Go On a Volunteer Vacation
More and more teens are taking service oriented trips organized through their school. But adults can get involved too. A whole industry has sprung up around "voluntourism," where adults pay their way to a foreign land and get their hands dirty mixing cement, plowing fields, teaching nutrition and many other things to help the people of impoverished villages from South America to Africa to Asia. These trips come in all price ranges and some can be attended for less than $1,000 per person. It's a great way to spend meaningful time with a spouse or older child, and to make connections with strangers that may last a lifetime, and to just feel good about your contribution. Elisa Sabatini's first experience as a "vacateer" was in India, where she secured housing for poor people. "The experience we had there of looking at that culture and then looking at our own culture was really a compelling thing," she says in With Purpose: Going from Success to Significance, which I co-authored. To search for your volunteer vacation, start at voluntours.org, global volunteers.org or voluntourism.org.