greenliving
Five Affordable Vacations that Give Back
by Heather Boerner T
his year, you can cut the cost of taking a much-needed vacation
while doing something good for the local community and the whole planet. Here are some ways to travel, get involved and avoid tourist traps while walking lightly on the Earth.
“You get such a richer experience
traveling with homestay,” observes Horowitz from his farmhouse in Had- ley, Massachusetts. He advises prospec- tive homestayers to verify the number of nights agreed upon and then pay a host for their hospitality beyond that, and also expect to spend time with your hosts in the evenings. Finally, be pre- pared for any kind of accommodations. “You have to be somewhat adventur- ous,” he says.
Home Swap
As a renter, San Francisco resident Melanie Jones fi gured home swapping wasn’t in the cards for her. But when she gave it a try, she found herself in a cozy studio in Paris’ ninth arrondissement near a train station with easy access to the city’s major at-
tractions. “It’s a unique way to connect with people who are different from us and to put ourselves in situations to see the world through someone else’s
eyes,” she says. “It’s a lot easier to do that when you’re literally eating off someone else’s dishes and sleep- ing in someone else’s bed.” Although scores of home-swapping
Homestay
Shel Horowitz has been sleeping on strangers’ fl oors, couches and private guest suites for decades now. In the process, he’s met peace activists, ecolo- gists and friends with whom his family still interacts. But he’s not just couch surfi ng; he’s homestaying, a travel op- tion that runs the gamut from traditional foreign-exchange visits for students to the nonprofi t peace outreach program Horowitz has been involved in since 1983, called Servas (
Joomla.Servas.org).
The way he sees it, he’s doing his part to spread cross-cultural understanding and making travel more affordable. There’s the time he visited Colo-
rado on a homestay and met a couple who gave him a private tour of their collection of Native American art. Last year he stayed with the director of Guatemala’s National Park Service and another man active in sustainable development work in the country’s highlands.
websites offer to help streamline and vet potential swaps, she chose to post her ad on Craigslist. A 20-something French- man responded; he wanted to visit his girlfriend who was staying in San Fran- cisco. Jones notes that it’s important to both trust the person with whom you’re swapping and to set ground rules.
WWOOFing
The World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (
wwoof.org) movement matches eco-conscious urbanites with organic farms around the world. You
natural awakenings July 2010 31
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