Volunteer

The Benefits of Volunteering While Traveling

As you might know, volunteering is a good thing to do and it is almost always a good and unforgettable experience. I had a lot of experiences in volunteering in various places. If I have learned one thing that is better than volunteering, that is volunteering while you are traveling somewhere. That is because while you traveling you usually don’t get the whole experience that the place can offer. However, by volunteering, you can experience their culture much better than you would if you just visited some famous places. If you want to find out what I personally find beneficial in volunteering while traveling, then continue reading.

Improve Skills

Volunteering is always a new opportunity to learn certain things. You should always volunteer for something different that you never tried before, that way you can improve your skills. However, improving skills is much better while you are traveling because depending on where your travel, you might learn to do things differently than you are used to. Sometimes, and I speak from personal experience now, I have learned to do some things much faster and efficient while I was traveling. People are using different methods to do certain things, therefore you can learn to do them that way.

Make Friendships

This is the best thing that volunteering while traveling has to offer to you. If you are traveling, especially if you are traveling alone, volunteering is a great thing to do because you can meet a lot of new people and even make some really good friends that might stay your friends forever. Every time that I volunteered while I was traveling I made at least three really good friends. Shockingly to me, I still hold contact with many of them. If you are traveling by yourself, then I recommend you even more to try volunteering.  You will not feel alone or lost anymore, you will make new friendships that can last forever. There are plenty of other people volunteering that are also just travelers and they are not locals, maybe you can find a friend that lives near you. You can never know what might happen.

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Boy Scout Skills That Translate Well Into Real Life Situations

cooking

During my time in the boys scouts, I picked up and learned an awful lot of skills.

Now admittedly, some of those skills seemed somewhat worthless at the time, but as I encountered certain situations while out on my adventures, the skills I had learned came back to me.

And I could apply those to get me out of some pretty sticky situations. For instance, compass reading skills are something, that I feel, should be taught to everybody in school, as knowing your sense of direction is vitally important if you end up lost.

Below listed are some skills that are practiced by the boy scouts, that translate well into real life situations.

Knot Tying:

Boy scouts sure do need to learn a lot of knots! And while some may seem like an exercise in the mundane, others are pretty handy.

I’ve covered knots previously here in my blog, which you should check out, for examples of how boy scout knots can be applied in real life challenges.

Trail Marking:

This is not your classic “leave a trail of breadcrumbs” exercise, but a method of tracking where you have been, so that you can follow that same trail back to safety, or to your base camp.

Few things are more frustrating than getting lost in wooded areas, for example, and walking around, swearing you have seen that one tree at least three times by now!

Biodegradable, high visibility tape can be purchased in hiking and camping stores, that will enable you mark your way, enabling you to return back to your starting point, and best of all, will break down naturally over time.

So you don’t need to worry about cleaning up your tape as you return – perfect if you are battling against incumbent weather conditions.

Cooking:

I firmly believe that everybody should know how to cook, even if it is just basic things such as a nice spaghetti bolognaise. Cooking is a skill that all boy scouts learn in their time.

Having the ability to nourish yourself and practice good food safety are skills that you will continue to use all throughout your life, and are especially handy when it comes time to strike out on your own, starting college.

First Aid: 

Another thing boy scouts learn is how to apply first aid.

You never want anything bad to happen of course, but if something does, having a first aider attend to the victim can really mean the difference between life and death. First aid courses are ran regularly pretty much everywhere.

In fact, many workplaces have programs, where they educate their staff in first aid techniques for free.

Community Service:

As you know, I love to volunteer. These are qualities that were instilled in me in the boy scouts.

Every scout must perform some form of community service as part of the badge awarding process, and it is during this that one really learns how important this is.

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