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Here’s my final tip on how to drop tourism and really travel:

Tip 6: Give Something Back
The single most important thing you can do to distinguish yourself as a traveler and not a tourist is to give something of yourself. I had been a lifestyle traveler for more than a decade before I discovered a little traveler's secret called volunteer tourism. You can offer your time, energy and manual labor to all sorts of short- to long-term projects run by locals benefiting their wildlife, environment and communities. And please note that volunteering for a preexisting local organization is very different than bringing your (foreign) organization's objectives and volunteering to force them on another culture. I recommend searching the Global Vision International website for wildlife, environmental and cultural volunteer opportunities in the region of the world you are planning to visit.

I have volunteered at Thailand's Elephant Nature Park, working hands-on with an endangered species, the Asian elephant. I worked my little ass off in the fields, building fences and planting corn. I got heat exhaustion, dysentery and was bitten by every flying insect known to man. But it was all worth it to get the chance each day to bathe Medo the elephant, for whom I developed a great fondness and respect. I saw her eyes laugh as I scrubbed her pachyderm skin with a wire brush. I enjoyed watching as she dunked her whole head underwater, breathing through her trunk like a snorkel.

When I sat at the feet of the village shaman who welcomed us volunteers through a Thai calling-back-the-spirit ceremony, I knew that I could never sit in a chlorinated deep-end again and think I had actually traveled. It was as if I was the Grinch Who Stole Christmas all my life before my volunteer tourism began. I knew my Grinch heart had just grown three sizes larger and I would have to grow to accommodate its new size after I retired beneath my mosquito net in a bamboo room built by the hands of other volunteers just like me, was woken up by the infantile squeaks of an endangered baby Asian elephant—probably comically scared of a mouse scurrying by her giant feet—and then smoked a hand-rolled cigarette with the Burmese refugee turned elephant mahout, garnering him pride, pay and (at least temporary) safety from his country's genocide.

These are the reasons we travel. These are the experiences that develop more than a good photo—they develop character. If I had children, these are the moments I would wish to provide their upbringing. Because when I respect my world this way, I return home and appreciate the diversity, the landscape, the local transportation, the fresh fruits and the rich culture of my own community all the more.

Ultimately, everywhere on this Earth and in life itself, I am but a traveler, just passing through. I will not separate myself from the world, but immerse myself in it. I am not a tourist of life, but a connoisseur—well-traveled and well-trained to drink every sweet drop of goodness it has to offer… with the ravenous, generous traveler's open mind… leaving footprints so light that, wherever I go, they are washed away by the next tide pulling out.

See Part 1: Ditch the Resort Packages and Lodge Locally
See Part 2: Avoid Rental Cars and Supermarkets
See Part 3: Seek Out the Cultural and Natural

[Sign up to be notified each time Tonya publishes a new Clean and Green Everyday blog entry on EcoHearth.– Ed.]

[See a complete list of writing by Tonya Kay on EcoHearth.com or visit her Clean and Green Everyday blog. – Ed.]

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