’ll have to choose a different date.
4. Any payments for the original booking are retained. If you have only paid your deposit, but not your balance payment, you will need to pay the balance at the latest two months before your new arrival date.

Getting a visa and extending your stay is easy in the Philippines. Most of our volunteers are foreigners needing a visa during their stay. You can stay and volunteer with Marine Conservation Philippines on a normal tourist visa, which is both easy to get and to extend. Almost all nationalities get a free one-month tourist visa when arriving at the airport in the Philippines (see if you’re eligible). When you need to extend your visa (as you normally will as a volunteer staying for 6+ weeks), it is easy to do at the immigration office in nearby Dumaguete. If you stay more than 59 days in the Philippines, you will need an ACR I-Card (Alien Certificate of Registration). It’s a small ID card, which you’re legally required to obtain. It’s quick to get made at the Immigration Office in Dumaguete, and it costs around 100 USD.

Please be aware that in order to be allowed to enter the Philippines, you must also have a ticket out of the Philippines (it can be to a third country; it does not have to be where you originally came from). Your airline will most likely check this when you check in for your flight to the Philippines, so make sure it’s booked before you leave home.

Please note that if you enter on a normal tourist visa that you get for free on arrival, you need to have a ticket out of the country within thirty days of entering. There are two easy ways to fix this:

1. You book your ticket in and out, so that your departure date is within 30 days. Then, when you are in the Philippines, you change your departure date to when you actually want to fly home or onwards.
2. You book your ticket in and out, so that your departure is the real date, outside of the 30 days. Then you also have a second one-way ticket to Bangkok or Singapore that is within 30 days of your arrival. This is the ticket you show to immigration if they ask. Once you are in the Philippines, you cancel the one-way ticket, and only have your original ticket left. You of course have to find a ticket that has free cancellation.

Here are some useful suggestions. The Philippines is hot and often humid too, so we suggest you choose light clothes. Most volunteers who bring more than a pair or two of long pants and/or anything with long sleeves never use it. If you are a woman and want to be able to do work in the local community (like teaching in schools), please bring some items of clothing that cover your shoulders (a normal t-shirt is fine) and some shorts that aren’t too short. Guys need to cover their shoulders too on formal occasions.

If you use tampons, please be aware that they are difficult to find in the Philippines. We recommend bringing your own supply.

If you are prone to getting bitten by mosquitoes, consider bringing some repellent. You do not need malaria meds, as there is no malaria here. From January or February until June it is almost completely dry, and there are very few mosquitoes. Outside of those months it is a good idea to bring a rain coat, just in case. No matter which time of year you volunteer, you definitely want to bring a high-SPF sunscreen! We recommend something like this one, as it’s safe for corals, and many sunscreens aren’t. Best of all is to bring both a long-sleeved rash guard and sunscreen!

It’s recommended to bring a little cheap flashlight. You do not need to bring any bed linen, sleeping bags or similar – we’ve got you covered. (Oh! And if you by any chance are arriving from Denmark or the UK, you will be our best new friend if you could bring some small comfort foods or a package from family or friends of our permanent staff. This is how you earn big, big brownie points!)

We make sure that the main part of our research can be carried out by any volunteer, no matter their background. We will train you to become a confident diver with good buoyancy, and teach you to identify different species or help you master whatever work you will be involved with. After your first week, or after your initial dive course, you will be trained each day until you are ready to take part in the scientific diving. This training typically takes two weeks, although people learn at different speeds. We take you out on identification dives, in which we show you the different species, and on land we will teach you the species with a lot of pictures and explanations of what to look for. Depending on how fast a learner you are, you can be part of the research team after two weeks of practice. Additionally, you may want to do some studying before volunteering with us. You are welcome to download our survey manuals and primers from the download section. The film below shows what scientific diving with us looks like.

Volunteer and do scientific scuba diving (YouTube)

Please download and read our volunteer handbook. It will give you a lot more information on what you can do before you arrive, what life is like on base and what you can expect as a volunteer.

Please make sure you have adequate travel insurance.

If you have time, please consider doing some studying ahead of volunteering. In the volunteer manual there is a link to the various survey manuals and presentations we use for training purposes. If you download them and train, you can be half an expert before you even start diving with us.

We can provide adequate meals for volunteers who for whatever reason prefer to eat gluten-free, or who have celiac disease as it usually manifests. Please note, however, that our kitchen is not a sterile lab, and that your food is stored next to “unsafe” foods. There is no separate set of utensils or kitchenware used for your cooking, and as such – if you suffer from very strong reactions to trace amounts of unsafe foods or the slightest cross-contamination, we cannot recommend you join our program, unless you are prepared to accept full responsibility for your own cooking.

Yes, within reason you’re welcome to take days off for local sightseeing or island hopping. There’s no set rule on how much is too much, but our work really does depend on our volunteers, so we’d love you to take part as much as you can.

It helps to know how the fee works: it covers a set period (six weeks, three months or however long you’ve booked), including three daily meals, diving, dive gear and accommodation. Your room, bed and locker stay reserved for you while you’re away, so days you spend elsewhere aren’t added at the end of your stay or refunded. For that reason, longer independent trips usually work out best, for you and for the project, either before or after your time with us. You might also find fellow volunteers who’d like to explore the Philippines with you afterwards. During your stay, weekends are perfect for day trips.

MCP operates with continuous enrollment and accepts new volunteers every second Monday. We offer a free pick-up service at Dumaguete airport (DGT). Six to ten weeks is the normal length of volunteer stays, although many stay longer – especially if doing an internship or divemaster training. We ask all volunteers to stay at least six weeks on the project. The one exception is for people who are already at least Advanced Open Water certified, who have dived recently and who have at least 20 logged dives. If this is the case, and you do not need to do any scuba courses, the shortest possible duration is four weeks. Please note that scuba courses aren’t possible on four-week stays, as there isn’t enough time to do PADI courses, learn scientific diving and then put it into practice.

To make your first day with Marine Conservation Philippines the best possible, and to allow ample time to sort out paperwork and scuba gear and to let you settle in well at base, we ask everyone to arrive no later than 10am. We will meet you at the airport and be waiting for you outside. Once you and your fellow volunteers have arrived, we will drive down to our base from Dumaguete airport. (We’ll wait for any delayed flights.) If you cannot arrive in time for the 10am shuttle, please try to arrive the day before and spend the night in a local hotel. (Check Agoda or Tripadvisor for recommendations, and then take a tricycle to the airport the next day.)

On your last day on the program, a Monday morning many weeks later, we arrange a free shared ride for everyone leaving that day. We ask everyone to leave in the morning, so we can get ready for the new arrivals. If you have a late flight, perhaps you can enjoy some fast wifi and a coffee at Starbucks in Dumaguete.

Sorry, no. MCP staff have several dogs and cats, and there’s too big a risk it’ll devolve into fights when the animal hierarchy is disturbed. We cannot risk any animals (including yours) getting hurt. Secondly, due to the communal living situation, we can’t ask anyone to share a room with your animal. Other volunteers may be afraid of your animal, or they could be allergic.

As a volunteer you’re living in the woods, you wear sandals all the time, you ride boats to dive sites, you plant mangroves, and you may scratch yourself on corals. There’s ample opportunity to get cuts and scratches, and you should definitely get inoculated against diphtheria and tetanus. Most people would have these shots already – there are rusty nails everywhere in the world after all.

It is suggested you also get immunized against hepatitis A (you can get it in a combi-vaccine against hepatitis B, which some doctors suggest you get too). Japanese encephalitis is very rare, but is thought to exist on all islands in the Philippines. A few hundred cases are reported nationwide each year. Because of this, some foreign doctors recommend you get this vaccination if you stay for long. We suggest you check with the health authorities of your home country; most have some service for travellers seeking advice. The same is true for vaccination against typhoid fever. There is no international medical consensus on whether you should get these two vaccinations, and the length of stay of course plays a role too. We are not medical professionals and can only suggest you check with your own doctor and make your own decisions.

There is no malaria anywhere on our island, and it is eradicated in most parts of the Philippines. If you intend to travel to other rural parts of the Philippines before or after volunteering with us, we suggest you check the current recommendations for those areas and take any measures you deem appropriate.

To summarise: you don’t need malaria medication here, but do get the shots against diphtheria, tetanus and hepatitis A. Do your own research and ask your own doctor if you should get shots against Japanese encephalitis and typhoid.

Road culture and road safety in the Philippines are completely unlike what most volunteers expect or may be familiar with. What you do before or after participating as a volunteer is up to you, but while volunteering, we ask all MCP volunteers to refrain from driving motorcycles themselves. Before or after your volunteering period, legally speaking, if you are a foreigner, you can drive a motorbike in the Philippines if you hold a valid motorbike license from your own country. (A car-only license is not valid.) In addition to being illegal, driving a motorbike without a valid license means that you will not have any insurance coverage if you suffer an accident. While we respect that our volunteers are grown-ups and that some have valid motorcycle licenses, we have seen too many ugly accidents and very narrow misses. Such accidents have a profound effect on all staff and volunteers and cause heavy emotional distress for everyone. Instead of renting a bike, we recommend using “habal-habals”, local motorcycle taxis that are very affordable and help support the local community. In addition, the bus stops right outside MCP.

People who volunteer with us have very diverse backgrounds. Some come with no prior dive training and others are divemasters. Some have a degree in marine biology or a related field, and others are simply passionate, want to help make the world a better place, and are eager to experience life as a volunteer on a project like this. We welcome all, as long as they are okay with our expectations of volunteers. Most volunteers are in their twenties or thirties, with the average somewhere in the mid-twenties. The composition of the volunteer group changes over time, but generally speaking most participants are from Northern Europe and North America. Most of the time there’s about an even mix of women and men, and normally we have about a dozen different nationalities on base. There are usually around 30 volunteers at a time.

You can see more pictures of the base and accommodation in the gallery. You can also watch our 2025 movie showing you what it looks like here. There’s also an older video that still gives a good picture.

Please see our detailed travel description of how to get to the HQ of Marine Conservation Philippines.

No. We have everything you’ll need, and complete scuba gear rental is included in the volunteer fee. It may be a good idea to buy your own mask though, just for the comfort of having a mask that fits really well – but it’s completely up to you. As a volunteer you are provided with free rental of brand-new and well-serviced scuba equipment during your stay. A few volunteers, especially those doing a PADI divemaster internship, will wish to purchase their own scuba gear. Should you wish to purchase scuba gear, we’ll be glad to guide you with regard to selection, and you’ll be able to purchase the gear at a steep discount through us.

If you want to do your laundry yourself, we have tubs and free washing powder you are welcome to use. Almost all volunteers (as well as on-site staff) use the services of a professional laundry company. They come and pick up laundry bags twice a week, and it comes back cleanly washed and folded the very next day. Cost is around 4 USD for up to 8kg.

We work hard to keep a high standard of hygiene in our kitchen, and we have our own solar-powered deep wells on the property providing us with the freshest clean drinking water. You can drink our tap water! We are happy to cook vegetarian and vegan options, and we try our best to provide for other special dietary needs. Please be aware that certain things, such as halal meat for example, may be impossible to obtain in our part of the Philippines, and that you may need to show some flexibility if you have very strict dietary requirements. We’d appreciate it if you let us know in advance of any allergies. Read more about our food. You can even download our cookbook and help support the local community.

Volunteers who need to refrigerate medicine can of course do so, and we have enough space for that in our fridges. Outside of that, we do not provide a private fridge. In practice, most people don’t miss it: delicious food is cooked three times a day, and you can always help yourself to fruits and various snacks. Additionally, we have a fridge from which you can purchase cold beverages, and there is always chilled water available.

We’ve got solar-powered WiFi. It’s pretty fast, but the speed depends on how many volunteers are trying to access it at once. You can’t count on being able to download large amounts of data or make video calls – but it’s enough to check your email and see what’s going on on Facebook. Voltage is 220 V at 60 Hz, a similar voltage to the UK, Europe, Australia and most of Asia and Africa. Sockets at MCP camp are dual-function and work with both type A plugs (two flat pins, as used in the Philippines and North America) and type C plugs (two round pins, European style), pictured below.

One of the main reasons why the Philippines is so popular with pensioners and holidaymakers alike is the pleasing climate. Water temperatures range from 26°C in December-February to a balmy 30°C in June-August. Air temperatures follow the same pattern and range from around 25°C to 35°C. December through March are more windy. In our area, the long dry season starts in January or February and lasts until June or July, when the rainy season begins. During the first weeks of the rainy season, there’s hardly a day without at least some rain, but after that, showers become less and less frequent, and our work continues no matter the weather. A few months later the weather is quite akin to a European summer, with comfortable temperatures and occasional showers. Of course, at that time the botanical garden we live in is very lush and green. The rainy season usually fades out sometime in November, and almost always by December. Get specific info on the weather and typhoons here.

Please look at our volunteer packages. For volunteers able to stay past twelve weeks, special rates apply for the last part of their stay. People in prolonged internships pay a reduced rate.

MCP is a non-profit organisation. We have no investors or shareholders to generate revenue for, but we must ensure our continued operation. Although we occasionally receive small donations and are supported by purpose-specific grants, by and large we’re funded through volunteer payments. No one pays the water or electricity bills for us, and there’s a very real cost to employing people, keeping the kitchen running, repaying loans, replacing broken gear, fueling cars, paying rent and utilities, PADI fees and insurance, all besides running a safe dive operation. Any surplus goes to community donations, pro-bono work in the community, our scholarship program and summer camps for local kids, reinvestment in material and equipment for Marine Conservation Philippines, as well as our contingency savings fund. If you are interested, you are welcome to examine how we spend the money.

It’s a fair question, and one we think everyone should ask before choosing a project. Real conservation is long-term work, and no single six-week stay changes a reef on its own. What makes the difference is continuity: volunteers arriving every second Monday, year after year, keeping the surveys, restoration and community work going without a break.

Volunteers carry out most of our reef monitoring, and that data is open-access and feeds directly into how local governments manage their Marine Protected Areas. Volunteer fees also fund the rest of our work, from training government dive teams and Bantay Dagat sea wardens to environmental education in schools and communities. Since 2015, our staff, interns and volunteers have completed more than 3,000 reef survey missions, removed over 5.8 million pieces of ocean plastic, planted more than 30,000 mangrove trees and helped protect over 200 hectares of marine habitat.

The film below shows how the Marine Protected Areas we support are bringing the fish back for local communities. You can also follow our year-by-year achievements and read more about our conservation projects.

Community Impact: How Marine Protected Areas Are Bringing the Fish Back (YouTube)

We generally dive twice a day, five days a week. Sunday is off for everyone, and Saturday is usually half a day, meaning we do one dive. From time to time we may do a recreational night dive (usually in conjunction with someone doing the Advanced Open Water course; if there are additional dive torches, extra spots may be used by other volunteers). Every four weeks the divemaster trainees at MCP arrange a dive trip to Apo Island, usually doing two dives there. On average, you can expect to dive around 10-12 times a week, as this takes into account that there may be weeks where you participate in mangrove replanting efforts, educational activities, an occasional night dive etc.

In terms of marine life, we are right in the centre of the centre of biodiversity. People travel here to see the weird benthic crypto-fauna that you cannot see in very many other places in the world. It’s informally known as the “muck diving” capital of the Philippines. (“Muck” in this case is informal dive lingo for the coconut fronds, leaves, branches, coconut husks etc. that in many areas form a layer of decomposing material on a sandy slope before a coral reef.) This sort of disorderly assemblage of hiding places provides habitats for rare, exotic animals such as the blue-ringed octopus, mimic octopus, flamboyant cuttlefish, seahorses, ghost pipefish and hairy frogfish, to name just a few. All weird and wonderful life, which is what attracts many experienced divers who feel they have seen plenty of coral reefs and have some big items on their bucket list. Outside of the shallow muck areas, seagrass meadows and coral reefs provide more traditional scuba experiences. Our conservation work is centered around the coral reefs, and how they provide ecosystem services, so that’s where you’ll be doing most of your working dives. We monitor more than a dozen different sites, but numbers fluctuate a bit depending on the needs of our government partners and which areas we need to focus on. On the coral reefs you will find schooling fish life, larger groupers, different marine turtles, larger mackerels and tuna, and in sandy areas there are rays of different kinds too.

Generally speaking, the Philippines is really the heart of marine biodiversity, and there’s not much you can’t see here. But there’s a local context too, of course. For example, the strait between us and Apo Island is a migratory route for whales and whale sharks, but we don’t say people can see them, because it happens only a few times a year that we randomly meet the gentle giants. If you stay in the Philippines for a while after your stay with us, there’s other great diving to be had with sharks, and there are some impressive battlefields from World War 2 full of exciting wrecks to explore. More info here about diving in the Philippines.

Our booking policy is as follows: a volunteer placement is considered secured when a 10% non-refundable deposit has been paid. Until then, a volunteer placement is not secured. The outstanding balance of 90% is due at least sixty days before your arrival. In case of bookings within 60 days of arrival, the full amount is to be paid as soon as possible. Volunteers who, because of banking fees on their end, wish to pay everything in one go, rather than split the fee into a deposit and a remaining balance, may do so.

Cancellation, for any reason at all, 60 or more days before your arrival will result in a complete refund, less the 10% non-refundable booking fee. Cancellation 59-42 days prior to arrival will result in a partial 50% refund. Cancellation 41-22 days prior to arrival will result in a partial 25% refund. Any cancellation within the last 21 days before your arrival will not result in a refund. Refunds cannot exceed the sum actually received by MCP, so any receiving bank fees will be deducted from any refunds.

No refunds are issued to volunteers who decide to cut their stay short while with MCP. We require all volunteers to have insurance, and we need volunteers to ensure their insurance would cover involuntary termination of their stay due to medical reasons, family emergencies at home etc. Read our recommendations for insurance.

Most volunteers at Marine Conservation Philippines are already divers when they come, but some learn through the Open Water Course in our program. Normally we only accept volunteers who are divers or intend to become so, but there are a few exceptions. If you already know you would like to work on something else, and you are both capable and self-motivated, there are opportunities. We try to always have a media intern (video, photo, web, journalism, social media), and we also welcome people with relevant backgrounds to participate in our education efforts. Get in touch and tell us how you’d like to help, and we’ll see what we can arrange.