In the end, people matter more than places. We can travel all around the world and see the most beautiful things. But if travel doesn’t connect us better to people, then travel has failed. As the founder of the super-successful adventure travel company Bruce Poon Tip says in his book “Looptail“: “The people are what make a country truly great.”
In the end, we fight for the planet and promote sustainable travel not primarily because we love the dirt and the water and the air and plants and animals around us, but primarily because we love the people who depend on all of that, particularly the least among us.
So to be mindful and present and truly come away knowing a country in travel means you must find ways to get connected to people. And of the best ways to do that is get outside the masses of the resort, or even the isolation of the mountaintop and engage with people. If you are on a beautiful resort, you should be using the relaxation and the carefree status of having everything done for you to unplug from the social media frenzy, to get reconnected to friends and loved ones. When you are at the top of the mountain, alone looking over the heartbreakingly beauty before you, you should be thinking of carrying that beauty back into the world of people. One of the great lessons of “voluntourism” is that doing doesn’t matter as much as being. The best volunteer vacation emphasizes people-to-people engagement over manual labor as the main tool for making a difference.
Activities during a volunteer vacation of course are important. And they should be meaningful. But there is no shortage of manual labor in the countries where volunteer vacations are a booming business. Activities should be created to advance a cause, not the ego of the volunteer, and afford more opportunities for people-to-people engagement. That’s why BeachCorps projects have three components: 1) learning about he cause from the point of view of the beneficiaries; people-to-people engagement where locals learn about foreigners and foreigners about locals; and an activity or activities that continue the potential for people-to-people engagement. The best way a volunteer can help a real nonprofit cause isn’t by painting a wall; it’s by giving their time to understand people better and learn, their donation to a great cause, and then sharing with their 500 facebook friends the story of a great cause with photos and videos highlighting the people of the cause, not a selfie promoting the role fo the volunteer.
As the BeachCorps Beach Bum says: “Better to be a human being than a human doing.”
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