Volunteering could be your best bet for cheap travel

Sometimes, like days when it’s late March and there’s a snowstorm on the horizon, you really feel like you’ve gotta get away. The problem with your line of reasoning there is that travel is expensive. Who knew? But, if you’re pure of heart, or at least you can fake being a good person, Matador Network has some cheap room and board options for you, like helping to protect adorable baby turtles in Mexico, conserve the Australian environment or building the Appalachian Trail.

Especially with our endless winter, heading to Mexico sounds like a really, really nice idea. Instead of paying for a an expensive beachfront resort though, you can jump aboard with a turtle team at Playa Las Tortugas, where you can get basic housing for cheap if you stick around for a bit. Who cares what kind of basic housing you’ve got when all that’s on the agenda is 1. Saving cute baby turtles and 2. Drinking rum?

Even further away than Mexico, you can head to Australia or New Zealand to help preserve their beautiful environment/Lord of the Rings backdrops through Conservation Volunteers. You’ll get meals, a room to stay and the camaraderie (boning) that can only come when a bunch of beautiful young carefree people work outdoors to do good.

Of course, you can also stay right here in the good old USA and see things you usually don’t by volunteering to help maintain trails on the Appalachian Trail with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. In return for getting out in the woods, you can get room and board. Matador again warns that the accommodations are pretty basic, but if you’re the type who’s going out to build some trail in the woods, you probably don’t need a Four Seasons.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Matador Post, they rounded up plenty of other volunteer opportunities like WOOFing and going to a kibbutz in Israel.