Voluntourism: On The Rise

The order of high school, college, career, retirement took a nosedive, along with the economy, some seven years ago. The Pew Research Center reported only 6 percent of millennials expect to receive the kinds of Social Security benefits today’s retirees enjoy, stated an article in The Atlantic by Amanda Machado.

As a direct result of this uncertainty and that of the job market, millennials ditched the status quo and began traveling immediately. There was a rise in gap-year programs for graduating high school students and an increasing amount of college graduates who postponed a career in favor of traveling as well.

However, instead of roaming the globe indefinitely and creating a movement of purposeless wandering, travel seems to be enriching not only millenials’ lives, but other’s worldwide.

“In addition to local community outreach, a new trend that has been taking off with the Millennial crowd is volunteer tourism, or ‘voluntourism,’ and it’s one of the fastest growing trends in travel today,” Kelsey Steur stated on Enterprise Strategies.

By giving back to communities around the world through extended voluntourism programs, young people are able to:

• Experience other cultures firsthand
• Have a crash course in the “real world”
• Create a stand-out resume
• Learn in a new atmosphere
• Make a diverse group of friends
• Understand interconnectivity between continents
• Make a difference across the globe