How Volunteering Abroad Transforms Our Family Summer Vacations

After a few negative camp experiences, my kids and I started traveling abroad to Southeast Asia for several weeks each summer. I think of this as a temporary relocation rather than a big touristy trip, and you’d be surprised how this can be cheaper than summer camp.

For the last 3 summers, we’ve traveled to Phuket, Thailand, and have prioritized volunteering on our vacation. Finding volunteer activities with younger kids is never easy, and we’ve been lucky and grateful to have found a great organization to work with in Phuket: Soi Dog Foundation. 

Why do we walk dogs in the rain and play with 3-legged blind cats? Here are some reasons why our family volunteers during summer vacation and keeps returning year after year.

Where We Volunteer: Soi Dog in Phuket, Thailand

The Soi Dog Foundation provides rescue, medical care for sick or injured animals, spay/neutering and vaccination services, and rehoming to thousands of cats and dogs across Asia. The Phuket sanctuary houses over 1,500 animals, and volunteers are crucial to give them socialization and time away from their home enclosure.

Our multi-year experience volunteering with Soi Dog has been incredibly positive. Regardless of their condition, the animals are clean and clearly well cared for. The time we can spend with the animals helps them relax in a stressful environment and makes them comfortable around new people, making them more adoptable.

The organization welcomes over 1,000 volunteers annually, and the minimum age to volunteer is just 8 years old.

How We Use Points and Miles To Get to Thailand

Summer camp for 3 tweens can be expensive, but I quickly calculated that I could afford several weeks in Southeast Asia for less than the cost of camp. I further reduce those costs by purchasing my flights using points and miles.

Check out our step-by-step guide to the best ways to fly to Southeast Asia with points and miles. While there are no direct flights from the U.S. to Thailand, once you’re in the region, you can use low-cost carriers like AirAsia, Scoot, Tigerair, and VietJet to connect to Phuket (HKT).

There are many hotels in Phuket to book with points, but we book an Airbnb for our extended stay (and double-dip on earning British Airways Avios).

Our Experience Volunteering as a Family

Volunteering while on vacation is a great way to break up our everyday routine and gives us something to look forward to each week. But there’s much more to the experience and what we get in return.

1. Responsibility

Because my family travels frequently (and there was that lease that said “no pets”), we do not currently have a pet, nor have we had one since my 10-year-old twins were around 2 years old. This has fueled a constant desire within these kids to get a pet, but our current lifestyle just hasn’t been able to accommodate one (just yet). I view our time at Soi Dog as a bit of a training course for when we’ll inevitably get a dog or cat.

At Soi Dog, we’ve got jobs. Our family is assigned specific kennels to walk, and these have typically been older dogs that are easier for kids to manage. We start by reading the profiles of each dog to know their specific personality traits and rules. We have to use a leash properly, walk the dogs to an off-lead area, pick up all the poop, and bring the dogs back to the kennel … all with lots of encouragement and cuddles. If we work together, our family can easily walk 30 to 40 dogs in a day.

2. Patience

Not every dog wants to be walked. Some are scared, some are elderly, some have mobility issues, and sometimes, they just don’t want to move. I think this has been one of the most frustrating things for my kids to work through: Learning to be patient and slow to follow the dogs’ needs rather than their own.

We also have to put the animals before ourselves. If we’re frustrated or want a break, it’s easy to think about the hundreds of dogs that depend on volunteers for a walk outside of their kennel. If we don’t walk them, they may have to wait until the next day. What we do is important.

3. Acceptance of Differences

While Soi Dog hopes that all of its animals are adopted, the reality is that many will live out their lives at the facility.

While many of the animals are perfect, adorable, and ready for a new home, many are elderly, missing limbs, missing ears or eyes, have skin issues, or have behavioral issues. Caring for disabled animals has made my kids extraordinarily compassionate toward these differences.

4. Community

After spending lots of time together in an Airbnb, my kids crave connecting with other people, and Soi Dog has a fantastic community of volunteers. We love learning about what brings folks to volunteer there, where they are from, and hearing about their travels.

We’ve met students on summer break, honeymooners traveling the globe, widowers fulfilling final wishes from their spouse, single parents, habitual volunteers, other families, and even a cruise ship director. People come from all over the globe. This summer, we met volunteers from Australia, Canada, England, Finland, and Malaysia.

The minimum volunteer period at Soi Dog is 2 days, but many volunteers stay nearby in Nai Yang and Mai Khao and volunteer for weeks.

5. Screen-Free Family Time

The summer pull towards screens — be it a Switch, iPad, or TV — is a constant battle in my house, no matter if we’re home or on vacation. I love that our volunteer days are primarily screen-free. Rather than play some silly pet care game in Roblox, my kids are doing something physical in the real world to make a difference.

6. Exhaustion

Volunteering days are packed with activity. We start at 9 a.m. and leave by 4 p.m. During that time, we log over 10,000 steps, often in sweltering sun or soggy showers, and we’re filthy and stinky by the time we jump in a taxi. We get a long lunch break to rest (and play with the cats!), but the rest of the day is filled with movement and is incredibly fulfilling.

7. Affordable Fun

The volunteer experience is a bargain compared to what we might spend on other vacation activities. I spend about $10 to $15 each way on a taxi, a few bucks for lunch, and an incredible 30 cents for 2-scoop ice cream cones. Do my kids look forward to nuggets and cheap cones? For sure.

How To Find Family Volunteer Opportunities

Our extensive guide to volunteering abroad and volunteer travel gives suggestions on what to look for in a volunteer program and popular volunteer organizations so that you can vet potential opportunities. Googling your destination and keywords like “volunteer” and “family” is also a great starting point. Avoid searching “kids,” as this may incorrectly steer your search into opportunities for children, like orphanages.

Chances are, your local community has volunteer opportunities for kids and families, from food pantries to working with animals to fulfilling gift wishes during the holidays. With many high schools requiring service hours for graduation, setting a tone of giving and selflessness early on with kids is a great character-building move.

You don’t need to find an active organization or event to get your family into the volunteer spirit. Start small. My husband is a big proponent of bringing garbage bags or grocery bags with us when we visit the beach to do a family trash cleanup (20 minutes while your sunscreen is drying is a great target for kids!). Nearly every time we do this, other people we walk past are inspired to help pitch in. This is also great to do on hikes!

Final Thoughts

Soi Dog has a team of volunteer coordinators, carers, medical staff, behavioral staff, and maintenance workers that keep the sanctuary running like a well-oiled machine. And if you’ve ever donated to an organization and wondered how that money actually got used, my experiences at Soi Dog show the power of donations in action, particularly with enriching environments for the dogs, such as a pool and off-lead areas with hills, tunnels, and splash areas.

My kids have seen the impact of their volunteer efforts first-hand at Soi Dog Foundation. Hearing loud barking throughout the facility is commonplace, but everything quiets down after the dogs are walked. That’s a bit of a metaphor for our family vacations, too. Loafing around causes us to bark at each other, too, but working together toward a common goal calms us down and gives us a bit of purpose. Volunteering on vacation has been an incredibly rewarding experience.