The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations to Enrich Your Life, Book Review

Volunteering is making a comeback more than ever, in large part to President Obama who is encouraging American citizens to volunteer and calls it a “civic duty”. Find out more about volunteer expeditions.

The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations by Pam Grout has definitely honed in on this trend and lists 100 volunteer expeditions in six areas of the world. What can you volunteer for? Perhaps a better question would be what can’t you volunteer for? Grout has selected a variety of volunteer projects that truly have something for everyone. A few of the volunteer expeditions include:

• bottle feeding orphaned lion cubs in Zambia
• restoring medieval castles in Germany or the Czech Republic
• working with Iraqi refugees in Syria
• creating HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns in Belize
• tracking jaguars in Brazil
• working in a wildlife hospital in Greece
• excavating dinosaur bones in Montana, U.S.A.
• assisting in the apricot harvest in India
• saving the Tasmanian devil in Australia
• monitoring climate change in Canada
• conducting surveys of whales and dolphins in Scotland – for more information: on one volunteer's volunteer expedition experience

The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations includes volunteer projects from around the globe so if you are looking for an exotic setting for your volunteer expedition you will find it. Similarly, if you are looking for a volunteer expedition closer to home you will also find it. The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations Grout includes volunteer expeditions for all budgets ranging from free or only charge room and board to the more expensive (bottle feeding an orphaned lion cub does not come cheap). Of course you also have to keep in mind flights and generally speaking the closer to home you volunteer, the cheaper your volunteer expedition will be. In addition, The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations also includes a wide range of length of volunteer expeditions ranging from one week to one year. The volunteer expeditions also seem well researched and has an extensive listing of volunteer organizations that offer volunteer expeditions.

Grout also seems sincerely concerned with making the world a better place. Her dedication of The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations states “This book is for everyone who believes a better world is possible and can feel a better, more loving, more peaceful world rising up.” Grout also states that “Effective volunteers often end up making a bigger difference back home that they did in their short time spent volunteering.” This is true by word of mouth and creating awareness around an issue that may be receiving little to no attention in your country.

What I didn’t like about The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations was there was no information on what volunteer expeditions are really like. Bottle feeding an orphaned lion cub sounds like an amazing experience and I have no doubt that it is, but in reality, normally when you are volunteering with wildlife you are spending the majority of your day cleaning up poop, cleaning pens and preparing food for the animals. Hardly glamorous work, albeit it very important work. The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations does not discuss these less glamorous aspects of volunteer expeditions and could lead a volunteer to false expectations.

Furthermore, The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations emphasizes that “You’ll get to know real people. You’ll work beside them, share their struggles, learn what it feels like to live in a village where no men are over 50, and experience what it’s like to be invisible to outsiders.” This may be true of certain volunteer expeditions, but certainly not all of them. I spent my volunteer expedition with five other volunteers from England (who were all very lovely), and on many volunteer expeditions you will likely be surrounded by volunteers from around the world, which while fascinating, will not give you an inside track to local people. If being around local people is an important aspect to you on your volunteer expedition I suggest you do your research first to see if this is the case as I found this misleading in The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations.

 In summary The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations is a good resource for volunteers seeking volunteer expeditions but certainly does not provide all the information a volunteer needs to consider before signing up for a volunteer expedition. For more information click: Volunteer Expeditions to see on volunteer's experience.