October 25th, 2007

Holiday Party

By peter | Add a Comment »

It won’t do any good for anyone but yourself, but you’re invited to the 2007 Bootsnall Holiday Party on December 1st. It’s a real party, at a real venue (none of this online party stuff) and there’ll be chances to win prizes, meet the staff of this travel blog network and enjoy the company of your fellow travelers.

For more info, see the Bootblog.

October 22nd, 2007

Geekcorps: Bringing YouTube to developing villages

By peter | Add a Comment »

The One Laptop Per Child folks may be hogging the press in the push to jump-start technology in developing countries, but their lesser known cousin Geekcorps was there first. Started in 1999 by Ethan Zuckerman, Geekcorps takes trained Information Technology personnel and places them in villages across the world to set up a technology infrastructure and teach technology skills to locals. Their programs also include training on utilizing the Internet to develop small rural businesses and long term one-on-one tech support that’s not routed through Asia.

Supplied with rugged equipment built to withstand sand and water and run on low-electricity, Geekcorps also produces technology equipment with everyday materials and teaches locals how to build and maintain their creations. The “United Nations Information Technology Service and
Voluntary Services Overseas. Many other non-profits have need for volunteer IT support on projects from Hurricane Katrina to a low-income school in your own community. Find other opportunities at Volunteermatch.

October 17th, 2007

Senior friendly volunteer trips

By peter | Add a Comment »

Long-term volunteer travel is typically a young-person’s game. Spending 12 months in India or rural Mexico can be hard on the body and the immune system and the elderly generally steer clear.

But if you’re in good shape and fit in mind, there are many volunteer companies that would love to have your time and experience at their disposal. Below are some of the volunteer organizations that are reportedly “senior friendly” and participate in projects to which volunteers of all ages can contribute.

Landscope Expeditions

This Australia based non-profit combines the resources of the Department of Conservation with the minds of the University of Western Australia in order to protect, study and conserve Australia’s natural resources. The program relies on the participation of vacation volunteers, 75% of whom are older adults.

Global Service Corps

With two week to six month trips to Tanzania and Thailand, Global Service Corps offers a package for any level of time commitment. As a result, the group pulls in a diverse group of volunteers, nearly a third of whom would be considered “over the hill” by western standards. Global Service puts volunteers in cultural immersion and service learning programs for sustainable agriculture, English instruction, healthcare, even Buddhist immersion.

Detours Abroad

The purpose of Detours Abroad is to provide their clients with an experience that grounds them and ties them to a culture or cause. Combining education, exploration and volunteering, Detours Abroad volunteers teach English, help with child care, build structures, and monitor environmental problems in locales such as Ghana, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Peru, Zambia, Ecuador, and Australia.

Orphanage Outreach

A Christian, interdenominational program that sends volunteers to the Dominican Republic to work in orphanages, the program can be tailored to send entire families, each member with a unique role. Other popular options include trips that pair grandparents with grandchildren who can work together. Older adults represent over a third of their volunteers.

Elderhostel

The original senior-friendly travel group specializes in educational outings to inform and inspire, but they offer a fair amount of service learning projects that take on a specific project in a location. With a minimum age of 55, there won’t be any whippersnappers around to make you feel old and elder hostel employees keep the heavy lifting to a minimum.

October 17th, 2007

Featured Volunteer resource: Ecovolunteer

By peter | Add a Comment »

Looking for a volunteer travel opportunity of a greener sort? Ecovolunteer allows you to travel for a cause and help out some of the world’s endangered animals.

With its easy to navigate and fun to use site, Ecovolunteer puts the causes front and center, allowing interested travelers to sort through their trips, both by destination and what species of animal they would like to help.
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October 10th, 2007

Five places you can volunteer during (an extended) Thanksgiving

By peter | Add a Comment »

The stores may still be stocked for Halloween, but now is the time to start planning that Thanksgiving volunteer trip. You still have time to book most of these trips for the long holiday weekend, but not much.

5 places you can volunteer during (an extended) Thanksgiving

1. Pennsylvania

Make up for some of those Thanksgiving Turkeys that have graced your table over the years with a trip to help the raptors of Pennsylvania. For about what you might spend on cranberry sauce, stuffing and a plane ticket, you can spend four days hiking, camping and volunteering with the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Service. You’ll help with anything from construction to office work and watch 30,000 of these birds of prey fly by over four days. Hikes to higher elevations often bring them right to eye level where you can watch them catch thermals and soar even higher. A trip in the Fall during migration season will bring never to be forgotten thrills.

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October 10th, 2007

Volunteer Breakdown

By peter | Add a Comment »

There’s no question that volunteer travel has seen a recent surge in popularity, but just how many people are spending their vacation days building schools in developing nations? And who are these volunteers? Do men or women spend donate more time? Is a 54 year-old unmarried doctor more likely to volunteer than a 22 year-old college student?

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics breaks down last year’s volunteer travelers into several demographics and offers a useful glimpse into the make up of volunteers in the United States.

2006 by the Numbers

Total U.S. Volunteers: 61.2 million

Percentage of U.S. population that represents: 26.7

Percentage decline in participation from 2005: 2.1

Percentage of Women who did volunteer work: 30.1

Percentage of Men: 23

Average hours volunteered by Women during 2006: 50

Average hours by Men: 52
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October 8th, 2007

Is my Volunteer trip tax-deductible?

By peter | Add a Comment »

Donate your car, your old clothes, even your stereo and, in America, the government lets you write it off and deduct it from your annual contribution to the country. But does your time earn you the same earn you the same leeway? Is a trip to build houses in Mexico a deductible donation?

The short answer to this is, “No.” Volunteering is not considered a donation of goods, so it cannot be deducted from your taxes. But, there are ways to lessen the blow come April 15.

While you can’t count wages lost or personal time as a deduction, travel expenses are generally deductible, both to and from the volunteer location. The full cost of flights or bus or train rides can be taken off your taxes and if you drove to your destination and kept track of the mileage, you can give yourself 14 cents a mile in deductions. If you were planning ahead and kept track of actual expenditures on the trip (with receipts) you can deduct the entire cost of the trip.
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October 1st, 2007

You can represent 5% of your Nation’s GDP

By peter | Add a Comment »

Empirical data ruled last week as the United Nations, with Johns Hopkins University, took a close look at volunteerism and volunteer-travel at a conference in Bonn, Germany.

The meeting saw the release of the long-titled but relatively succinct document, “Measuring Civil Society and Volunteering: Initial Findings from Implementation of the UN Handbook on Nonprofit Institutions,” which presents the economic data collected by eight countries since 2003.

The study called the impact of volunteers “much larger than previously understood” and found that volunteering has become a significant economic force, contributing 5% of a nation’s Gross Domestic Product on average. This amounts to more than most Nation’s utilities industries and as much as the construction industries.
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September 30th, 2007

Volunteer Vacation Resource: Bootsnall.com

By Kate | Add a Comment »

If helping out at community gardens in Cuba, teaching English in Ghana, or assisting with domestic animal rescue in South Africa is your thing, look no further than Bootsnall.com. Bootsnall is an independent travel company and the host of this very logue. Up to now Bootsnall services have included hostels, cheap international airfare, and travel forums. Now you can find volunteer vacations at Bootsnall adventures as well.

In addition to those above, destinations include Costa Rica, Kenya, Honduras, Ecuador, Thailand, Honduras, China, and Peru, Guatemala, Chile, Zambia, Botswana, Uganda.

A few examples include:

The Uganda program includes an online TEFL course. Volunteers will be teaching English to children in the south of the country, staying at the “Teach Inn Uganda”, which was built to house volunteer teachers. Funds raised but the Teach Inn will go towards funding future projects that will benefit the local community – the current goal is to build a grain store with these proceeds.
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September 25th, 2007

21 “Tips” from Safe Traveler

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The folks over at Safe Traveler today provide us today with 21 ways to make our volunteer travel experiences safer.

After sorting through the generic travel advice and the tips designed to scare us into buying a spy report on the area, the list turns into more like six pieces of advice that apply to us as volunteers and travelers.

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