I am pleased to share this guest post with you because I think the program Christopher Hill started is a great way to combine travel and making a difference in the world!
Giving Back While You Travel
What would you think if you knew you could travel with your kids to exciting destinations, see amazing sights, AND bond together as you help those less fortunate? I bet you’d be pretty excited! Well, it IS possible!
Imagine walking along a Costa Rican beach at night counting turtle hatchlings to assist in their preservation, or painting the walls of a rundown orphanage, whilst your children help the orphans with their English. Giving back whilst on vacation offers a unique way to spend time with your sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, or even the whole extended family while helping a community, a species or the environment.
Now you can strike a balance between a meaningful and educational volunteer experience, and a well-earned escape – as it’s not all about work!
The idea is you still stay in amazing hotels, and get to relax and enjoy the sights of your chosen destination, with an itinerary tailor-made in consultation with you.
For example, you can travel to South Africa, take in the delights of Cape Town, with its fabulous family activities such as kayaking with penguins, mountain biking along Cape Peninsula, or viewing masterful falconry in the winelands. Then, help teach at an impoverished school where your young children can play with the local kids, and your older ones can also make a difference as a reading partner. You can finish up with a spellbinding safari in malaria-free Madikwe National Park, home to the ‘Big 5’, and more!
Why give back with your family?
· Your children learn to appreciate how fortunate they are
· Instil values of community service in your children
· Spend quality time and share experiences
· Watch your children grow and learn
· Give them the opportunity to develop the confidence to start unfamiliar projects
· Interact closely with another culture
· Help breakdown socially constructed barriers
· Gain valuable insights in a safe context
· Let them discover the joy of helping the less fortunate
Return home with incredible sight-seeing experiences, treasured memories and wonderful stories to tell friends and classmates.
Voluntourism vacations are excellent no matter what age your children are, and even if you have infants, they can either join you and interact with local infants, or day care can generally be arranged.
Hands Up Holidays (www.handsupholidays.com) specializes in luxury tailor-made family voluntourism vacations. Emailfamilies@handsupholidays.com to receive your Free Report on how to have an amazing family vacation.
Bio:
I founded Hands Up Holidays ten years ago after a career in Investment Banking to give others the opportunity to not only see amazing sights, but also to have authentic interaction with local people and give something back in a “hands on” way to local communities through a taste of volunteering.
Through volunteering, and the consequent meaningful interaction with local people, I gained an insight into other' lives, and was blown away by how whilst they had little materially but were incredibly rich culturally and socially.
Now that I have a family of my own, I can appreciate why families get so much out of voluntourism vacations – it is powerful!
Yours in Transforming Travel Experiences,
Christopher Hill
Chief Experience Officer
