Taking off Travel blog

If you have wanted to take a vacation that is entirely different from one you’ve ever taken before, you have a lot of choices.

Some of them may require you to do a little work, but even that can open your eyes to circumstances different from your home.

Here are some ideas:

Go on a Mission or Humanitarian Trip

Depending on what you are doing, the chances are you will stay at a central location and take all meals there. You will also most likely have transportation to the “field” or “site” if you are not within easy walking distance.

Local churches and other houses of worship are good places to find out about these types of trips. You can also check with national and international charities, such as the Red Cross or others.

Join a Working Farm

Some foreign countries, such as Mexico, have these. You work on the farm a few hours a day or only on weekends, which gives you plenty of free time to sightsee. Your host family provides meals and lodging when you’re on the farm and in the city, lodging may have been arranged for, or you might be able to find reasonable accommodations on your own.

You may have to stay a certain amount of time, say a month, and you may have to travel with members of the same sex, but still, even with these limitations, you should enjoy yourself.

Teach English

Teach English as a second or alternate language in a foreign country or offer to teach summer school at a school outside your home state.

Summer school classes usually only last a few hours a day, leaving you free time in the afternoon and at night to sightsee. For ESL classes, you may be able to set your own schedule, especially if you are teaching only a few people. You may need a teaching certificate or college degree in order to do this.

If you go through an educational organization to do this, your room and meals will be provided, or you will at least be given information on where to stay and eat for reasonable prices.

Build Hiking Trails

If you like to hike and camp, and don’t mind getting a little dirty, consider helping maintain or even build a new hiking trail. Accommodations will most likely be camping ones – possibly even relatively primitive tent camping – but generally you won’t work all day. Some of these assignments are located in the U.S. Virgin Islands, so you can actually choose a tropical locale to do this at.

If you do decide to do something like this, make sure your passport is in order if you will be leaving the country, and check with your local health department to see if you need any vaccines. Also, check the U.S. Government travel website to see if any countries have recently been added to the list of those where travel is prohibited or advised against.

These types of trips are a great way to broaden your horizon, experience a new culture, help others, and save money. Having international experience is very appealing on college applications and resumes.

A couple of weeks ago when I wrote a post on responsible travel, I ran into Alexia Nestora on Twitter. Alexia runs the Voluntourism Gal blog. With this type of tourism regaining popularity, I interviewed Alexia about voluntourism in general and her experiences in particular.

So what is voluntourism and how did it start?

Alexia Nestora of Voluntourism Gal

Voluntourism has been around for as long as people have been traveling, it’s nothing new but recently it’s gotten a lot of media attention and as a result is rising to the surface a lot more. The Peace Corps was one of the first organizations to formalize volunteering abroad and of course missionaries have been going abroad to serve for years.

The real voluntourism boom in the US happened after 9/11 and the tsunami. All of a sudden it seemed that people wanted to get more out of their vacations, they didn’t just want to sit on a beach anymore, they wanted to give back and get involved in the community.

What are the chief advantages of voluntourism for travelers?

As a voluntourist you will see a side of a community that is hidden away from traditional tourists. While most people will only take pictures of a sight, a voluntourist will live with the community that surrounds the sight and will truly understand what local culture is like – it’s so much more than a bus tour could ever show you.

What are the chief advantages of voluntourism for destinations?

There are many ways that, when voluntourism is done well, destinations benefit. Firstly, they get free labor. Maybe a local school needed to be rebuilt for decades but the workers in the area are spending every second they have trying to make money to support their family, and while they’d like to build a new school, they simply are too busy trying to survive.

Secondly, the communities benefit from the resources volunteers bring with them. Maybe the volunteers will bring new books for the library or maybe they’ll donate money so a group of local women can start a cooperative; this can be a slippery slope but as long as the giving is done responsibly the communities benefit greatly. Lastly, the intercultural relationships that are formed and the understanding of different nationalities greatly contributes to global cooperation. It’s easy to hate all Americans if you have never met one, it’s a bit harder to hate them if they lived with your family and diligently helped on your farm for 2 months. Read more »