Professional: Volunteer tourism - “we come here to help”

Ever thought of making your next holiday a wholly different experience to anything you’ve done before, to contribute with your time and money? Well join the thousands of people who travel to exotic destinations around the world and take part in the new eco-tourism revolution. Many otherwise well informed or those that consider themselves “travel trend conscious” are surprised to learn that not only do volunteers travel overseas to work for someone else, they pay for the privilege! There has been...

The thought of volunteering during your vacation may have crossed your mind – or has it? Your idea of a vacation may be to lie on a warm Pacific beach or hike in the Alps and that’s a wonderful thing. But there might be more in your vacation future. Why not spend some time caring for orphans in Africa or for sea turtles in South America? After all, there’s no reason you can’t make the world a better place while you see it!

Organizing our own volunteer trip isn’t difficult, but it does take time. You’ll need to do a fair amount of researching and contacting people, to figure out what all is out there. You will likely be volunteering in some part of the developing world, where, unfortunately, things are much less organized than many of us are accustomed to. Finding a volunteer abroad position will not be as easy as just looking up some websites and deciding on a project that interests you. 90% of these organizations...

One of the main reasons why travellers don't choose to volunteer is that they don't believe their efforts will actually make a difference. It's not uncommon for people to ask "What can I do? I'm just one person!" but the truth is that your contribution can have a huge impact on both communities and environments worldwide. Even if you volunteer for just a few weeks, you can make significant progress to a cause that’s important to you. The problem is that many short term volunteers can’t see the b...

Africa is a vast continent but most of it lies in the shadow of poverty, malnutrition, drought, lack of education and civil wars. From the famines of Ethiopia to the poaching of wild animals in Kenya, Africa has seen it all. Volunteering in Africa has been a major consideration of Non-profit organizations worldwide...

The popularity of volunteer tourism as a form of alternative tourism has grown significantly over the past decade. Volunteer tourists can now be found throughout the world participating in a wide array of social, educational, political and environmental projects. While these projects continue to use volunteer tourists as a significant source of labor, the NGOs and community organisations that provide and support them have begun exploring other innovative ways to attract and engage volunteer tour...