Grateful Traveler: The Rewards of Voluntourism

Rosalie’s new pals One of the interesting aspects of travel is that before you ever step on the plane, sit down in the car or board that train, you’ve already taken a process-driven journey.

First, there is deciding where to go—beach to de-stress or Paris for culture?

Next there are the pocketbook issues.

Will the wallet allow for the pyramids of Egypt or will the Luxor in Vegas have to do?

There’s deciding who to travel with, the time of year that works best, what exactly to pack, and then, biggest challenge of all, there’s managing one’s hopes and expectations.

Rosalie Miller, 28, thought she had everything in place when she signed up for an Earthwatch Institute Expedition. She would go to Greece to help study the bottlenose dolphin, thereby combining two passions—the oceans and the environment.

She would travel alone, a desire to test herself before she and her fiancé got married. But by signing up with an expedition that would number between five and seven people, she would not be lonely and her loved ones would not be worried.

It’s true the trip was expensive—$2,500 for nine days—but she gave herself nine months to raise the money. What that time also gave her was nine months to dream about what the trip would be like.

The Boat By the time she boarded the plane from L.A., here’s what she was expecting: an expedition made up of young, hip and fascinating people from around the world all working together toward a common goal.

Here’s what Rosalie got: another woman from L.A. who was in her 40s and three women from Oregon who were the best of friends and the same age as Rosalie’s mother.

Add to that the fact that all the members of the expedition had very big, bold personalities and that Rosalie considers herself, “a pretty private person who needs a lot of personal space.”

Too bad. Everyone was expected to be up by 7 a.m., put in a good 12-hour day, then share one bathroom, their sleeping quarters and all meals together. Needless to say, none of it was what Rosalie was expecting.

So here’s what she did. She dropped her preconceptions and went with “conditions as she found them on the ground.” Instead of spending her time longing for companionship her age, she spent hours listening to the grandmothers from Oregon talk about their years of travel.

“They were amazing to me,” says Rosalie. “I’m a country girl from Kentucky. These women had seen so much of the world; I was fascinated by their stories.”

Before the trip, Rosalie had imagined getting into the nightlife of Greece. “But we were in the most remote place possible. There was no nightlife and the others were too tired to go into the village at the end of the day.”

Rosalie and the biologists So instead, Rosalie went for beers with the two biologists on board. They were closer to her age and, an added bonus, one was from Italy, the other from Spain.

It’s true the work was rewarding, but it was also exhausting. So, hopes and dreams dashed, would she do it again? “In a heartbeat,” declares Rosalie.

Faced with conditions that were difficult for her, Rosalie rose to the challenge. “I learned so much about myself. The trip helped me grow up and taught me a lot about patience.” It might not have been everything she was expecting, but it gave her what she’d been seeking all along—it gave her the gift of herself.

P.S. The trip also rewarded her in one more way. Her now boss at a non-profit dedicated to saving the oceans was so impressed that she was going to spend her vacation this way, he hired her on the spot, proving that doing what is right for the environment really can create jobs.

By Jamie Simons for PeterGreenberg.com.

You can learn more about Voluntourism with the Earthwatch Institute and other volunteer vacation organizations in these articles: