Types of family volunteering vacation

Just as families all have their quirks and differences, so do volunteering placements that welcome families into the fold. In one way, your choice is often dictated by the school vacations or the length of time that you can commit to a project. Whatever you choose, you will be immersing yourselves in local life, embracing cultural differences from food to language head on, and learning a lot about wildlife and habitat. You may want to be by the sea, or the deserts and bush may be calling you. You may want to combine your volunteering with more family fun afterwards, in which case somewhere like Costa Rica often ticks the right boxes for family volunteers. No matter what you choose, these are trips that will boost children’s confidence levels, open their eyes to different lifestyles and, almost certainly, convert them to conservation for life.

Animal welfare volunteering differs from wildlife conservation because the focus of the conservation work is on sanctuaries and rehabilitation centers, working with animals that have been orphaned, harmed or mistreated. In most cases these are formerly wild animals, such as bears in Romania that have been forced to perform for tourists, monkeys in South Africa that have been mistreated as pets or orphaned, or elephants in Thailand and Sri Lanka that have been abused through logging or entertaining tourists. In other cases they may be domesticated animals, such as horses in South Africa, which have been neglected and abused. Working with well established rescue centers and sanctuaries, these are also important projects and often suited to younger children who aren’t ready to go trekking the wilds all day long yet.

Jon Arnold, from our supplier Oyster Worldwide, offers advice on volunteer vacations for families: “If this is their two week vacation that they’re doing over the summer, it’s giving the kids much more of a cultural understanding, it’s giving them a lesson in how great it is to volunteer, and really making the most of their vacation time. They’re not just staying in an all inclusive vacation resort and lying on a beach. They’re actually really doing something really worthwhile with those two weeks. And these are projects that we’ve picked particularly because there are things for the children to do and to contribute to as well – the minimum age is around seven.”