Volunteer Vacation

Volunteer Vacations
Many animal lovers find that visits to exotic locales can be more upsetting than enjoyable. The sight of abandoned or neglected dogs and cats can not only ruin a trip, but also will often stick with them long after they return home.

As in my own vacations to Cozumel, India, Thailand, Cambodia, and most recently Kenya, memories of injured, neglected, homeless, diseased dogs remain in the forefront of my mind.

Volunteering with an animal welfare organization is a great way to experience new places and enjoy your travels without feeling guilty. The reality of it is that we cannot do all that much, but we can do enough to help and make a difference.

Today these kinds of global opportunities are easier than ever to find. Check out the World Society for the Protection of Animals’ new database of volunteer opportunities at compassionate travel.org. For many of these volunteer programs, you don’t have to be a vet to be useful.

Last year, when Nim and I went to Thailand for our honeymoon, amongst our volunteer days, we spent one day of our trip to Chiang Mai at the Elephant Nature Park feeding, bathing, and frolicking with elephants. What beats this… wish I could have spent our entire trip doing that☺

I later learned about the Soi Dog Foundation in Phuket. I wish we would have known about this while we were there, it would have been awesome to visit with all the shelter dogs for a day.

The intrepid traveler can see a good part of the globe this way. In Indonesia, the Bali Animal Welfare Association (BAWA) is increasingly dependent upon volunteers to make a difference in the lives of the island’s estimated 500,000 stray dogs.

If Europe is more appealing, Inside/Out, a tour company that combines humanitarian projects with adventure travel, scheduled a trip to Zagoria, a region of Greece for 10 days in June to help local animal activists improve conditions for dogs.

On the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, the Vieques Human Society offers “rustic” accommodation to anyone who will commit to 30 hours of work in a course of a week.

May sound like work on your vacation, but you can ask Nim (my husband)… he will tell you it most definitely does not have to be…. You can do as much or as little or nothing at all and just be part of it while your animal lover spouse fulfills their desire… and still walk away feeling great.
This is not to say Nim did not do anything at all… he was not too fond of the idea going into it, but once there, he was into it as much as I, and its those memories that make our trip most memorable.



Vacation Responsibly