The support from staff was good and Iona was very helpful and professional throughout the entire process (which in my case was quite convoluted). The Dinokeng game reserve (South Africa) project was excellent (although the volunteer house was in poor condition and not up to standard when we arrived). The animal sightings were amazing and I learned so much. Our guide (Ingrid) was brilliant and I felt our work was very necessary and worthwhile. I would highly recommend this project to anyone, with the general caveat mentioned below*. The marine conservation project in Sodwana Bay was good in terms of the dive training (can't praise our dive instructor enough) and the marine ecology lectures were great. The Bay is a great place to learn to dive. However, some of the information in Pod's guide regarding the uses of data collected on this project is simply incorrect (something I only found out on arrival at the project). This project offers great dive training and marine ecology education and is part of PADI's Project Aware. However, the data collected is not actually used for anything and therefore does not contribute to the conservation of the reef system, nor to global databases, as claimed. Had I know this in advance I would have chosen a different project somewhere else in the world since I wanted to contribute to meaningful conservation work. This is a real shame and the only reason I am not able to give a Pod an 'Excellent' rating. I also think the fees Pod charges are too high and I would have preferred more of the money to have gone to the projects themselves. *Note that if, like me, you are over 30 you will very likely be the only volunteer in that age range. These projects attract almost exclusively school leavers, gap year students or early 20s. A lot of them seem to regard this as 'summer camp' or something to fill the time in their year off if they haven't got any better ideas. They don't know how to cook or clean, don't pull their weight and can be quite immature and often don't seem to appreciate how lucky they are to be here. So living and working with them can be very frustrating (in fact this was the only truly challenging aspect of volunteering for me). Also, they are almost exclusively German so if you don't speak German you will spend a lot of time listening to people talk in a language you can't understand, which can be quite isolating. If you can cope with all this, then do it as it's an amazing experience and, overall, I am glad I did it. Just make sure your reserves of patience are well stocked up before you come.