The 100 Best Worldwide Vacations to Enrich Your Life

I love taking vacations that aren't mainstream; vacations that are different, enriching or educational. This book is a great compilation of 100 opportunities to experience the world outside of the well-worn pathways. Why go to Turkey and just tour ruins when you can learn to shake and shimmy doing a belly dance; the gobek atmak? Instead of just viewing art in some of Russia's fabulous museums, study classic Russian art at Catherine the Great's Academy. Make Goods from the Woods in Sweden or Strut your stuff at Rio's Carnaval. These are only the chapter titles--the descriptions are more detailed obviously and give you a sense of whether this type of vacation is for you. Within the pages of this book you'll find four chapters chock full of alternatives to sightseeing, eating out, and viewing ruins. Chapter one contains arts and crafts getaways, Chapter two focuses on volunteer vacations, chapter three details learning vacations and finally chapter four focuses on wellness escapes. You can learn Swahili while studying Rhinos in Kenya in one of Earthwatch's Kenya projects. Or you can enter a zany boat race in Australia. There are vacations to appeal to your brain, your heart, and your body. Go Thailand and earn your Elephant driving license. Anyone for cycling across Cuba? I would suggest you check out the websites attached to each project. Often the sponsoring organization has other opportunities to explore if the one in the book isn't quite what you are ready for. For instance Earthwatch (the Rhino project referred to above) has 75 or more projects if you don't feel ilke risking being chased by the nearly blind rhinos. I only found one nonworking link while checking out alternative vacations that I'd be interested in. Other good resources, if you are into adventure vacations include Volunteer Vacations: Short-Term Adventures That Will Benefit You and Others, Volunteer Vacations Across America: Immersion Travel USA, The Back Door Guide to Short-Term Job Adventures: Internships, Summer Jobs, Seasonal Work, Volunteer Vacations, and Transitions Abroad to name a few books out there.

Pam has done a great job pulling together great trips that wouldn't necessarily be listed all in one place. It's amazing how many trips there are and how diverse they can be! At Adventures Within Reach, we have noticed that travelers no longer want to travel just to get away. They want to experience something more -- learn something, experience a new culture, or give back to the local people. This book addresses these needs. We are happy to be listed in the book under Volunteer Vacations and hope that more people plan their next vacation to enrich their lives.

Pam Grout describes a new term in the travel business, an "enriching vacation." She writes that the essence of the trip to to gain "some perspective on your life and make a difference to other people, especially in the volunteer vacations." Others may be devoted to learning something you wanted learn about ever since you were a kid. She writes your goals is to "come back different than when you left on your vacation." The book is divided into four categories: arts and crafts getaways, volunteer vacations, learning retreats, and wellness escapes. Sample trips include spinning wool on an old English farm, making pottery in Nicaragua, studying tectonic plates in Iceland, and assembling wheelchairs for land-mine victims in Cambodia. Some of the vacations are basically free, except for food, lodging and travel, for example Patch Adams's Gesundheit Institute to help revolutionize health care (inspired by Robin Williams's Patch Adams). Others can be really expensive, learning to drive a sport car at speed, for example, or playing an instrument at rock and roll camp with The Who's Roger Daltrey. I enjoyed the image of some of these trips, sort of like Tom Sawyer convincing folks how much fun it is to whitewash a fence. But Grout says most folks come back from these vacations refreshed and proud of having learned something new; "most would go right back if they could get the time off." One caution: as another Reviewer wrote, this book will only introduce you to the idea of a particular trip; you will have to do additional research about the groups, costs, availability, etc. But Grout does give you plenty of information to start with and to build on. I've personally love these sorts of vacations. My wife sent me to a one week Boot Camp at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. I learned a great deal about basic cooking, so much so that we decided I'd go back to learn more about Italian cooking. We both benefited; my cooking improved and we had plenty to talk about. Grout is positive, motivational and inspirational. Each entry is one to three pages long, describing the location and experience with prices, dates and helpful advice. Vacation descriptions include addresses, phone numbers and websites for the organizations providing the trips. There's a bit on historical facts, side trips and trivia, but be sure to do further research before committing to any trip. (Note: this book is a sequel to Grout's The 100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life.) This is a great book to read and learn about options, even if you don't take a "real" vacation. Enrichment is the name of Grout's game, and she delivers. Robert C. Ross 2008

Reading this book made me completely reevaluate my vacation choices. It covers a wide range of trips spanning across the farthest corners of the earth(yes, there's an antarctica trip, too), some that you've thought of, but most you probably haven't. The types are broken up into sections: there's Arts & crafts, Volunteer vacations(my personal favorite), learning retreats, and wellness escapes. With the multitude of options, you'd be hard pressed not to find something that you're really interested in, or, more likely--several. Each trip/cause has general costs, whats included in those costs, and contact info, including websites--although one of the websites that i visited was completely in spanish--and there had been no indication in the review that you had to be spanish speaking/literate to participate in that particular vacation. If there was one thing that was really lacking in this book, it doesn't quite tell you how much of the language you need to make your vacation enjoyable--am i okay with a phrase book or should i start studying spanish now? it doesn't really answer these questions consistently. 4 stars because the book does not address what I consider to be important information related to how difference sexes, nationalities and language levels are received by the locals. For example, the middle east trips made no mention of whether it would be difficult for lone travelers or female travelers(or a lone female traveler), which is important since I have thought of taking a few trips alone. Not that I expect this book to do all your research for you, but it would be nice if it were to mention possible problems with certain areas. On the whole, i found this book to be incredibly enjoyable, but it is not a one-stop vacation description, its just a starting point. you still need to do a lot of research about the vacations that you find interesting. It definitely gave me new ideas and perspective about what i can really do while i'm on vacation--i can learn a craft, begin a language and immerse myself in a culture that most tourists will never take the time to appreciate. i highly recommend this book :)