When Marian Worthington retired three years ago, she decided to pursue an idea sparked on a trip to the Grand Canyon six years earlier. At that time, Worthington and a friend of hers had decided to join a Sierra Club outing as volunteers, working on a revegetation project in Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park.

“I knew I wanted to do something like that again, but on a longer-term basis,” says Worthington, 58, the former director of the office of program budget for the Social Security Administration.

Worthington found just what she was looking for that summer as a volunteer in the library of the Grand Canyon National Park as part of the National Park Service’s Volunteers-In-Parks program. She was so taken with the experience that she returned the following two summers.
A resident of Reisterstown, Maryland, Worthington is part of a growing trend of older volunteers who participate in “do-good vacations” sponsored by various organizations, both domestic and international. These volunteers travel throughout the world, in trips ranging in length from a few days to a few months.

Alexia Nestora, director of i-to-i North America, an international volunteer vacation organization, says that volunteer vacations are ideal because they allow people to visit a different locale, immerse themselves in a new environment or culture, and return home with richer experiences than those offered on a typical packaged holiday vacation.

Some programs offer comfortable accommodations and indoor work, such as teaching English to children in China, while others are geared to outdoor labor, such as working with sea turtles in Costa Rica.

Volunteer vacationing, also called meaningful travel, is a growing trend in the U. S., especially with boomer-age travelers. A survey conducted by the Travel Industry Association found that between 2004 and 2006, i-to-i North America bookings made by travelers between the ages of 50 and 85 increased by 183 percent.

At 47, Jane Stanfield is a prime example. Her quest for a meaningful travel experience led her to quit her job as a project coordinator/administrator at a nonprofit organization and spend a year traveling the world from one volunteer placement to another.

Stanfield, who lives in Lakewood, Colorado, knew that she “wanted to get her hands dirty,” so her volunteer vacations took her from an archaeological dig in France to working with animals in Australia and South Africa. Along the way, there were less labor-intensive placements such as teaching English in the Cook Islands and simply speaking English in Spain.

“Each experience gave me something none of the others did,” says Stanfield, although with a college degree in animal science, she found the animal projects, such as caring for wallabies in Australia and baboons in South Africa, particularly enjoyable.

Her year-long adventure not only left Stanfield with a “renewed confidence” in herself, but also a new sense of purpose for her life. “I found something in my heart that winds me up and gets me going,” she says. Stanfield is now sharing her adventures through speaking and writing projects in her newfound business, “Where Is She Heading… .”

Stanfield arranged her volunteer placements through several organizations, including i-to-i, Earthwatch, Global Volunteers and Pueblo Ingles, among others (for information on these and other “meaningful travel” resources visit www.memagazine4u.com/volunteer.html).

If you’re interested in planning your own volunteer vacation, Stanfield recommends taking a good, long look at yourself beforehand to have an understanding of your bare minimum comfort level. Accommodations, for example, can range from “charmingly rustic to four-star,” she says. “You don’t want to be hugely disappointed.” (Although, it doesn’t hurt to step over your comfort line from time to time.)

To find out if a volunteer vacation is right for you, Stanfield advises taking a short trip, preferably in the U.S., so you can get a taste of the experience. “There are so many opportunities,” she says, pointing out that Earthwatch has a variety of scientific/ecological programs in the States.

While Stanfield enjoyed her ’round the world volunteer “sabbatical,” she admits that the next time she would prefer a longer stay in fewer places. “It’s nice to unpack and not move for a while.”

Costs for volunteer vacations vary from several hundred to several thousand dollars, although in some cases, it is the volunteers who are on the receiving end. National Park Service volunteers, for example, are reimbursed for some of their mileage, receive a daily stipend for food and are provided with housing. In Worthington’s case, she shared a trailer (which she says was much nicer than she anticipated) with another volunteer.

In return, Worthington worked approximately 35 hours a week in the library—filing, answering questions, cataloging material and creating an inventory of periodicals. During her days off, Worthington, an avid outdoors enthusiast, was able to hike, bike and travel within the Grand Canyon, as well as to points beyond. She also enjoyed events such as a rodeo and a cowboy poetry reading. “I tried to soak up things I couldn’t do at home,” she says.

Worthington, like Stanfield, found her volunteer vacation to be a remarkable experience. She enjoyed living in a small community, especially one with elk and deer wandering through the neighborhood. She also was happy to be exposed to new ideas that piqued her interest in further study.

“I was making a contribution in a place that has a need,” she says. “I worked hard, but I had the opportunity to spend time in this awesome natural space. There’s no price I could put on that experience.”

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