Volunteer or service travel is thriving, and that is not surprising given the gratification it provides the traveler. The desire to give back however,  is not limited just for those with the greatest means. Farther Foundation is a not-for-profit scholarship organization that provides support for low income high school students to participate in educational travel programs that broaden their horizons and raise their aspirations for success. More and more, the programs their scholarship students choose contain opportunities to provide volunteer service to the communities where they travel. During 2009, the …

With the rising popularity of voluntourism, more research have been undertaken to understand the motivations and interests of voluntourists — leisure travelers who include volunteering in their trips. Armed with greater research, the industry can better assess business practices to serve the traveler and the local communities more effectively. The newly-released industry report, 2008 Voluntourism Survey, provides some great profiles on voluntourists and how they influence volunteer tourism participation. The authors, David Clemmons of Voluntourism.org and Nancy McGhee and John Lee of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Virginia Tech, …

China’s CCTV reported that the Green Hope School in Sichuan Province has launched a program themed “Striving for a Better Tomorrow and Touching Your Soul” to recruit white-collar workers to spend five working days — the length of annual vacations — in November to teach in the mountainous areas of Sichuan Province. The response has been overwhelming with 11,502 applicants for 15 volunteer spots.
“In the past month, we have been overwhelmed by phone calls. Besides the local calls, we also received application calls and emails from Zhejiang Province, Beijing and …

Pam Grout, the author of the hugely successful 100 Best Vacations series, has written 16 travel and inspirational books including well-known titles as Girlfriend Getaways, Living Big, and God Doesn’t Have Bad Hair Days as well as a number of articles for Travel & Leisure, Outside, and The Washington Post.
We recently spoke with Pam about her popular book 100 Best Volunteer Vacations to Enrich Your Life and her thoughts on the volunteer travel industry.
T: How did the idea to do a book on volunteer vacation come up?
PG: There’s a …

When you do a Google search for cheap travel, the search results produce a slew of articles telling people volunteer travel is a cheap way to travel. This alarms us.
While volunteer travel can be done cheaply (some can be pricey), don’t do it for cheap travel! These articles are misleading and misrepresent why people volunteer abroad. If your primary reason for volunteer travel is to get free or low cost accommodation and food while traveling, then you likely will be disappointed and miserable during your stay. Remember, there …

Yesterday’s New York Times article confirmed what we have been saying, voluntourism or volunteer travel is resilient during this recession because people will find creative ways to source and pay for their travels if they feel their travels have value and meaning. Certainly, there will be adjustments and compromises as cost becomes a bigger factor in the decision-making process. But as the article noted, teens, in this case, will continue to go on service trips because these experiences are far too important for them to forgo. Schools are requiring …

We never know what may result from our volunteer travels. Sometimes the impressions made on us may lead to a return trip, other times it may spawn larger ambitions to give back which could lead to a career change or the creation of a business or a non-profit that would give back perpetually or meet a particular need in the world or both. Such is the case of Jan Hanson. We love her story because it embodies the promise and potential of every volunteer and every volunteer trip.
Jan Hanson …