Jaunted

Volunteer Travel / Eco-Travel / Voluntourism / Amazon Travel / Animals / South America Travel / → All Tags

Save Endangered Turtles Through Voluntourism in the Bolivian Amazon

SELVA International is giving "eco-warriors" a chance to take an awesome vacation in the Amazon, while saving turtles at the same time. SELVA is a non-profit, environmental conservation organization formed and run by PhD ecologists and environmental activists, and these trips are specifically to the Bolivian Amazon Basin, with a focus on assisting scientists in saving the critically endangered Giant Amazon River Turtle.

Participants can choose between all-inclusive 10, 15, or 21 day tours which include accommodations in a local village. While there, tour groups will assist Dr. Alison Lipman, project Co-Director, in the hands-on work of preserving the turtles.

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Volunteer Travel / Indonesia Travel / Eco-Travel / Habitat for Humanity / → All Tags

Help Build Habitat For Humanity's First Eco-Tourism Village

Habitat for Humanity is creating its first international eco-tourism community in Soran, Indonesia and you can be a part of it.

H4H is teaming up with Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) to establish a eco-tourism village made up of more than 420 homes and guest accommodations near Indonesia’s famous Prambana Temple. Does that sound intriguing at all? Because they are, of course, looking for some good help to move the project along.

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Volunteer Travel / Eco-Travel / Natural Disasters / → All Tags

Spend Vacation Building Sustainable Housing? Sure, Why Not?

Earthship Biotecture, an organization that creates sustainable housing from recycled tires filled with compacted earth, has just returned from Haiti where volunteers launched a project to build housing for those still homeless after January's earthquake. Earthship plans to return in October to continue their work and educate locals so they will be able to build their own permanent, sustainable housing, and you can join them on their next mission.

They are currently looking for volunteers who are interested in learning how to build their own Earthship to help those in need on future trips, like the one to Haiti, or for their own use. Right now, they are planning a new Earthship project in Santa Fe, New Mexico and need volunteers who would be willing to work alongside the Earthship crew and learn techniques like tire pounding, installation of thermal wrap, installation of cisterns and site planning.

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Costa Rica Field Trip / Spas / Eco-Travel / Eco Spas / Green Travel / → All Tags

How to Indulge in Some Earth-Friendly Pampering in Costa Rica

All this week, Lost Girl Amanda Pressner will be bringing us reports from her recent trip to Costa Rica with her entire family. Any questions about traveling to Costa Rica or family-oriented activities to do while you're there? Let us know.

Ever wonder where this whole sustainable travel, eco-tourism trend got its legs in the first place? As I learned during my family vacation, it was the formerly impoverished banana republic of that Costa Rica almost single-handedly spawned the concept back in the 70s.

After the price of “yellow gold” crashed back a few decades ago, the nation fell into a devastating depression. Sensing that CR needed to identify an alternative industry—and fast—a few government smarties kicked off the nation’s Green Revolution, reforesting huge tracts of jungle that had once been clear-cut for farming and turning them into protected wilderness areas and national parks. By successfully marketing itself as a nature-lovers paradise, Costa Rica no longer needed to export bananas to survive. They started importing tourists.

And with those tourists came the birth of another trend: Eco-Spas.

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