Travelers' Philanthropy Handbook - Center for Responsible Travel

PEPY Tours and VoluntourismBy Daniela Ruby PapiPEPY Tours (http://pepytours.com/) offers educational adventures in Cambodia with an aim tochange the way participants give, travel, and live once they return home. PEPY Tours startedout by offering “voluntourism” opportunities, giving people the chance to “improve the world” in avery short period of time. What we learned when starting PEPY was that we were doing twomajor disservices by offering trips whichwere focused on giving rather thanlearning: 1) by rushing to help, we wereencouraging people to take action beforethey fully understood a problem or agoal, which can often lead tounnecessary mistakes and 2) we werecreating volunteer experiences to matchwith the needs of travelers, as the natureof using visitors means adjusting timingand offerings to the availability and skillsof the guests. We realized throughmistakes that we have to learn before wecan help, and that sustainable changePEPY Tours at Ankor Wat, Cambodia. Credit: PEPY Tourstakes a long time.By encouraging travelers to use their vacation time to learn about a new place and the issuesfaced, to use their time to get angry, get interested, and get educated, we are now helping toempower them to do the real world changing once they leave. We might not be able to improvethe world greatly in a 10 day travel experience, but we surely can during the 355 other days ofthe year with new found interests and a better understanding of the barriers faced bydevelopment initiatives around the world.At PEPY Tours, we believe that by connecting people to educational opportunities in ruralCambodia, we are able to create a space for travelers to open up to their own potential to beagents of positive change both in themselves and in the communities around them.See Appendix 2 for PEPY Tours’ Pepy Tours “Voluntourism: Operator Self Check Guide”.112