Camps International Reviews

Name: Camps International
Address: Unit 10 Kingfisher Park Headlands Business ParkSalisbury Road, Ringwood
Rating: 4.14

4.1 Rating 657 Reviews

79 %

of reviewers recommend Camps International

Company Reviews

Metrics

Info

About Camps International:

Camps International are experts in sustainable student travel, offering life-changing school expeditions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Visit Website

Phone:

01425 485390

Email:

info@campsinternational.com

Location:

Unit 10 Kingfisher Park Headlands Business ParkSalisbury Road
Ringwood
BH24 3NX

Write Your review

Tell us how Camps International made you happy

Help future customers by talking about customer service, price, delivery, returns & refunds.

Minimum 10 characters

Would you like to add a photos or videos?

Strengthen your review by uploading photos & videos.

Drag files here or browse

(Supported files: jpg, png, mpeg, ogg, mp4 & webm)

What's your name?

Leave this blank if you'd like to publish your review anonymously.

(Optional)

Whats your email?

We need your email address to verify that your review is genuine

Please note that we may share your email with the company to verify your order.

Camps International 5 star review on 10th October 2025

Ellis England

142

Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

Filter: Rated 1 None 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Stars Helpful

“In 2016 I went on a school expedition to Uganda with Camps International. After our Camps Leader phoned the London Headquarters, they allowed us to go for a swim and a game of volleyball in the Nile. We also used Nile Water in the showers on Hairy Lemon Island. After we returned to the UK one of our group became quite ill and after some testing was diagnosed with a parasite- Schistosomiasis/Bilharzia. After the rest of the group heard of the diagnosis we all went to get tested. Most of us tested positive for the parasite. In the UK the NHS covers the medical costs, however because I moved to Germany for Uni straight after the trip, I have to pay for my medical bills of roughly 1500 Euros myself. After my Stepdad contacted Camps International to ask for my payment to be paid by them, they denied the request with the reasoning that I was lying about how they were contacted to give permission to go in the water. This, in fact, can be confirmed by members of my group and so whether they have no written record of the phone call or are trying to cover themselves, I do not know. I am now left with these extensive medical bills after Camps International acted negligent. Myself and the rest of my group were all minors at the time given in to the care of Camps International, who we were promised had excellent knowledge of dangers in the area we were to visit. After doing one google search I was able to find that it is actually common knowledge not to go swimming in the Nile, as it is a breeding site of many parasites. Had the one member of our group not become acutely ill, we would have never known about the parasite and left untreated it can do severe damage to internal organs. I am sharing this now, over a year after our expedition because only now has my medical treatment been completed. I want to warn other parents and kids who have gone on trips with Camps International to get tested and make sure you were not in contact with anything dangerous. Other groups are still being sent to the exact same camp in Uganda where we contracted the parasite so I hope that others are more wary of the organisation and get tested for various parasites upon their return.”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

Dear Marlene Thank you for your feedback. We have addressed your concerns directly with you and this has been concluded but we did want to publicly respond to your comments. We are sorry to hear of the problems you experienced after your return to the UK. International travel is not without its risks and we do risk manage all our expeditions to ensure we deliver safe expeditions. Whilst our students are on our expeditions they are covered for treatment for the duration of their trip but once you return to the UK then any subsequent treatment would not be covered and a UK doctor would treat you. Treatment is normally a short course of tablets. In your case, there were unfortunately medical bills for the treatment, as you no longer resided in the UK. When all our volunteers return to the UK we do ask them to make an appointment with their GP should they feel unwell. We can also confirm that we no longer use the area in Uganda where your group contracted the parasite. Kind regards, Camps International HQ

Posted 7 years ago

“**PARENTS BEWARE*** - Please ALL parents consider the implications of potentially having to fund the trip with this company if there is any possible shortfall in your fundraising as if your circumstances change and you are unable to commit to the trip there is NO room for a compromise with them. You will NOT be able to retrieve any of the money committed even if a legitimate reason for cancellation is given. I had hoped that the company, which prides itself in its ethical ways, would understand the circumstance my family found itself in when we had to cancel my sons participation in a trip and we had contributed money for my son's place. After we informed them that we needed to cancel, at NO time was there any compassion shown to our situation and the business head of this company reared its ugly head, throwing its own ethics out the window!! I am aware there is T&C's that cover this company from these kind of cancellation requests which we had signed but I can assure you, the decision to cancel was not taken lightly and with great reluctance though this company did not once acknowledge the reason for cancellation. Another word of warning is that this is a company, NOT a charity and if any businesses were to sponsor your child, they are unable to declare this as a charitable donation, just in case this would affect your fundraising ideas & any impression given at any information evenings. I am acutely aware that the company has (and probably continues) to help in the areas they are based in but if you run into any trouble and can't honour the cost of the trip, you have almost 100% lost any contribution paid. I sincerely hope any of the money that we have paid has gone to some kind of assistance to people they advertise that they help and not into their profits of the company (which I sadly assume has in our case) I sincerely wish any parent that has their child participating all the best of luck on the opportunity they are involved in, and do not want to adversely alarm anyone to not take part in these trips, I just want to highlight the situation that I found myself in when my circumstances changed dramatically from when we signed up for the trip and the ZERO understanding given by them.”

Helpful Report

Posted 9 years ago

Thank you for your comments and we’d like to say we fully appreciate and sympathise with your situation and reasons for cancelling your son’s place. We apologise that you feel this may not be the case, please let me reassure you that we do genuinely care and have tried to work with you to find an alternative solution to cancelling. We have written to you directly to respond fully to your points and in the interests of protecting your privacy, we will not discuss those in a public forum. What we would like to explain is a bit more about who we are and what we do. Camps International is a social enterprise – a business with philanthropic interests at its heart. In 15 years, we have supported nearly 50,000 people in Africa, Asia and South America. We are not a charity; however, we have a charity attached to the company to enable us to do even more amazing work in these rural communities. The expeditions we run are not organised by the charity, they are organised by our social business – we make this clear on all materials and in our presentations to parents. We are exceptionally proud of what we do and achieve as a company and therefore have no reason to not want to shout about it from the rooftops. With regards to how and where we spend the money we receive; the funds are used to enable hundreds of life-changing projects to be undertaken each year. Through these we deliver real and sustainable change around the world. We promise that every project we start we finish, without compromise. We also provide extensive pre-expedition support for anything up to 2 years before departure for all our volunteers. We hope this answers you questions and should you have any further comments, please contact us directly to see how we may be able to help.

Posted 9 years ago

Camps International is rated 4.1 based on 657 reviews