Volunteer Vacations - Try One Close To Home

Europeans and others have several weeks of vacation time every year. Most Americans only have two weeks of paid time off. No matter how long you have, you need to be really honest with yourself. Do you really want to spend your holiday working?

Do you have enough time to unwind? Will participating in that volunteer project help you relax and leave you feeling better about yourself? Only you can evaluate this. What we're saying is don't just rush into a volunteer vacation just because it sounds noble. Even if you can get a tax write-off for the fees you pay, they are not necessarily a cheap way to travel... and you may spend so much time working on the assigned project, that you have very little time to visit any local attractions.

Here's an idea.... why not try some short term volunteering close to home? There are grass roots organizations all over the world that need help monitoring the environment or cleaning up trails and beaches. Choose the type of activity that you were thinking of participating in for that longer, across the world volunteer vacation.

If you don't like cleaning and clearing trails at your local park, do you really think you're going to like it any better if you're working in the heat in Africa or at altitude in Nepal?

If you think you would like to help care for sick or disabled infants in, say, a hospital in Ecuador... volunteer to take care of at risk infants at a hospital at home, so you can see if you have the patience for that.

If you think you might want to count albatrosses on a South Pacific Island, go on a bird count close to home for a day. See if you like birdwatching at all. Maybe that South Pacific Island is exactly what you need, but minus the birds.

Volunteering close to home will help you find the right niche if you do go on to a longer volunteer vacation. Maybe you don't like clearing trails, but you wouldn't mind hiking them and watching for damage to the trails and alerting rangers to the problems.

Maybe taking care of those sick babies is too hard on you emotionally, but teaching conversational English or another language to teens would be OK.

We all need to volunteer more, but not all of us will be better off using our vacation time for a volunteer vacation. You might just do more good volunteering close to home and saving that holiday to rest up for more volunteering.

If you find that volunteering is the best thing that ever happened to you, then go for that across the world experience, knowing that you will come home invigorated by the good you've done somewhere in the world.

Happy travels... even if you don't travel the world... just remember that life is a journey... embrace and enjoy it!   Judy and Mark

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