USE YOUR VACATION FOR GOOD: VOLUNTEER TOURISM IN COLORADO
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A volunteer crew building trails atop Mount Evans with the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative - Photo courtesy of John Daters
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Read about:
What Is Volunteer Tourism?
Colorado Fourteeners Initiative
Colorado Trail Foundation
Continental Divide Trail Alliance
Crow Canyon Adult Research Program
What is Volunteer Tourism?
A social consciousness has been growing for a number of travelers. Going green, buying organic and generally saving the world is more than a mainstream fad, it’s an ecological awakening.
Many people wonder what they can do to help the world while taking a vacation. One of the best ways to satisfy your social conscience and travel to Colorado on vacation is to sign up for volunteer tourism. It’s also an ideal means of meeting fellow travelers and nature enthusiasts in a novel setting.
Build trails high up in the Rocky Mountains, collect seeds from native wildflowers and even help an archeologist or paleontologist unearth fossils and artifacts while part of a real dig. Help the planet and help shed light on pre-history, all while on vacation.
As a bonus, volunteer vacations are often cheaper than a typical vacation. Find out about a few of the many volunteer vacation opportunities here. If you have a specific area of interest, consider contacting a museum or organization in your desired industry to see what they offer.
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Colorado Fourteeners Initiative
Colorado is endowed with 54 mountains whose peaks rise at least 14,000 feet above sea level — more than any place in North America. Because of this lofty distinction, many adventure seekers have been challenging themselves to climb these behemoths for decades. The heavy foot traffic on high-altitude trails can be hard on the ecosystems, much more so than wind and rain.
Climbing these volcanic and granite giants is an activity everyone wants to ensure remains intact for future generations. The Colorado Fourteeners Initiative is a nonprofit, volunteer-dependent organization that helps with restoration and maintenance of trails and fragile plant life.
Volunteer vacations range from three-day trail builds while camping near the work site — sometimes near the summit — to wildflower seed collection, where the seeds from native flowers will be used to repopulate barren trails.
More information on the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative
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Colorado Trail Foundation
The Colorado Trail stretches 500 miles from Denver to Durango. It’s a pathway for hikers who want to travel the majority of the state on foot, passing over mountains, around lakes and into a number of Colorado communities.
The Colorado Trail Foundation is the caretaker of this grueling hike. Volunteers are continually working on maintaining its varied terrain. For hikers on vacation, the chance to hike, camp and help build the trail they’re enjoying is an immensely rewarding experience. Working on something you’re passionate about creates more long-term memories than a number of other vacation options. So, if you want to enjoy some wide-open spaces and make connections with people who share your passion, consider a volunteer vacation with the Colorado Trail Foundation.
More information on the Colorado Trail Foundation
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Continental Divide Trail Alliance
The Continental Divide Trail follows the United States’ claim to the Continental Divide, from Montana to New Mexico, running though Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado. In all, more than 3,000 miles of hiking trails constitute this grand route.
As with the other trail-stewardship programs, no previous experience is required to help out on the Continental Divide Trial. Projects with the organization range from repairing damaged sections to scouting missing trail links.
A volunteer vacation with the Continental Divide Trail Alliance provides camaraderie, a sense of pride and training on finding solutions to real-world problems.
More information on the Continental Divide Trail Alliance
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Crow Canyon Adult Research Program
Volunteer tourism isn’t all hiking and trail building; a volunteer vacation with the Crow Canyon Archeological Center means working side-by-side with real paleontologists and archeologists to uncover artifacts from ancient civilizations.
Crow Canyon is an area laden with Ancestral Puebloan finds. Though this pre-Columbus-era American Indian tribe lived and thrived in this area for centuries, not much is known about them. Help unveil more information about them while on vacation. The Adult Research Program at Crow Canyon allows volunteers to help excavate artifacts and assist in artifact analyses over the period of a week, in order to provide a better understanding of the lives of this mysterious prehistoric culture.
If fieldwork isn’t appealing, the center also offers volunteer opportunities in the lab, helping scientists catalog and research uncovered archeological pieces.
More information on Crow Canyon
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Updated: 03/28/2008
