Note : Today I'm featuring a guest post from Sarah Von Bargen, who writes about travel (and many other things) at the excellent lifestyle blog Yes and Yes . Here, Sarah shares four key tips for volunteering overseas: There are lots of great reasons to volunteer while you’re traveling: You can work alongside locals, earn...

If you’ve searched for volunteer abroad opportunities, you’ve undoubtedly learned that volunteering doesn’t often come free. You’ve likely come across many, many organizations that charge fees, often upward of $1,500 per week, to cover accommodation, food and support of a coordinator for the volunteer experience. Sections like, “Why should I pay to volunteer?,” are featured...

When travelling for extended periods of time, it is easy to reach a point of tiredness, when everything seems a bit jaded. The joy of zipping from one place to the other across the travel maps becomes increasingly less exciting, and we may be craving for something more, something “different”. When this happened to me,...

Japan's massive 8.9 earthquake last week creates new headlines every day as the world sits and watches the rescue and recovery mission. People everywhere seem to be asking how they can get involved and help in the recovery process. Many of the headlines are the same. Professionals in the area are asking that people wait...

The biggest requirement for being an ESL teacher is, obviously, to be a native English speaker. However, having taught English in several parts of the world, I’ve found that sometimes certain schools or areas are looking for a specific type of English and you might just have to adjust to meet expectations. When I began...

"You'll be entitled to take a sabbatical abroad at company expense." That would be music to the ears of any vagabonder looking for work. One of the big factors holding people back from travel is the worry about finding employment upon their return. However, it would be nice to have the security of returning to...

I’ve always been rather fond of STA Travel. My only experience with them was enormously positive. My travel consultant had an awesome personality, she didn’t mind talking at length about different areas of the world, and she sure did find me a few plane tickets that were hundreds of dollars cheaper than anything I’d found...

On August 29th 2005, almost 5 years ago, hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of North America. It’s hard to believe that so much time has gone by, as the people of the area are still recovering from the disaster. In 2007 I took a sprawling North American road trip that landed me in New...

Want to spend a week in Madrid with all accommodation, meals, and wine provided free for 7 days? That’s what they are promising over at Pueblo Inglés . All they ask in exchange is that you be a native English speaker, and that you come prepared to help animate a crash course in English immersion....

Many travelers experience a call to service while on the road. It’s common enough to find travelers stayed in an area to volunteer for weeks, and sometimes even years, when they only intended to be passing through. Travel can awaken a profound compassion within us. However, if you find yourself returned to the States permanently,...

Sometimes travelers feel like they can only be instrumental while on the road, or that their services as a volunteer only fall within the spontaneity of their on-the-road lifestyle. Don’t let yourself fall into this trap. If you have experience in service related volunteer work, you know just how instrumental one person can be. If...

While it is certainly a key component, vagabonding isn't just about long-term travel. It's also about getting outside of your comfort zone, roughing it, careful planning, connecting with cultures, and jumping into the unknown with both feet. All of which I'm about to do. By this time tomorrow, I will be on my way to...

The images and news reports coming out of Haiti after Tuesday’s 7.0 magnitude earthquake are heartbreaking. Many people are wondering how they can put their skills to use to help those in need. Volunteer Abroad offers a database of volunteer opportunities through their own search engine. Médecins Sans Frontières is a noteworthy organization and has...

Us vagabonders are quite privileged to know our way around different lands. Have you ever "donated" your travel expertise to newbies? Matt Gross, writer of the New York Times Frugal Traveler blog , did just that. He started doing time at JFK airport at a help desk staffed by volunteers. Here is his article: Frugal,...

The philanthropic community might consider changing its approach to fundraising by making people feel good, rather than guilty if they don’t help, according to author and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in his December article in Outside magazine: “ Nicholas Kristof’s Advice for Saving the World .” Frustrated by the lack of major public...

Back when I wrote Vagabonding , I designed the end-of-chapter resources so that they could be continually updated online and stay as useful and relevant as possible. Recently, with the editorial help of Justin Glow and input from dozens of readers, I added to (and reorganized) my online resources at Vagabonding.net. I've copied the index...

In the immediate aftermath of natural disasters, one thing is certain: Help is always needed. For vagabonders who are drawn to giving back to the global community, especially when times are tough, this offers a wide variety of ways to get closer to a culture. But what happens when the media coverage dies down and...

A lot of vagabonders are hardcore volunteer-ers and, often, tend to be more progressive and liberal with their politics. This doesn't mean that anyone who travels is a hippie pinko Commie rat, by any means...just that there tends to be a lot more support for giving your money away rather than saving it like Scrooge...

Not long ago American bookstores saw the debut of the new travel memoir First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria: How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and a Third World Adventure Changed My Life . Kristen Pope reviewed it here last week. Since this book is a humorous take on aid-work in places...

With the rush on "volunteer vacations" -- Celine's Vagablogging article on spring break students comes to mind -- there are numerous websites and agencies that, for a fee, will set up your volunteer experience for you. You pay them (usually between $1000 and the entire costs of everything) and they will find you a spot...