An Adventure Gift For A Man With A Huge Difference

Last year my wife organized a wonderful gift for me. Not just for me, but for herself and for our kids. One for the whole family. She's a teacher and she organised a teacher exchange for us. To China. We spent 3 months living in a school in Taizhou in China, both of us teaching English to the students there.

We didn't do it for the money, the money was terrible and we bore a lot of the costs ourselves. We did it for the experience, and for the opportunity to be a part of something that helped out some other people less fortunate than ourselves.

And it was wonderful. Despite the fact that financially we would have been far better off staying at home I wouldn't have missed it for the world. To hell with the money sometimes.

So I'm going to suggest a very unusual adventure and luxury gift for a man here, one that can often cost quite a deal of money, but one which will give him the experience of a lifetime and help out along the way. And if you, and your family if you have kids, go along, you will all be a part of it.

It's an adventure holiday with a difference. A holiday in a place you may never have thought of, doing something you would probably never have heard of.

It's an Eco Holiday. An adventure holiday for a man who is extremely aware of his impact on his environment and would like to do something about it. A holiday that gives back - to the environment.

Or for that matter just a fantastic holiday idea with a difference.

Volunteering abroad is not new. But there are so many people who don't know it exists. It does, and a growing number of people are taking advantage of overseas volunteer holidays. And now it's possible to add an Ecological aspect to a volunteer holiday abroad.

How does it work? You organise a holiday/volunteer project through a company such as Earthwatch. You visit their website and pick out something that appeals to you.

There is a massive range of choices. Here's just 2 of the current choices. Volunteer in Mexico helping scientists working with endangered black turtles or volunteer in Queensland, Australia measuring the distribution of tropical animals in a World Heritage area to assess the impact of climate change on the animals.

There is so much more. The choices are huge, the range of projects stunning. This could be his, and your, holiday of a lifetime.

Lets look at one. One that really appeals to me. Spend 12 days on board a classic wooden Norwegian sailing ship counting dolphins and whales along the coast of Spain. You are contributing to scientific work being done on behalf of the European Commission to create sustainable whale and dolphin management plans to protect their habitat.

You may be filming, identifying and tracking them.

And in your time off, (you do get time off) you can relax in one of the coastal spanish villages you get to visit.

It sounds absolutely wonderful, a real holiday with a difference, because he, and you, are making a difference yourselves. It's an adventure gift with a difference.

Here's a video from Earthwatch for you to watch about a whale project in Baja.

And here's another Earthwatch video about volunteering in Madagascar. It has my mouth watering.

And here's a page from Earthwatch written by one of it's volunteers who spent time in Thailand telling you all about the experiences he had.

Now none of this is cheap. You have to pay, and if you're interested visit the Earthwatch institute website to read all about the projects, and the costs. But then any holiday abroad is expensive,isn't it?

This is a luxury and [tag-tec]adventure gift for a man[/tag-tec]. Sometimes the luxury refers to the experience rather than the accomodation. But to me a holiday like this, even if it's as rough as it gets, is also about as luxury as it gets. And quite some adventure.

And you can read about some other adventure gift ideas of mine too.