http://www.care2.com/greenliving/green-volunteer-vacations.html
Volunteer Vacations for the Planet
By Terri Hall-Jackson, contributing writer, Care2 Healthy and Green Living
Looking for an affordable and fun family vacation that provides R and R, plus the satisfaction of knowing that together you’ve contributed to making the Earth happy?
Then you might consider taking a volunteer vacation. These vacations do require that you push up your sleeves to varying degrees, but the trade-off sometimes includes free food and accommodations, a new locale away from it all, many of which are quite beautiful, and experiences that no classroom could ever offer you or your child.
Here are some ways to get started:
1. Through the World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, your family can choose from a number of organic farms throughout the United States (including Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands!!) that will welcome you in exchange for a few hours of work.
2. If you’re interested in helping repairing a trail, shoreline or other natural setting, the Sierra Club offers affordable outings (under $600 per person) that would give you that opportunity. You could find yourself in Lake Tahoe helping to improve a forest or with an archaeologist servicing a site in Utah. The Sierra Club features several trips that are intended for families, with plenty of time set aside for swimming, relaxing, cooking, activities for the kids, etc.
4. You can join an Earthwatch Institute expedition. Earthwatch has 120 field sites in more than 40 countries and offers public volunteers subsidized travel costs to work with scientists on environmental studies–some incredibly scenic! Expeditions include everything from tracking whales and dolphins off Abaco Island to working with a team of Chinese researchers to preserve traditional the traditional customs and beliefs of their ancestral country.
5. For a general search of volunteer vacations organized by state and cause, CheapTickets has partnered with United Way of America to offer a large searchable database of volunteer opportunities that can include entire vacations, or even just a way to spend a day of your vacation doing volunteer work.
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add your comment »www.dunagiri.com ....... for info on the travel/volunteer experiences written about below!
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If you yearn to travel far from home to an exotic locale and culture, have a truly wonderful experience, AND you would like to give a little back to the place to which you travel...take a look at Dunagiri Retreat in the Himalayan foothills of India.
Dunagiri Retreat offers Heritage Tours where guests are immersed in an exploration of nature, history, culture, people and places of India. Tours begin in Delhi, with its fascinating mix of ancient and modern, colors and sounds, sites and people. Guests then travel to India's rural Himalayan foothills, staying at Dunagiri Retreat, a beautiful estate overlooking lush green valleys and snow capped Himalayan peaks. Here,in an area of natural beauty and rich heritage, guests intimately experience village life and culture, and may chose to share in community volunteer projects. Something as simple as caring for a garden or livestock, planting trees, spending time with children at the local school, or helping with a variety of community projects, all leave a lasting impression of time spent, for both our guests and the local people. Also, with each stay at Dunagiri, guests’ tour costs directly support ongoing community projects, such as education and health programs.
Dunagiri takes great pride in offering impeccable hospitality to our guests...and does so in an environmentally and culturally respectful manner.
Dunagiri is an experience like no other, which we hope will stay with our guests forever.
Visit www.duna
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My favourite volunteering database is One Brick because it's simple: http://onebrick.org
There are chapters in NYC, Chicago, SF, DC, & Minneapolis (New Orleans doesn't have a chapter, but does have volunteer activities on the calendar), and it's perfect if you're heading for a specific event (tradeshow, parade, weekend away) and would like to commit to a single day or activity.
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