I predict there will be an increase in volunteering this year as Disney has announced a program where they will trade you a day of volunteering for a day at a Disney theme park.

It works like this:

• Search for and commit to a volunteer activity. Start now!
• Complete your volunteer service.
• Print the voucher we’ll email to you once your service is verified. Follow the instructions on the voucher to redeem it by December 15, 2010. Then enjoy! (Or you can donate your ticket to a designated organization.)

The volunteer activities include activities such as:

• cleaning up graffiti
• pruning roses in a local community garden
• helping get a bulk mailing out
• holding mock interviews for job seekers
• restoring a native habitat
• tutoring children

There are a lot of organizations out there that need some help and a lot of things to do. Ironically the activity I was most interested in (helping job seekers prepare for interviews) conflicts with the volunteering I already do at juvenile hall, but I am still looking for some place else to help. Mickey says my community needs me.

• Viewing Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower
• Sipping Champagne in Epernay
• Shopping in Cannes

None of these activities are what Heather Hansen was looking for when she planned her recent trip to France. She and a friend chose a volunteer vacation. Instead of the usual tourist activities, they learned medieval stone laying methods while they helped repair the grounds of an old castle in the medieval village of St. Victor La Coste.

Heather says of the trip. “This was a way to experience France in a more personal and much more memorable way. ”

The stay was more rustic than luxurious as they woke in the morning to the cooing of the pigeons in the coop next to their room on the 3rd story of a medieval stone house. They spent their days rebuilding a stone path and a dry stone wall under the tutelage of Pascal, a master stone setter. Pascal was very particular about getting the right stone in the right place and making sure the path was level and sloped to handle rain runoff. In the afternoons and evenings Pascal became their tour guide. He showed them conical stone houses called bories built by shepherds, local castles, an ancient roman aqueduct and the ubiquitous local vineyards. As they toured the town’s castle Pascal described the original structure, the modifications and the building techniques.

One evening after dinner, they played petanque (French lawn bowling) with their cook Priscilla and the other the locals in the town square until it was too dark to see the balls.

On the last day they worked next to Genoux, the owner. The more they would say “no parle Francias” the faster he talked. He explained everything in great detail in French as they tried to follow his hand motions.

What made this vacation memorable? “I enjoyed living in the medieval village, eating traditional food, it was like going back in time to a simpler way of life.  Also, I enjoyed listening to the French talk about their history and how it shapes their views of current politics.  It’s a very different perspective than one gets from the media in this country. I feel connected to a piece of history that lives on in rural France.  I have great memories that will last forever.  When I came home, I built a dry stone wall along the flower bed in my front yard.  It reminds me of France.”

For more information about volunteer opportunities in France see La Sabranenque.

A couple of week’s ago I woke to what I thought was the sound of a cement mixer. It turns out it was simply the snoring of my trip mates. I might be forgiven the mistake about the cement mixer if you understood that we had just spent two days working in Tijuana with the sound of a cement mixer as the main accompaniment. I got out of bed slowly with muscles still sore from the last two days work. My right thigh and biceps were the most sore but fortunately my back was still in working order.

Today I got up and put on my jeans and a button down shirt which is the Silicon Valley equivalent of dressing up for work.

In Tijuana, I put back on jeans which already had 2 days worth of cement on them and a tee shirt which was a veteran from one of my other 14 trips down to volunteer in Tijuana. The shirt is good for little else other than a return trip. The old sneakers I wore would see their last duty before being discarded. They had been saved from the trash at home for just such a trip as this. Completing the outfit was a green bandana which would keep the sweat and especially the cement dust in that sweat out of my eyes.

Today I ate a leisurely breakfast as I read the morning paper.

Two week’s ago it was a quick breakfast as we arose before the sun rose to get out to a work site an hour away across the sprawl that is Tijuana. That day’s task was to pour the cement roof of a family’s house that had been prepared by one half of our group two days earlier. We had a shorter work day because this was our last day and we assumed it would take more than 30 loads of concrete to finish the roof. Each load had to be mixed and then lifted by hand in buckets up to the roof.

Today I drove the 15 minutes to work in the suburbia of west San Jose.

In Tijuana, we wove in and out of Tijuana’s very dynamic traffic trying not to lose the truck we were following which was from Esperanza. Esperanza (Spanish for hope) was the organization we had been working with for this long weekend volunteer vacation. We also tried not to lose the van behind us with more volunteers from our group since we had no idea where we were going except that it was somewhere in the east. Sleep was out of the question as we bounced along Tijuana roads, and these were the paved roads. The houses as you get further and further from the downtown area become increasingly improvisational in construction. It is easy to assume a brand new barrio is years old when it is built with old materials like used shipping crates and old garage doors.

Today I started up my laptop to read my email and catch up with the information needed to be the VP of Engineering and Operations for a Silicon Valley internet company.

Two weeks previous my work day started with lifting 110 lb bags of cement from where they had been stored to a position nearer the mixer. Water was positioned and the first batch of 6 buckets of rock and 5 buckets of sand stood by for the first load of the mixer. One mixer load weighs on the order of 500 lbs when those materials are combined.

Today I had a staff meeting where we went around the table with my staff and discussed the status of various projects.

In Tijuana, the mixer roared to life as the first batch of concrete was prepared. It was dumped into a large trough which was built from two plastic barrels attached end to end and opened at one side. Our scooper was positioned with a bucket in hand to scoop about 2 shovels full of concrete into a waiting bucket. The bucket was passed hand to hand in a line of people snaking up a scaffolding and onto the roof. My job was to stand at the base of the scaffolding lifting the bucket up to someone waiting on the scaffolding. The mixer did not stop until the roof was finished. I held my position until I could not lift my arms over my head when I shifted to a different job like catching the buckets thrown from the roof. The catcher is a job guaranteed to cover you in concrete and guaranteed to leave your hands sore if not bruised.

Today I went out to lunch at a BBQ place with my co-workers as we often will do on a Monday.

A couple of weeks ago I found a shady spot in a sand pile and enjoyed a Manzana Lift (a Mexican apple soda) while we enjoyed our best meal of the week. We had carne asada with fresh tortillas, guacamole and salsa. There are few if any meals that taste better just as there are few sounds that sound sweeter than when the mixer finally stops. Behind us was a house. The house still needed work but now had a roof to keep out the Winter rains that would start soon enough.

What I do once a year in Mexico is a break from my daily routine. It is a break from my usual travel. It is hard work. It is dirty work. It is fulfilling work. I plan to return next Fall.

A Really Good Job

Murphy-Goode Winery… is

offering you a “Really Goode Job” — a six-month job paying $10,000 a month plus accommodations!

We want to hire a social media whiz (your title will be “Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent”) who will report on the cool lifestyle of Sonoma County Wine Country and, of course, tell people what you’re learning about winemaking.

Rail Europe would like you to forget that it is 2009 and a year of economic upheaval and party like it was 1959.

Rail Europe turns back time for tickets

Rail Europe is celebrating half a century of its popular Eurail Pass and is inviting travelers on board with a special promotion. Beginning May 12, the company will offer its Eurail ticket at the 1959 rate: $125 for a five-day, three-country rail pass.

First “Cruise with Purpose” Shore Excursion

Juneau’s local tour operator Gastineau Guiding has created the first Cruise with Purpose shore excursion, in partnership with the Alaska Sea Grant’s Marine Advisory Program and the Alaska Marine Conservation Alliance.

This program was designed especially for Holland America Line. Guests board an exploration vessel out of Auke Bay to look for and help document individual humpback and orca whales.

How can you tell when an unaccompanied minor is really a runaway?

Florida runaway, 13, hops Southwest plane to San Jose to see mom

Someone thought it was odd that a 13-year-old boy was walking alone through San Jose’s airport at a time when he probably should have been safe at home doing schoolwork.

That someone was right.

The travel blog “Traveling the Green Way” had an interesting article about volunteer vacations:

Top 8 Volunteer Travel Trends

“Sixty-four percent (64%) of females are currently volunteering or have volunteered before, compared to only 51% of males.”

“The top overall volunteer travel destinations were Peru (23%) and Brazil (14%). For Americans, the top destinations were Peru (16%) and Costa Rica (15%).”

Other articles that I liked this week:

• The World’s 15 Most Bike Friendly Cities
• Is Unesco damaging the world’s treasures?
• Travel Photography: National Photo Month
• Aggro-Tourism: Stress-Busting Vacations

TSA tests scanners to measure anxiety

Newspaper accounts are using words like �Orwellian� and �the stuff of science-fiction nightmare� to describe a new kind of technology being tested by the Homeland Security Department and Transportation Security Administration. The technology would use an array of scanners at security checkpoints that could detect all kinds of readings from individual who pass through them � measuring their heart rate, body temperature and breathing speed to look for unusually high levels of anxiety. Anyone who displays such symptoms presumably would be pulled out of line for additional scrutiny and questioning.

I could relate to this story since my last trip would best be categorized as religious voluntourism.

Religion to help nation’s tourism industry

The travel industry is always searching for new markets and new products. Ecotourism took off in the 1990s. More recently, “voluntourism,” which combines vacation travel with volunteer work at the destination, has become popular. Currently, one of the fastest growing segments of the industry is religious tourism, which includes pilgrimages, short-term missionary work, monastic retreats, faith-based camps, and visiting sites of religious significance. TJ contributor Steven Crook investigates Taiwan’s potential to become a destination for international religious tourists.

This story says that brits hate Ryanair… it does not say they don’t fly on it.

Ryanair voted least favourite airline for third year running

British travellers have voted Ryanair their least favourite airline for the third year in a row in a TripAdvisor poll.

Of the 450 Brits questioned, 30% voted the low-cost airline as their least favourite.

Ryanair is not content to be hated just by the residence of Great Britain.

Ryanair boss sets sights on no-frills transatlantic flights with new airline

Passengers could be taking budget flights between the US and Europe on a Ryanair-backed airline in less than three years, the low-cost carrier’s chief executive claimed yesterday.

Friends don’t let friends fly drunk… or stupid.

‘Drunk’ man aboard Turkish Airlines flight claimed to have bomb

A drunken man claiming to have a bomb tried to hijack a Russian-bound Turkish Airlines plane on Wednesday but was quickly overpowered by fellow passengers, officials said.

Please keep your voices down when the pilot turns on the no talking sign.

Passenger to pay for airline noise

Flight passengers are likely to be charged for the noises airplanes make. The government is pushing for a bill containing such plans to secure resources to build soundproof facilities for residents near the airport area who are suffering noise pollution, but critics say the government is offloading its responsibility on passengers, who are already paying the fuel surcharge for soaring oil prices.