Extreme Philanthropy

How many of us, when planning a trip to Africa, have had to face the difficult choice between climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and helping clean up classrooms at a school for AIDS orphans? Adventure or volunteerism? So often, the trips we conceive or sign on to are all one or all the other.

Well, those days are over. New York Times correspondent Paul von Zielbauer is starting a new kind of travel company, one that incorporates both ways of experiencing a place.

Roadmonkey Adventure Philanthropy, a fledgling venture which von Zielbauer hopes to solidify into a proper for-profit enterprise in the coming years, organizes tours of no more than 10 adventure-philanthropists who use social networks to each raise $500 to $1,000 for the volunteer projects they will undertake once abroad. Eventually, von Zielbauer would like to create a foundation associated with Roadmonkey to partner with nonprofits to which its donor-adventurers would directly contribute.

The company has mounted two trips so far. The first, in November 2008, involved cycling through northwest Vietnam then building a playground for orphans near Hanoi. The second trip, which occurred this month, was a trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro combined with a stint building clean-water systems and fixing up a school for AIDS orphans in Tanzania.

Where will the next tour take the intrepid and generous adventurers? Will you be one of them? If you want to be, contact Paul at Roadmonkey at paul@roadmonkey.net or 917-319-8070. You can also get in touch via Skype at “Roadmonkey” or Twitter @Roadmonkey_Inc.

Photo courtesy of stock.xchang