This is wildlife unschooling with my mom.
Okay, awesome. So, very welcome, Christopher Hill. You are the pioneer in luxury volunteer
traveling. And I am so happy that you're here with me because when my child was quite young,
I really wanted to travel and to volunteer work with him, but I couldn't find anyone. I mean,
And that has been like almost 15 years ago.
And I couldn't find anyone that would accept me with a small child.
So it's like, okay, I'm the only weirdo out there doing these kind of things.
And now that I see your wonderful projects, I mean, you have award-winning brands and so many different ideas all over the world.
You can go and travel with your kids and do volunteer work.
So I think what you are doing is so impactful.
Really awesome.
Very welcome.
Thank you so much, Alexander. It's such a privilege to be here.
Nice. Thank you. Yeah, maybe you can tell us a little bit about how you ended up doing what you're doing,
because I think it's a very special thing to do and not the average Joe job that everyone has.
Sure. Yeah, there are a few twists and turns in the stories, but here we go.
I studied business and law at university and was all set to become a lawyer and had accepted a job
with a law firm and had also got them to agree that I could travel basically like a gap year
for about nine months before starting working for them. And then in the course of that,
well actually that I agreed to work with them just at the start of my final year of university and
then in that final year I won a scholarship from one of the British investment banks and that
ended up in me while I was traveling having some interviews with the bank and ultimately getting
a job with them and thinking, well, if I don't take it, I'll probably always regret it.
And so, yeah, let's give it a shot at London as someone in their early 20s was a very exciting
place to be.
And so I thought, yeah, I'd love to spend some time here.
And in that stint, I did end up spending six years working in London.
And in that sixth year, I took a trip to South Africa.
And on that trip, in addition to going on safari and exploring the wonders of the garden route and the wine lands and Cape Town, I also helped to build a house for a family in one of the townships.
And this just added two extra dimensions to travel for me.
One, in contrast to that nine months of travel that I'd done previously and some other trips.
On this occasion, I actually got to interact with the local people and hear their stories and gain insights into their lives.
And as I say, in all that travel I'd done, that really didn't happen.
And then secondly, it just felt great to actually make a difference in the lives of the family that we were helping alongside to build.
And so I got thinking, well, I've learned some good business skills.
why didn't I put it into something I'd find a bit more meaningful and fulfilling and make it easy for others to have similar experiences?
And at that point, I left my job and I went to Canada for a year and did another year of study.
And it was in that year that this idea really took root for me.
And I wrote the first business plan and decided, yeah, this is what I want to do next in the next sort of phase of my life.
And so I spent the next couple of years really traveling the world and building relationships with different communities before launching in 2006.
So we're coming up for 20 years ago now.
and at that point I had young professionals as our key target audience sort of 25 to 35 year olds who
were cash rich time poor and who wanted to have a great holiday but at the same time make a
difference but really right from the beginning we were getting bookings from families and
at that point, families weren't on my radar at all. It just didn't occur to me that families
would want to be booking with us. And so I'd ask our clients, our family clients that were booking,
why they were booking with us. And they'd say things like, our kids come from pretty privileged
backgrounds, and we really want them to appreciate how fortunate they are. Or they'd say,
we're looking for a great family bonding experience or we want to inspire our kids
to become the next generation of world changers.
And this really resonated with me and even more so now that I do have children of my own.
And so in fairly short order, we decided to shift our messaging to focus on families.
It's not to exclude anyone else, but certainly our primary audience is the family audience.
And it's, yeah, it's been a blast, really.
It's certainly what gets me out of bed every morning is getting the feedback from our family
clients as to the transformations that they're making, but also the transformations that they're
seeing in their own families.
It's really exciting.
and just to flesh out slightly and just really quickly how the ages work we tend to say that
from about the age of five children can get involved especially with our with our wildlife
projects where they can get involved with like preparing the meals and helping
maintain enclosures and creating enrichments to stimulate animals should they be in enclosures
such as, you know, an example would be a project we have in Costa Rica
with monkeys and parrots whilst they're in the process of being rehabilitated.
And then we love to recommend when kids hit their teens, roughly,
but it all depends on the family.
It can be certainly earlier, to get involved with those building
or renovation-type projects where there is, from my perspective,
is where the magic really happens because that's where you like what happened with me in South
Africa you get that interaction and the engagement and hearing the stories and and that's where the
big impact happens um yeah so so that's the the the story in a extended nutshell for you Alexandra
nice you know what I really like about your project is or projects um that because I really
think we have a pandemic of disconnection. We put our kids in kindergarten, after that in school,
we go to work, and we barely see each other. And not only within the family, but I really think
without having all these things we would need to do normally in our everyday lives, we would be
able to connect with our people that surround us way more. So I really see a lot of families,
not only within but also with other females very disconnected and through opportunities like um you
offer it's not only that the families can reconnect and deepen their bond but they reconnect to the
rest of the world as well so i really think that's two way of reconnection that's very beautiful
that's a great insight
it is maybe not yes maybe you um can tell me a bit more about where exactly in the world is happening
what i mean it is immense looking at the websites of your project it's like you can go everywhere
doing anything basically maybe what is your favorite three places and your favorite three
things like volunteer things okay i've got three yeah okay right i think i've got them
um one i i was able to do with my my family quite recently which was in bali indonesia where it's
installing a disabled accessible bathroom for a paraplegic and I it's well it's unique for for us
because the benefit really accrues to just one person but the the impact on that one person is
so profound and that's because in Bali being a Hindu island if you are born with a disability
it can be considered as bad karma and and so you really sadly paraplegics can be like hidden away
and lead very isolated lonely lives and so to be able to uh enable the the individual to have
a measure of dignity and independence in an area so personal as you know going to the bathroom
it's uh yeah as i said it's really profound and so that's one of my favorites in terms of projects
and destinations as well and you know for instance you know our kids were involved with drawing water
from the village well and then carrying that water over to where the cement was being mixed
and then getting involved with mixing the cement and then loading it into the wheelbarrows and then
carrying it over carrying the cement over to where the experts were doing the the the tricky
parts and and most of the you know the real work um is done by the local experts um and and and that
can you know be combined with um sightseeing as as a family wants to do like for instance we did
some whitewater rafting, some mountain biking, a cooking class, some surf lessons,
some hiking, visiting waterfalls and the rice paddies. And so, and each trip is tailor-made
like that. So that's one. Another one that we've been able to do, well, yeah, within the last
couple of years is in Belize, and that is installing eco-friendly stoves in people's homes.
And the beauty of these stoves is threefold, really. One, they replace the open flames that
you find in traditional huts. And so particularly with kids running around, there's risks of them
getting burnt from the flames. So by having an enclosed stove, you reduce those burns. And
they also have a chimney to expel the smoke. And so respiratory problems are dramatically reduced.
And then they're much more fuel efficient. So from an environmental perspective, they're
a win as well. And the other beautiful thing about these stoves is that they can be completed
by a family in just a couple of days as well, again, with expert help.
But still, it's quite satisfying to be able to go right from start to finish
with a project like that.
And that combines well with diving and snorkeling in the Belize Barrier Reef.
There's kayaking to do.
There's ziplining.
there's um bean to bar chocolate making mayan ruins to explore so it's a it's a great destination for
adventurous families and then thirdly i would say i'm gonna go with um argentina where our project
there is actually creating solar heating panels out of recycled cans and bottles. It's a fairly
innovative technology that a local person has developed. And so just in a short period of time,
you can provide these, yeah, these, or create these panels for families. So you're saving on
on electricity bills, on money that can be put into, for example, education. So that's another
really satisfying project. And being such a huge country, there's so many options, but some of the
favourites of things to do are exploring Buenos Aires, which can be on foot or by bike, going down
to the glaciers or the mountain area in Patagonia or up to Aguasso Falls or into the desert area of
Salta. Yeah, so many options, but there's three for you. Really nice. Thank you so much.
Yes. So when we initially connected, you told me about a family that I think they took a gap year
or they were world schooling all along, I don't know.
And you told me about this great experience you had with them.
Maybe we can deep dive into this because I think that's quite interesting.
I meet more and more families that choose to travel full time
and I hear the best stories and I see the most happy kids I've ever seen.
Yeah yeah true I was actually really privileged to be able to spend some time with this particular family that from the United States But when they came down here to New Zealand I yeah I actually I showed them around Auckland for a day which was which was a blast as well
But yeah, so they were in the very fortunate position of being able to take a year out from work and travel the world.
And so we had the opportunity to arrange parts of it, not their whole itinerary,
but we arranged New Zealand, Australia, Cambodia, Laos,
and Japan for them.
And so, yeah, they did a bunch of different projects with us as well
from building predator-proof boxes for penguins in New Zealand.
Oh, cute.
yeah, yeah. The penguins being native to New Zealand are very vulnerable to introduced pests
such as rats and stoats and weasels and then also things that you don't think of as pests
but such as feral cats or dogs as well. And so these boxes are protecting the penguins
from from those attacks um so they're gonna fall with that while they're in new zealand
and then they they build a house when they're in cambodia for a family and in laos they
participated in a a reading project um yeah like a literacy project for for local laotians and
And I think that, yeah, in Australia, they got involved with doing some wildlife surveys
with university researchers.
So helping them with their statistics and counting of wallabies and wallaroos as well.
Yeah.
What field is that?
That's nice. It's quite diverse, I would say. And I really experienced that traveling has immense power to educate kids. Because I think experiencing something firsthand is a huge difference than learning about it in school.
it's quite a difference if you tell someone about hieroglyphs and the pharaoh and the beauty of
old egypt but going there is no it's just a different story and i think it's connecting
emotions experiences it's much deeper learning experience than anything else and i think
especially through this volunteering projects you have it adds an extra layer to compassion
and all these beautiful things that are getting more and more lost
in our society nowadays.
So you're bringing it back.
Maybe we can talk a little bit about the big, yeah,
educational advantages these kids have when they, yeah,
go on these trips with their parents and what is there to learn
and experience for them.
Yeah.
Well, as you've identified, there is the world classroom of Egypt or Rome or Jordan or wherever the case may be.
But then on our projects, you can, as you say, add an extra layer through developing perhaps the soft skills, shall we say, of empathy and compassion and gratitude and generosity and contentment.
You know, one thing, one story that springs to mind in that context really was a family that went to Morocco with us and they were involved with building a library at a rural school about an hour away from Marrakesh.
and they
the children were quite young
they weren't so much involved in the building
they were more involved just playing
with the local kids and getting
that interaction
but what I heard
when they got back home
was when Christmas time came around
they said actually we want our Christmas gifts to go to
the children in Morocco that we were
playing with
and so yeah that really
blew me away when I heard that because yeah clearly you know great lessons of
one contentment and generosity and compassion were learned from our trip so yeah that's
you know an example that I love to share. That's really nice and I can share maybe something from
my travel experiences with my child because I think the strongest bonding moment sorry he had
with like really poor people that have nothing like really nothing and we were in the jungle
in Thailand when he was quite young and I figured out that I mean there was language barrier and
everything cultural barriers but it was the easiest for him to connect with these people
to play with the kids to really bond with the adults they took him on trips on their motorbikes
through the jungle without any problem and my kid he he was born in Berlin I mean he has like the
stranger danger thing in his genes but over there it was just something else and I think that brought
for me some kind of hope that okay humanity can connect no matter where we are from and sometimes
having like really just nature around you and very harsh environment maybe makes it even easier to
really deeply connect with each other. I found that quite nice. But I wanted to ask you something
completely different, to be honest about it, because you organize school trips as well.
And when I was a kid, I was very, yeah, I had, I was lucky. I was in a private school,
and we had trips every year to really nice destinations, if it was sailing, skiing,
in monasteries with monks and everything.
So I'm very, very lucky.
Now, when I took a look at all the schools in Berlin
that my son could apply to, I was like shocked.
Like, oh my God, they have to stay at home
like the whole year?
The only way they can travel is with their parents.
That doesn't make sense.
So I figured out, okay, I was just very lucky
and all the other kids around us,
it is just normal that they stay home
and do only the minimal basic stuff
with the kids in school.
So I really think that's a beautiful idea to involve the schools as well.
Maybe you can share a little bit of your experience with that, because what kind of schools are doing these awesome trips?
I mean, it's not a normal school, obviously.
Well, some schools really surprise me that do do it.
But you're right.
it tends what i've found uh most of all put it most of our school and clients are international
schools and also ones that offer the international baccalaureate curriculum and and that's
particularly because the international baccalaureate schools have the requirements for the extracurricular
components being uh what they call cass or creativity activity and and service as these
three fundamentals that each student needs to do in addition to their curriculum and and so
What we can do is help students achieve their CAS requirements on a trip.
So, for instance, let's take a trip to India.
The creativity component can be done with things like Bollywood dance lessons or cooking classes or handcraft stitching lessons.
you know from from local artisans and then the activity parts could be um
you're doing a hike in the in the in the mountains or you know bike riding through
through villages or you know or some whitewater rafting uh so there's those options and then the
service part is where we really come into our own. And so for instance, in India we've got projects
like, again, helping at a, there's a wonderful school that we work with in the slums of Delhi,
it's a number of schools now, but all set up by one Indian woman who was from quite a
well-off background. Her father was an ambassador. And when he passed away, she decided to put her
inheritance into actually founding these schools in the slums of Delhi, because whilst technically
the children had to go to school, the quality of the education was terrible. So she wanted to
something up, which would enable that. And so we've been able to work with them for, gosh,
since we started, so nearly 20 years now, with people going and being either reading partners,
or they might have more specialist skills that they can share with high school students,
or special needs students that they have,
or because they're in the slums,
helping with repair and renovation work as well,
which is an ongoing thing there.
So there's an opportunity to get involved with that.
They also have elephant conservation projects in India,
which are really incredibly educational as well
in terms of learning not only about elephant behaviour,
but also to learn about why elephant riding is not a good thing
and it should actually be banned,
and actually showing students the torture devices
that are implemented on the elephants in order to make them rideable.
So there's that aspect to the education as well.
And then there's also a bear conservation project
for sloth bears in India that we've had students go to as well.
So that's just an example of what a international baccalaureate CAS trip could look like.
That obviously doesn't have to be that curriculum school, but that's like I say, the majority of our clients for our school trips are from international baccalaureate and or international schools.
That's really nice.
How do you choose your partners?
because I've been reading about that you've been traveling for, I think,
two years to find good partners for your projects.
And I think the hunt is ongoing because there is a never-ending, yeah,
I don't know, it's never-ending too.
Yeah, it's crazy out there.
How do you choose these partners?
How do you find these people who need help?
Great question.
There's not really any, there's no one way.
I think it's over the years, it's been a case of just keeping an ear out for an ear out.
Sorry.
And it's good network.
And so that combination has meant that putting feelers out, you just hear about things and
then think, oh, yeah, that sounds really quite innovative, and let's go and check it out firsthand.
For example, the project I mentioned in Bali, that all came about because Vodafone, the mobile phone
company, I don't know if they still do this, but certainly they used to have the Vodafone
Foundation, which was where employees could basically get a scholarship to go and volunteer
for like a year somewhere abroad.
And one of these recipients did it in Bali.
And she was working with the charity
that is involved with building
these disabled accessible bathrooms.
Although she was more helping
on the accounts and administration side.
and primarily they actually do prosthetics is the main work that they do across across Bali but
anyway so she came back to New Zealand and I didn't know her but someone knew her and said oh
you know you should talk with her and so I did and and she told me about the work that she she did
there and the charity she was assisting and so I made a trip up to Bali and met with them and and
And my approach has always been and this as I say in every instance it never to come with preconceived ideas of what I think should be done It always really to start with firstly finding out if there is an openness to having people from overseas come
And then secondly, if the answer to the first question is yes,
then to find out what from their perspective help could look like.
And so, you know, in that particular case, they spoke about, yeah,
we could do with the help is the funding that's required to get these bathrooms built.
I mean, they cost about two and a thousand US dollars each one.
And that's well, well, well beyond the means of any family that needs the bathroom.
And so this is where really our model comes in, which I describe as a philanthropic volunteering model, in that it's the funds that our clients bring, which enables us to pay for the materials and hire those local experts to do most of the work, particularly in the case of these bathrooms.
And then our clients come and spend the last few days doing the finishing touches to the project.
And that's where, so the benefit they bring is the funding to make it happen.
And then the benefit the client gets is the interaction that I've been speaking about.
And so, yeah, there's no real one way, but once I do hear about it, then the model is consistent in terms of going there, experiencing it firsthand and always from an asking questions perspective, never imposing anything about what I might think should be done.
That's cool.
Hey, dear unschooling friend, I'm very proud to present you my first partner, the Bitcoin
Way.
This is my go-to team for sovereign lifestyle solutions, and you already know the team from
several episodes we did together for this podcast.
They will guide you through mastering Bitcoin self-custody, securing your data with top-notch
cybersecurity, and exploring Plan B residency for ultimate independence.
this is what unschooling lifestyle is all about so if you want to learn more about these freedom
barriers check out the link in the podcast description see you
what was maybe the craziest project you ever worked with let's see if this fits that fits
the bill or not. It was involved with, it was actually in the US where, it was a wolf conservation
project in the US where wolves have been since I think the late 60s, I might have that wrong,
but I think since about then, a real success story in Wyoming
and in Yellowstone National Park.
And they've since spread out quite a lot, but apart from in Colorado.
And the idea was really to get basically sufficient funding
to lobby the government, the local Colorado government,
to approve a wolf corridor,
which would essentially enable them to roam across Colorado
and have that basically the whole southwest,
well, no, basically western part of North America
wolf territory again.
So that was
kind of a one-off thing, but
also pretty
certainly unique. I don't know if it's
crazy, but unique and a great
success story as well.
Yeah, if it's a success
story, I think that's crazy. I think it's
beautiful crazy. Maybe like that.
What is your personal favorite
maybe story
that you want to share
Over all these years, you experienced this volunteer traveling and from the business perspective, from the family perspective.
What is your favorite story to share?
Okay.
There's one story where it was not a family.
It was an early retired lady.
She was English.
and she hadn't travelled much at all, certainly not, never to Africa before.
But for whatever reason, she decided to travel to Kenya with us.
And so she required even more hand-holding than usual.
Just a bit of a nervous traveller.
And so sort of leading up to the trip and during the trip, there was a lot, you know, a lot of contact with her.
And she was helping at a children's center in Kenya and then, you know, went on safari and had a bit of beach time as well.
And, and the reason I tell the story is because, you know, as I said, she was very nervous.
and then after the trip she was basically on the next flight back down there because she was so
transformed by her time at the children's home and had gained so much confidence she was she'd
rented her own apartment and and bought a car there and she was driving all around Nairobi
all her own this was really um we just sort of helped facilitate the the relationship with the
with the charity um after that but you know the rest of it she just arranged on her own so it was
it was a great story of you know someone transformed and then um
uh a lot more confident and and then deciding to actually um you know spend in the next few months
serving in that way as well nice that is really beautiful i like to hear that because i really
think and experience it for myself that traveling can be very transformative if you are open-minded
and if you have a nice travel experience if it's i mean okay whatever nice so what is the go-to
thing for most families when it comes to volunteering what is most popular i mean i can
imagine feeding wallabies of course this is beautiful but what is the most popular thing
amongst families?
It probably, to an extent, comes back to what I was saying earlier
about the age of the children.
And so if the children are preteens, then it is our wildlife projects,
which are definitely what we would recommend unless they wanted
to have, you know, maybe they have older children as well,
or maybe not, and just happy for the kids to focus on that interaction and just play.
So, and on that, yes, certainly one of our most popular destinations, probably it is our most
popular destination is Costa Rica. And there we do have this wildlife conservation project
where there are injured or rescued monkeys, parrots, sloths,
or whatever other animals are in there at the time.
And children, as I mentioned, can get involved with preparing the meals
and maintaining the enclosures and creating the enrichments
and just learning an enormous amount about the animals.
There's not any contact with the animals,
but there's great opportunity to learn a lot about them.
And then, as I say, if they get older, then it's the building projects that are popular.
And I've touched on quite a few of those.
What would be, what might be a slightly different one?
Oh, well, okay.
I don't know.
In Kenya, one of our main projects is renovating classrooms there in the Maasai, just on the edge of the Maasai Mara, so it combines really well with safari.
And then in Tanzania, just south, there's the opportunity to build homes for teachers that are near to the schools so that they don't have to spend so much time traveling in order to get to school.
And thus their attendance of being a teacher is higher as well.
So those are a couple of popular examples for those building projects
that we love to get our teenage kids involved in.
That's cool.
You know what I would have chosen?
I mean, I took a look and I was like, okay, if I could book a trip,
what would it be?
Costa Rica.
So I'm a typical family booker, obviously.
But because I thought, like,
wildlife is just something beautiful for our kids.
and especially my son now is pre-teen teen in this age and i had the same thought process of okay we
met so many people blah blah blah what else could we do what might inspire him to i don't know change
the way he sees the world and it would have been wildlife in costa rica he chose because i showed
him i was like dude take a look all these beautiful places what would you choose and i chose wildlife
he chose costa rica so yeah right so we have a two big discerning tastes yes seriously nice yeah
um i mean we talked a lot about what the kids can learn but what do you think can the parents
learn because i learned tons from my child while traveling because he is way more open-minded
he is way more i forgot the english word valiente he has courage he's very courageous
and I'm not I'm like a typical okay don't get me involved in anything crazy let's not do it and
because of him I started to be okay with snakes because he wanted to visit the special snake
center in Thailand like 10 days in a row and at the 10th day I was like okay give me that snake I
want to touch it now and now I'm a pro in this kind of things and I really learned way more
through my child how he's interacting with his surrounding while traveling than learning from
myself so maybe you have something to share about what the parents gain and what they learn
well yeah that's a great perspective i think you
can just get that shift in perspective by observing children and taking on
their point of view. And that can be, yeah, it can be just on a regular trope, or it could be
observing them being open to playing. You spoke about stranger danger in your son,
is that understandable reticence that we have these days
with people we don't know.
But our children, even if we try to instill that in them,
there can just be an inherent openness,
which we can learn from and I've learned from for sure.
And then another thing, certainly I can say as an adult,
one key thing that I learned
and I'm still learning really
is around contentment
in these contexts
and you touched on it as well
the people that we interact with
materially have very little
but are so much happier
than myself
and people around me
that it was a real key lesson for me that having the latest whatever,
X, Y, Z, is not going to make me happy.
It's more, you know, inner happiness and actually being content
with what we have is a great step towards happiness.
And that's a key lesson that I learned from actually getting
to engage and interact with people, as I say,
who materially don't have that much,
but spiritually and emotionally are very rich.
Yeah, I do have some questions around building
such a unique brand.
I mean, this is not something that happens overnight, obviously.
And I can imagine that you faced quite some challenges
when building this.
Maybe we can talk a little bit about that
Because I imagine, I mean, everyone who's building their own projects,
it's like raising a kid.
We had some challenges, things like when we first launched,
we had the mindset.
I mentioned that it was young professionals was our audience but also we were doing small group trips which meant we had fixed dates
So the first brochure that we produced had a list of different travel dates in it.
And we got to the point where, the really actually frustrating point,
where we'd get some bookings, but not enough to hit the minimum numbers for that group,
and then had to cancel or try and scramble and try and rearrange people onto other trips.
And that, as I say, was really frustrating to potentially just not be able to run the trips for people.
And so our solution to overcoming that really was to shift to a fully tailor-made approach
where every trip is crafted for the individual unit.
And that could be an individual or it could be a family or a couple or a group, a school or whatever the case may be.
But yes, certainly that springs to mind as an early challenge.
We launched in 2006 and wasn't too much before hitting the global financial crisis as well.
So, you know, we spent the first couple of years trying to get the brand recognition out there.
and then you have a global recession.
So that was challenging times as well.
And then obviously more since then, COVID was a big one.
That's crazy.
Yeah, that was a break for everyone, I would say.
Were you able to observe any kind of changes?
Like the world has so many issues,
but I think you see a lot of projects
and therefore you see like the broad range of problems the world has to offer you know what i
mean what is fixable out there did it change over the years got it more extreme or do you think
in which direction are we heading oh gosh i wouldn't like to say which which direction we're
heading but um i could say things like certainly environmental issues uh are increasing and
And so things like what I mentioned in Argentina with the creating the solar heating out of recycled bottles and cans.
We have something a bit similar in Morocco these days as well is new and innovative.
And I think also one new area, which is also environmental, is around coral reef restoration work.
We were just in French Polynesia in Tahiti, or specifically Moria, just a couple of months ago.
And we were evaluating it in terms of a potential new volunteer project
because I read that what they were offering at one point was actually visitors could come
and help to build these small parts of coral reefs,
which then grow and go to, initially they go to like a,
actually effectively like a nursery where they grow
before they're then transplanted into more substantial existing coral reefs.
However, that project, they now actually employ local people to do it.
So they don't require volunteers anymore.
So it actually didn't get off the ground as a project,
but certainly that area of coral restoration is an area that is seeing a lot of interest and attention and innovation as well,
which is really exciting to see.
That's cool.
I have maybe a question.
If you don't want to answer that, that's perfectly fine for me.
Because I've been traveling, as I said, with my child,
And I've seen a lot of, let's say, like kids and also animals.
I somehow suffer more when I see animals suffering than when I see humans suffering.
I don't know why.
That's pretty shitty of me, but it is what it is.
No, it's natural.
I don't know.
So I've seen a lot of kids being born in unfair setups, I would say.
And it made me question God.
I was raised very religious.
and through traveling I really lost faith in God now I have it back because I think I traveled more
and more and I didn't give up questioning and questioning and then refinding my faith maybe
but the first maybe five or six years of traveling I was like I think God is an asshole because why
the fuck are some kids so rich in everything and some are born in the most awful environments
possible and I go there I see it I can help a little bit that yeah cheers me up cheers them up
and then I leave and then the situation is back to what it has been I live my life and I can go on
with being unhappy because I didn't like the tv commercial and these kids are suffering every day
so I somehow had immense trouble with this question like why is that going on out there and
I mean, I'm fortunate, but there are so many more kids that aren't.
How do you deal with these kind of things?
Yeah, that's a big question.
I think that the issue of suffering is,
it is a
argument against God. The interesting thing is that it's also
an argument that's posed in the Bible itself against God, you know, in terms of, you know, Ecclesiastes and
even Job, really, as well, questioning God
when there's in the presence of suffering. So
I don't have all the answers, but
But what I might say, well, what I will say may come across as,
it's not a full answer, but at best a partial answer.
And it's retelling a story that I like of the starfish.
You've probably heard it, the story of where one morning after a storm,
there's thousands of starfish that are washed up onto the sea
and a little boy decides to one by one put them back into the sea
and someone says, what are you doing?
You know, there's so much, so many here, you can't save them all.
And he says, well, you know, I'm saving that one and I'm saving that one.
And as I said, it's definitely not a complete answer to your question of suffering, but I think to an extent we can just look to ourselves and say, what can we do?
And so personally, I think that's what God has put on our hearts to, in whatever capacity we're in, be the change.
And so in a privileged position that is more than someone who is in desperate suffering.
Even, well, this is me going off on a bit of a tangent potentially, but Jesus spoke about people given different talents and giftings and the person who's given more talents, more is required of them.
That does put a heavier on us on the likes of us to use those gifts and abilities to benefit others.
yeah nice I came to the same conclusion if I have the power to do that this is maybe what I should
be doing really cool yes thank you so much for answering that because I don't think it's a
normal question to ask maybe so I really want to know what did what are you planning for the future
because you are expanding your buffet of things to explore constantly.
And I've seen, I think you have three different brands, maybe.
Is it right?
Three different brands.
So what is planned for the future?
I mean, new destinations, new volunteering experiences.
What do you have in mind?
Or something completely different?
Yeah.
um there's well um i'll probably you know share about that the third brand which is impact
destinations which is a much newer brand for us and and the idea with that one is that it's a
it's really a pure philanthropic model as opposed to a philanthropic volunteering model like hands
holidays is and what i mean by that is whereas hands of holidays involves actually you know
physically helping it might be you know wielding a hammer or it might be um with a paintbrush or
you know mixing the cement or whatever the case may be the idea with impact destinations is that
it's a traveler's philanthropic donation which really enables the experts to do what they do best
in the destination and at the same time will unlock a unique experience for the traveler.
So for example, and this kind of comes back to my point around environmental concerns or
yeah, yeah environmental concerns, in that 80% of our experiences are focused on
on conservation, on wildlife conservation. So for example,
in Indonesia, guests can fund the rescue of an orangutan family that's facing habitat loss due
to palm oil production. And so their trees are being chopped down in order to make way for palm
oil trees. And so to fund the rescue and the release of the family into a protected reserve.
And then in return for that, the traveler actually gets to go into an exclusive tract of rainforest and track the orangutans in the wild.
And so that's something I'm really excited about because it's around, for me, it really speaks about leaving a legacy and being able to say, you know, I saved the life of an orangutan when I was in Indonesia.
but also having an incredible experience at the same time.
So as I mentioned, about 80% of the projects are conservation-related,
but other ones are things like in Australia,
we offer the opportunity to fund a scholarship
for a promising Aboriginal arts student.
And in exchange for that, guests get to spend time
with an established Aboriginal artist
from whom they can commission their own unique work of art
and take that home with them.
So these are sort of, as far as I know, it's a unique concept
and something I'm really excited about
and always on the lookout for new ways that we can, as I say,
enable the funding to have an impact,
enable the locals to do what they need to do,
but also create something unique for the traveler.
Really nice.
Pretty cool.
So for everyone who's now feeling like, yeah,
I would want to go on these trips,
I will put all the links to your work in the podcast description, of course.
And maybe you want to share where is the go-to source
to stay up to date with the things you do.
yeah thanks so much Alexandra uh probably still out our websites which then can take you to the
socials if you're interested so there's handsupholidays.com and impactdestinations.com
and handsupschooltrips.com yeah pretty nice nice really thank you so much for sharing all
this information with me I know that some questions might have been like a bit off but
I really enjoyed all your impact and everything that you shared.
I love what you're doing.
I really think that is what more and more people should be doing.
Really awesome.
Thank you so, so much for being my guest.
Absolutely a pleasure, Alexandra.
And thank you so much for the opportunity to share.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you want to support my work, please head over to Fountain or Linktree.
I do accept Bitcoin and it means the world to me if you guys support my work.
And leave a comment, reach out to me on Noster.
I'm really happy to hear from you.
Thank you so much.
And if you want to have more of wildlife unschooling, head over to Fountain.
There's a wildlife unschooling premium.
It starts with $5 a month and you can pay more if you want.
And you can pay in Bitcoin.
there you will find all bonus episodes and you will have early access to all my scheduled episodes
have fun and see you soon