The Benefits of Volunteering while Traveling

I admit it: I’m a travel junkie. I’m also a junkie for humanitarian causes. So when I can combine the two, the world just feels like a better place to me. I recently ran across an interview that author Nancy Christie did with me, on the benefits of volunteering, for an upcoming book. I thought [...]

A Road Without Obstacles is not Worth Traveling

Yesterday I was handed the best letter I have ever received. I was at St. Monica’s Home for Girls for the first time. Earlier in the day I had met Sarah, a 17-year-old junior in high school who has been living at St. Monica’s since fourth grade. Extremely intelligent, with a vocabulary and life philosophy [...]

Passport Party Project Hits Austin

Last Saturday, March 3, I was thrilled to be part of a new movement that is gifting girls aged 11 to 15 with their very first passports. The Passport Party Project, brainchild of Tracey Friley, came to Austin – and did we ever have a blast with the 10 girls from the Ann Richards School [...]

Bridging the Digital Media Divide Across Continents

If you haven’t read my story about CNN Hero Ponheary Ly, perhaps I should suggest that you start there. This amazing woman survived the brutal Khmer Rouge genocide in her home country of Cambodia – which killed her father – and went on to form a foundation that enables thousands of Cambodian children to go [...]

Wildlife in Peril in Thailand

NOTE: This is Breaking News! A wildlife sanctuary in Thailand has just been raided, and more than 100 animals confiscated by the government. The reason? Because this particular NGO has been very outspoken in the media about elephant poaching and the slaughter of wildlife in Thailand. Update: There is now a WFFT Resource Center on [...]

Peta and Ben: Building Sustainable Bamboo Housing

Nicaragua is not a wealthy country; according to the Moon Handbook to Nicaragua, it is the poorest of all Central American countries (and second-poorest in the Western Hemisphere). Having suffered numerous colonial take-overs, civil war, rebellious political overthrows and the infamous Sandinista/Contra period in the 1980s in which the U.S. was so heavily involved, this [...]

Passage to India

The idea of volunteering in another country has long been considered the province of students and recent graduates; images of intrepid twenty-year-old Peace Corps workers in a remote Sierra Leone village might spring to mind. Today, however, the idea has reached far beyond that to become accessible, and highly popular, among travelers of all types [...]