How do I plan an alternative break?

Whether you are a school, community service center or an individual student, you might want to plan on going on an alternative break. The question however is how do I plan an alternative break? Your first step would be to determine a destination. In order to determine a destination you need to take inventory of your needs. Does your group benefit from a local trip or one abroad. If you or your group have never experienced or planned an alternative break, it would probably be wise to start with a service program either locally or within your local region. Once you have experienced some of the intricacies of group travel, you might then plan an alternative break abroad. The benefits of a local trip are familiarity with culture, transportation, communication and structure. If there is an emergency or student issue, it is easy to communicate to your school, leaders and parents. If a similar issue occurred abroad you might not have the same resources available to you like you would in your home country. Not that we are dismissing alternative breaks abroad, in fact we believe that the benefits from break abroad outweigh the potential issues that come with international travel, however we are just suggesting that you or your group leaders plan trips that are right for your students and help your leaders gain experience.

Suggested strategy on planning your alternative break;

1) Pick a destination that both benefits your students, trip leaders and the people you serve. Decide Who is going? What is the destination? What volunteer project best suits your group? For example do you have environmental majors or education students? Many groups choose a place within driving distance, while a few groups may choose an international destination. Groups should be able to help in a variety of ways from helping restore land, clean up parks, mentor children, to light construction. Other more skilled groups might be able to build a well or help construct a home.

2) Plan early for your trip. The longer you wait to organize you alternative break the more organizational issues will arise (i.e. limited accommodations or transportation issues)

3) Contact the people you plan on serving. Many times these organizations can suggest local accommodation, affordable restaurants and other group needs that can make your trip affordable. Some service centers may house the group onsite and even prepare meals for the group. However, be aware that many of these organizations may house your group for an affordable rate, but safety and hygiene may then be a concern. The best advice would to have a group leaders physically visit these centers long before your group arrives. If a personal visit is not feasible, then have the service related center send pictures of the housing facility that the group will be staying in. The worst scenario would be for your group to arrive and the housing facility does not have separate sleeping areas for male and females with little or no security on their doors.

4) Which service, churches, or non-profit organizations do you contact? The best place to start is with friends, families and associates. Many of these contacts might have a reference or a friend that is involved in an ongoing service project or faith based outreach. With our organization (Appleseed Expeditions) we start by contacting all of our contacts in other regions around the world. Many of these pastors, friends and leaders of service projects have associates in other countries that gladly welcome volunteers. You might also get online and Google or Yahoo orphanages or after-school mentoring programs. We have found several of our contacts abroad from this type of search. Several years ago we where looking to have our groups volunteer in the Florida Keys region. We started searching the web for orphanages or children’s mentoring programs, when we ran across RCMA (Redlands Christian Migrant Association).

5) Contact references of the organization you are getting involved with. There are many tour scams domestically and abroad. This is even more prevalent for organizations that accept volunteers. Once you have retained a list of references, call them to get their advice on where to stay and how to help. These previous volunteers can even give you additional insight on what needs the volunteer site might have or how your group can be more effective while serving.

6) Purchase transportation as early as possible. The myth that many people believe is that you get deeper discounts if you are traveling in a group. This may apply in some areas, but not with flights. Airlines only have a limited number of discounted seats on their planes and they would rather sell these to individuals not groups.

7) Reserve hotels or accommodations. If you have a group of 8 or more travelers we would suggest that you try to reserve your hotel or housing at least 90 days out. The college break period (March through April) is usually the busiest time of year for many hotels and housing centers and they would rather not have a group sign up at the last minute.

8) Plan extracurricular activities for your group. We have seen many groups go on a alternative break that was planned by an individual or school with poor feedback from the students. Many of these complaint where centered around having very little free time to get to know the people or places that they are serving. A good balance for a AB would be four or five days of service with one or two days of local activities. For instance when we had a university volunteering with our organization (Appleseed Expeditions) down in homestead serving the migrant children, we incorporated one day kayaking and another experiencing the Everglades.


Please feel free to contact Appleseed Expeditions about any alternative break question you might have. We can also plan any future alternative breaks for you and your school. Just go to www.appleseedexpeditions.com

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