Voluntourism 101

So you’d like to take a volunteer vacation, but you want to make sure your money and time are going to a useful, well-run project. A good place to start is www.VolunTourism.org, a site that aids organizations developing voluntourism programs and lets travelers find the right one for them. The site’s pages will help you figure out if a volunteer vacation fits your needs, identify what you want to get out of the experience, prepare for your trip, and even evaluate your post-trip emotions. If you follow the site’s steps, you’ll ask yourself the hard questions that will prepare you for the trip, such as “How good are my people skills—do I feel comfortable speaking with anyone, anywhere?” The site also produces weekly webcasts and a quarterly newsletter with additional tips.

A sister site, www.TheVolunTourist.org, features online forums through which you can compare notes with fellow voluntourists and give firsthand advice on the pros and cons of various trips. Although VolunTourism.org doesn’t have a user-friendly, searchable database of volunteer programs, it does list a number of organizations judged to do good work. Beyond that, it’s your job to search out other options and evaluate their missions and actions with the tools you’ve been given here.