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...

Most travelers consider volunteering at some point. We see a need and we know that we have the time, energy, or money to be able to lend a hand and be a part of creating change. Helping people feels good. Working on environmental issues and seeing results is exciting. We don't just want to talk...

There is a common trait among us travelers regarding the seasons: With the onset of spring, thoughts turn to traveling. It’s in our DNA. This can pose a conundrum for us, since another trait of the inveterate traveler is difficulty with deciding where to go next with limited resources (and they are always limited).This can...

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,...

Cost/day: £20 What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? Cowboys, everywhere – or gauchos as they are called here. It isn't a daily occurrence, but every now and then a whole bunch will sweep into town and ride around, dressed up to the nines complete with fancy hats and tassels. They look spectacular. Describe a...

The past few posts in the “summer work abroad” series have dealt with teaching ESL and work-stays as avenues to make a buck abroad in the summer months (or any month, really). This third entry will be a bit different. In the rare case that you don’t need to make cash while spending a month...

There has been a lot of talk on Vagablogging lately about the merits of slow travel and taking time to understand local culture when traveling. This was my goal when I came to Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, to volunteer at an after-school program for a month, and I quickly discovered an even better, unexpected outlet for cultural...

If you haven't read last week's post on the " Rise of the Tourist ", I suggest you give it a quick once-over before reading on. Short on time? No problem. I'll sum up the broader points: Tourism is big business and in 2012 there is expected to be 1 billion global travelers. This trend...

Cairo, Egypt “Spirit,” wrote the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber , “is not in the I but between I and you.” He wrote this in a 1923 essay translated into English as I and Thou . Here’s another line from the essay: “Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos. Persons appear by entering into...

Cairo, Egypt Part of the totality of a place is its politics, and in long-term travel you'll likely pass through a variety of political landscapes that affect the lives of the people who call a place home. The Egyptian man above, for example, challenged the legitimacy of his President's 30-year-old rule and on February 2...

As someone living a mere ferry ride from the coast of Japan, I've been hearing a lot of debate among ESL teachers as to whether they should leave the area or not. Italy has offered a free flight home to their citizens living in the area, and other countries have issued warnings to leave at...

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...

Australia's gigantic festival season is coming up, with Big Day Out preparing to suck in thousands of youngsters willing to pay $165 for a ticket and stand pressed elbow-to-sternum in 45 degree (Celsius) heat, while paying $8 for a bottle of water. Sounds like fun, right? If you still think so, and you don't want...

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...

It’s sometimes hard to believe there are relatively quiet places in Mexico’s Riviera Maya —the long stretch south of Cancun toward Tulum. I was there only nine years ago, and on a recent trip, I noticed many more hotels dotting the road. But more development doesn’t mean you can’t find a sweet spot in the...

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...

Qadisha Valley, Lebanon There are places in this world that urge you to pause, and Lebanon’s Qadisha Valley is one. As the day ends over this historic landscape, you look around and sense that the sun has set here for thousands of years, well before you were born, and will continue to set long after...

"Travel is an education" is something many vagabonders would agree with. Who hasn't come back from a trip filled with new knowledge, new friends, and great stories to tell? The personal finance website Mint.com dedicated a blog post to the venerable gap year: The Gap Year: why taking time off to travel is good The...