Everything you need to know about giving back while getting away.

Ask Paul Mecklenburg, a software engineer at Google, about his vacation preferences, and he’ll tell you that he’s not a sit-on-the-beach kind of person. No wonder his recent week in Belize found the 24 year old Pittsburgh resident spending hours each day doing physical labor, as he helped local farmers build new chimneys, dig a small pond for raising fish and clear land for plantings. He loved every minute of it.

Mecklenburg is among a growing number of professionals who choose to spend their time off from work in a volunteer capacity. This is sometimes known as voluntourism, while others simply call it a volunteer vacation. Some peg the trend to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when people wanted to visit the devastated areas in and around New Orleans and do something to help. This year, says a new survey from Travelocity, a third of all travelers expect to add a volunteer component to their vacation days. What with green being red-hot these days, it should come as no surprise that of respondents who indicated a desire to volunteer in 2008, 33 percent said conservation and the environment are their choice causes.


Think you might want to make your next trip a volunteer vacation? Here’s what you need to know.


Set your criteria in advance

Amanda Chaborek decided to take her first volunteer vacation in 2007 with Cross Cultural Solutions, one of the granddaddies of philanthropic travel. (The company has been organizing volunteer vacations for more than a decade.) “After researching several organizations, I felt they had the best options available in terms of countries, volunteer placements and length of stay,” says Chaborek, 29, the director of communications for the Detroit Country Day School in Beverly Hills, Mich. Because of her work in education, Chaborek liked that Cross Cultural Solutions could provide an experience working with children in Russia. Also, as a first generation American--her father emigrated from the Ukraine—Chaborek felt strongly that she wanted to give back to that part of the world.

For Silvana Clark, finding a volunteer vacation that her teenage daughter could also participate in was a top priority. The Bellingham, Wash., family—Silvana, 55, her husband Allan, 57, and daughter Sondra, 18—had a great time in Spain two years ago teaching English to locals, a project they booked through Vaughan Village, which provides English-immersion programs to Spaniards. The adults worked with other adults; Sondra worked with Spanish teens. The family also spent another volunteer vacation together distributing shoes in Guatemala on behalf of Soles4Souls, which collects donated shoes and gives them to people in need.

Find out how your time will be used

While Chaborek loved being able to help out in a kindergarten for deaf children, a hospital for mentally ill women, a senior-citizen center and a shelter for
homeless children during her two-week Russia trip, she wasn’t happy with her constantly rotating schedule. “On most days, we would have one placement in the morning and another in the afternoon, and it would change from day to day,” she recalls. “I would have liked my placements to have been more consistent.” Also, Chaborek said that she was occasionally given free time to explore, but that didn’t interest her: “I was there to volunteer, and I wanted to be more utilized.” She provided this feedback to Cross Cultural Solutions when she returned from her trip.

Not every volunteer vacationer feels like Chaborek does. Some want a mix of volunteering and vacationing, like the Clarks, who took off for France to visit Paris after their weeklong volunteer excursion in Spain. Zoe Katsulos, founder of Inside/Out, an organization that offers what it calls a “humanitourism” experience, believes that more volunteer vacationers are like the Clarks. Her company, which launched in 2008, offers volunteer work combined with soft travel.

“We are incorporating active vacations that are a reward for the volunteer work,” says Katsulos. Her company’s debut excursion was to Greece to help animal welfare workers. During the first half of the two-week trip, volunteers built kennels to shelter stray dogs. During the second half, they went sea kayaking and hiking.

Don’t try to go it alone

Since volunteer vacations are a growing niche in the travel industry, there’s no need to attempt to piece together your own experience. Save yourself the trouble and go with an already organized trip, be it through your house of worship, your local Rotary Club or an organization like Sustainable Harvest International (SHI), the company Mecklenburg worked through for his Belize trip. “[SHI’s] experience and general comfort running a volunteer vacation were invaluable,” says Mecklenburg of Surry, Maine–based SHI, which was founded by former Peace Corps volunteer Florence Reed. “My focus has always been and remains the Central American farmers, to provide them with a need that wasn’t being met, and to raise their standard of living while protecting the tropical forest.”


Keep your expectations reasonable

“People who have never traveled and find themselves in a developing country can be so overwhelmed that they can’t concentrate on helping,” says Silvana Clark, a professional speaker. “You won’t get ice in your drinks, and you’ll go to the bathroom in a pit.” Mecklenburg offers similar advice, adding, “You should make sure you match your comfort zone with the trip.” On his trip to Belize, he says that there wasn’t always access to clean restrooms, “but for me this was part of the charm.” But roughing it isn’t for everyone, so know that about yourself before you book your trip.

Suzanne Stone, author of Volunteering Around the Globe (Capital Books, 2008), says would-be volunteer vacationers must go into the experience with their eyes and their minds open. “People and places will be different than you think,” says Stone, who is based in Washington, D.C. She also suggests that you be prepared to be surprised—in a good way, of course, “since at least one thing will be different than you expected, no matter how prepared you are.” Finally, control freaks need not apply, because volunteer vacations assume that you’ll go with the flow and be flexible. Adds Stone, “You will likely be in situations you cannot control.”
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More information: Finding a voluntourism company

What voluntourists have to say about their experiences

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LEAH INGRAM currently volunteers at a local CSA organic farm. She blogs about her community work at suddenlyfrugal.blogspot.com.