Almost a year after my first trip overseas I was chatting online with an old friend who desperately wanted to go to Thailand to work with elephants among other things. The trip would be for two weeks and would include a week in Thailand and then a week in Cambodia. Thailand has long been on my list of places and I absolutely adore elephants so I was totally in. It seemed logical at the time, and so I built a plan. Later due to circumstances she wound up not being able to go but gave me her go ahead alone blessing and off I went to put in my deposits and start looking for flights. I tried a route that I’ve seen tons of people talk about doing- I more or less did a go fund me. ( but it was through the volunteering companies website)

I received some blow back on it. Some friends we less than happy that I was not focusing my attention volunteering stateside as apparently they hadn’t realized I already do. But overall, most people were very supportive. However, as it got closer to being time for my trip things in my world got a bit more hectic. My son would wind up in the hospital due to his medical condition and then in a matter of months, I would go from having a full time job to having my hours cut, getting laid off from my second job that had once been used for us to travel, and totally changing professional fields and putting my house on the market. And the kicker, we’re now moving to a new state. All in a very short time span. It was a lot. And while the volunteering company was very nice and tried to work with me I just couldn’t make it work out.

Now let’s get real, I could have made it work out. Well, most likely. But the fact of the matter was I had things that I had to handle and deal with before I could, in good conscious, take off on my next adventure. Not to mention, this trip required me to be away from my son who had recently been rather sick for over two weeks. That just wasn’t going to fly with me. So I postponed.

Later on in all of the craziness I would reschedule only to realize that rescheduling was going to wind up costing me even more money than this volunteering trip already had and it made me realize some things. So instead, I left that money to the tourism group ( they don’t refund anyway) and considered it a big contribution to the causes I wanted to support. I hoped that the few that contributed to it would understand and be supportive in the fact that while I wasn’t going, it was still go to those wonderful causes.

Now for the things I realized…

I LOVE to travel on a budget too much to want to give almost double what I could do it on my own for to a company just so they could handle all the arrangements. One of my favorite parts about traveling is the planning process! Why on earth would I give that part up? To make it easier on myself? Ok, yeah, it would be easier. But that just takes all the fun out.

Don’t get me wrong, one of the newer ways to get people to volunteer is by offering adventure volunteering packages and it’s not a totally bad thing, so long as you are careful and do the research on the company you would like to volunteer with you should be fine. And for some it’s a great thing! You get to travel to a foreign country, check out some tourist sites, do your volunteering and then go home feeling like you’ve seen and done some amazing things. All while feeling safe because you’re with guides at all times.

But for some, group tours lack the Experiences that are all part of being a traveler, and not a tourist. Experiences such as getting lost, or not speaking the language well enough, breaking your toe while trying to catch a bus to Stonehenge, and well, you know, the list goes on; are all things anyone that really travels wouldn’t want to miss.

But the biggest thing is that part of the reason for doing a volunteerism tour is to give back to a community. Which I feel can be done better on my own. A good chunk of the money you give to a tour company goes to the planning and lodging aspects of the trip. To me, it is more beneficial to the people if I give directly to them. Supporting locally owned shops and restaurants run by whole families seems a better way to spend my money.

I feel like if I was in their shoes I wouldn’t want someone coming in with a here I am to save the day attitude but more of a I’m supporting what you’re doing to better yourself mentality. I feel like that’s more respectful. Don’t get me wrong, what a lot of these companies are doing are good things and I’m sure the people appreciate it- it’s just not the way I want to do it.

Have you gone on an adventure volunteering tour? What did you think about it? We would love to hear your experiences or why you decided not to!