Volunteer Travel – Experience Cultures and Make a Difference

There is nothing cooler than having a gap year between high school and university or between university and life. Possibilities are endless and, I know, spending a year on daddy’s luxury yacht, consuming an astonishing amount of alcohol may be very appealing. But why that, when you can go to some place where you can make a real difference?

Go volunteering, see the most exotic countries and have real interaction with real people. Don’t get me wrong, waiters and hotel managers are also real people, but then again that might not really give you true insight into what life in a different country is like … let’s just say staying at a 5 star hotel may give you a distorted picture of the place you are at.

 Take a backpack – not a very big one -, put in the necessary, only the most  essential pieces of travel gear and choose a place that you are interested in and then look for organizations that offer volunteer programs?  It’s about your experience there and what difference you’ll be able to make. There are plenty of these:  long term and short term programs from China to Madagascar, whatever and wherever you want!

The Peace Corps is probably the most famous of volunteer organization. They recruit a lot of people from high school graduates to elderly couples, anyone can volunteer to work abroad and you can develop your host community with what you know best from IT to agriculture.

They have long term programs during which volunteers get vacations, so you can even go home to see your family and friends or explore your host country on your own. A huge plus for the Peace Corps: volunteers get decent pocket money and you’ll meet a vast amount of culturally diversified and interesting people.

If you are looking for a short term program and your nr. 1 ability is speaking English you should check out Learning Enterprises. They have six weeks programs of English teaching for students in a lot of countries. You have to pay your travel costs, but you stay and eat for free at a host family mostly in a small town or village where locals don’t speak a word of English. Isn’t that fun??? Cambodia, Panama or Romania eagerly awaits you.

You may ask who wants to volunteer to work in the other corner of the world. I had the same question until I met some Peace Corps  and Learning Enterprise volunteers and realized that they are the coolest guys ever. They had amazing stories from all over the world and the special feeling of making a difference and leaving your mark somewhere.

Sounds fun to you too, then you should definitely consider volunteering for one of the many programs out there. After all, we are not alone on the plan, and experiencing all the different cultures and helping others is a wonderful experience and something that will broaden everybody’s horizon a little bit.

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