QUESTION: Does Habitat offer working vacations similar to church mission trips?

Vacations are times to relax, to re-energize, and to restore our sense of self. Vacations are so important to productivity that some major corporations have “use it or lose it” policies or require their key employees to take time off to “get away from it all.”

So why would anyone voluntarily take a “working vacation?”

Leisure travel has its appeal, but when you’re looking for just a little more, a working vacation can provide a sense of adventure and fulfillment not possible on that two-week bus tour of Europe or that sun-drenched beach in Mexico. A working vacation can combine travel with community outreach—a chance to immerse in a different culture and to experience things the typical tourist doesn’t.

Habitat for Humanity has affiliates across the U.S. and in 100 countries around the world, including such exotic locations as Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan. Many of them offer short-term volunteer opportunities through the Global Village program.

These organized one- or two-week trips balance work on Habitat houses with rest and free time. Most teams spend a few days visiting local historic sites or attractions, or participating in outdoor activities such as safaris, hikes in the mountains or rain forests, or kayaking. Volunteers work side-by-side with the local people and get to know them and their culture on a personal basis. Global Village trips are also available across the U.S. and in Alaska and Hawaii.

Don’t let your lack of construction experience stop you. The Global Village teams and most Habitat affiliates have leaders who are skilled in both the task at hand and in coaching new volunteers.

You can be as remote and primitive as you like, or you can stick to the familiar language and culture of the U.S with only the scenery changed.

To plan your working vacation, visit www.habitat.org and click on “Get Involved.” You’ll find information about Global Village trips as well as opportunities for RV-ers to volunteer while traveling, spring break trips for college students, and special projects at various Habitat affiliates across the U.S.

If none of those fits your interests or your schedule, select “Volunteer Locally” and type in the location you want to visit. Contact that Habitat affiliate directly and see what you can work out.

This is also a good way to help your relatives and friends fit a working vacation into a visit to your house in East Tennessee.

We were fortunate three summers ago to host a work team from a Jewish temple in New Jersey. Their 20-plus members included schoolteachers, lawyers, engineers, and other professional people who joined with members of Temple Beth El in Knoxville. All of the volunteers had planned their summer vacations around building a Habitat house in Lenoir City. It turned out to be the hottest week of the summer, but it was also a fascinating mix of New Jersey and East Tennessee dialects, kosher and Southern-fried foods, and the joining of voices to sing a Hebrew prayer to the tune of “Rocky Top.”

We’ve also hosted a group of students from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth who were studying energy efficient housing construction. Their spring break visit coincided with construction of a house that was part of our research partnership with the ORNL Buildings Technology Center, so the students had hands-on experience with cutting-edge research that would influence housing construction throughout the U.S.

Last month, we were visited by two families who traveled from New Hampshire to spend three days installing cabinets and baseboards in two of our houses. The four parents and four teenagers, who are neighbors back home in Concord, made several stops along the way to tour Philadelphia, Blue Ridge Parkway, and other sites, then spent a day in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park before their long drive home.

Working vacations offer a refreshing opportunity to help improve the lives of others while getting an up-close-and-personal experience not available to most tourists. If you’ve “been there, done that” in all the typical tourist places, why not try something different next time?

Posted 12/18/07