With so many ways to travel, it’s hard to figure out how to make your experience as fulfilling as possible. You could hop aboard a luxury cruise and check off incredible destinations from your bucket list, you could backpack through natural wonders on foot, or you could immerse yourself in an entirely new foreign location and help build up the community through volunteer work.
Those who decide to volunteer in the Peace Corps get to travel on the organizations dime, but it’s a serious commitment and shouldn’t be taken lightly. The organization hosts volunteers in job sites around the world. Volunteers are assigned to a particular location and work on assignment there for around six to twelve months. Assignments around the world cover agriculture, education, community economic development, environment, health, and youth in development.
If you decide to apply for a Peace Corps assignment, you’ll receive housing, a living allowance to cover food, household supplies, clothes, transport and more. You’ll also have medical and dental coverage, and two vacation days per month of service. So you’ll be working’ and those looking for a laid back vacation should look elsewhere.
The Peace Corps was founded in 1961 and currently there are open positions in more than 60 countries around the world. They’ve also compiled over 240,000 volunteers, who have found the immersive experiences to be incredibly fruitful. Around two thirds of volunteers are placed on projects in Africa and Central and South America, but during the application process, applicants can opt to apply for a specific location or opt to be placed anywhere in the world. Volunteers work with community members and interact with locals directly, seeing their impact on a daily basis and oftentimes learning all the idiosyncrasies of a culture and community.
Though it’s not for the faint-hearted, applying for a Peace Corps assignment may allow adventurous travelers to have the most immersive travel experience of their lives.
