Volunteer travel involves organized service opportunities to help others, often in foreign countries. It has become more accessible through non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and websites. For-profit tour operators now offer volunteer opportunities as part of a holiday package.
Volunteer travel involves going on a trip where all or part of the purpose of the trip is to participate in an organized service opportunity to help others. Typically, the volunteering activity takes place in a foreign country, but some opportunities may involve national or regional projects. These trips are usually organized by church organizations, human interest groups, or non-profit organizations. A new trend has for-profit tour operators organizing group trips based on volunteer opportunities.
Charitable interests often transcend national borders. People in developed countries care about the struggles of people in less developed countries. Sometimes donating money is not enough to meet the need for help. Volunteer travel is a way to combine a visit to a new location with meaningful work that directly impacts communities in other parts of the world.
This type of travel has been an option for many years. Historically, church groups made up a large part of this market. Once a year a religious organization or church would organize a trip to another country. The main purpose of the trip would be to help build a school in an impoverished area, or dig wells so a village could have clean water, or engage in hundreds of other projects that would impact those less fortunate. The trip combined charity work with an immersive experience in a foreign country.
As international travel has become easier and the Internet has made communication between countries more viable, interest in volunteer travel has increased. Non-profit organizations of all kinds have begun organizing these types of trips, including youth organizations and national interest groups. Educational institutions have also made voluntary travel an option, often through the campus community service office or as part of the initiative of individual student groups.
The Internet has helped popularize community service at large, as websites have sprung up specifically geared towards recruiting volunteers and matching them with projects. Volunteering in other countries has become as accessible as navigating to a website and registering. Some of the major volunteer organization websites also hold volunteer recruitment conventions where the topic is volunteering in other countries and volunteer travel.
Although volunteer travel is often done in groups where the main purpose of travel is the charitable project, the growing popularity of volunteering has prompted a change in the nature of this type of travel. For-profit tour operators have designed holidays with the opportunity to complete a volunteer abroad project as a key, but not the only, component of the holiday. Instead of traveling with an organized group at the volunteer base, the volunteer can join a group that meets at their workplace from around the world. This type of volunteer travel is sometimes colloquially referred to as volunteering or vacanterism.
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