学进去

Did you watch the popular TV series Meet Yourself (《去有风的地方》) during your vacation? In the TV series, the heroine Xu Hongdou travels to a village in Yunnan provinces and volunteers at a local cafe. She gets free meals in return. As the show find a growing audience, volunteer travel — an old-yet-modern form of travel similar to Xu’s type of work — has attracted more attention.

Volunteer travel refers to taking a trip where all or part of the purpose of the trip is to participate in an arranged service opportunity to help others, according to Wise our, an online provider of tourist information.

During the trip, volunteer travelers often provide services like teaching, cooking, animal caring, and cultural activities. In exchange for their help, the volunteers may get free or discounted accommodation (住宿), meals and laundry (洗衣服务), activities, or classes.

It seems as if these long journeys could only be made possible in recent years by modern transportation. Nevertheless, volunteer ravel dates back to the 1960s, when Ale Dickson and his wife Mora from the UK founded Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), an international volunteer organization.

Traditionally, the volunteer activities take place in a foreign country. However, just as what Meet Yourself shows, more volunteer trips have taken place within the same countries or places in recent years. Sanlian Lifeweek magazine said that volunteer projects in rural (农村的) areas are now attracting more city visitors as a break from the fast and stressful pace of city living. Yang Yan, a founder of a volunteer platform, told the magazine that it has indeed been a growing trend (趋势) for city workers to volunteer in rural areas.   

By working voluntarily while traveling, city workers can get a taste of rural life. For those who are sick of city pressure but can’t make up their minds whether to move forever to the countryside, volunteer travel can be a solution. In this way, as Yang says, travelers can catch some relaxation from their busy lives, while rural communities also benefit by receiving more customers for local tourism industries.