Budget Travel Blog

One of the options that we have as people who want to travel frugally is to participate in volunteer travel. This refers to the kind of travel where you do volunteer work at the destination in exchange for your room and board. You may do anything from teaching a local family’s children in English to building homes for people who don’t have them. You can do volunteer travel for almost any length of time in almost any destination that you want to visit.

I have mixed feelings about volunteer travel as a way to save money. Here’s what I see as the pros and cons of volunteer travel:

Pros

• You do save a lot of money. You don’t have to pay for your accommodations at all plus you typically get free meals. That saves a lot of money especially on trips where you want to stay awhile.
• You can safely visit exotic destinations. You might feel safer traveling to some countries if you are doing so with a group of other volunteers.
• You meet a lot of great people including locals. You really get to see the inside of the culture that you are visiting.
• You get to help others. That’s always a good thing. It’s also great for family travel since it teaches your children that they can have a great worldly experience while also aiding others who need their help.

Cons

• Volunteering takes up most of your time. My experience with volunteer travel is that you don’t actually have a lot of time to explore landmarks and other destinations because you are busy with your volunteer work.
• Some volunteer experiences are inevitably negative. You do jobs that you don’t want to do with people you don’t like too much and the result can be a negative travel experience. Of course this isn’t always the case but it’s a risk that you take.
• You miss out on staying at cool local hotels. I’d actually rather get great hotel specials and stay in a unique local spot than stay at a volunteer location. ( Sometimes you can find great rooms on special like these cheap hotels in NYC.

So I think that there are pros and cons to volunteer travel. I definitely think that it’s something that you should try at least once in your life. I just think that it shouldn’t replace other kinds of travel because it does have its drawbacks.

Have you ever done volunteer travel? Did you have a good experience with it?

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