Greetings from Prague!

We arrived safe and sound in Prague, our first stop on the big VolunTour. There are a bunch of Aussies waiting for the internet so this must be brief. All in all, Prague is adorable with its quaint cobblestone alleys. Kris and I try to pronounce words but it usually sounds like Baklava or Anna Kornikova when we say it. The locals laugh at us in a "we´re definitely laughing at you not with you" way. Today we took a lovely stroll along the river to Vyrshtad, and then took in the lovely greenery there. Not sure what it is exactly. Kings quarters, a cemetary, a pretty church. Then we attempted to walk to the train with the goal of hitting the Yellow Market. That resulted in a 2 hour walk in the same general vicinity and no sight of the train. So we strolled back, stopping for a delicious yogurt on the way. I don´t know what the Europeans do to their yogurt but it is far superior to American yogurt.

We´ve posted some pictures to our Flickr page, but the internet is slow, so we´ll post the rest another time.

And we're off!

In about an hour I'll board the bus to NYC, and hopefully have no problem meeting Kristen at the Port Authority, where we'll take the bus to JFK. Our flight to Prague leaves from there at 9:30 tonight. I'm excited and nervous and don't really know what to expect. I guess that's travel for ya. We'll try to post updates as often as we can. Talk to you from Prague!

Voluntourists in the Chicago Sun Times!

Here's the link to the article about volunteer travel that was in this Sunday's Sun Times. Thanks, Felicia!

Voluntourists in the news!

Thanks to the lovely and talented Felicia Schneiderhan, our trip is going to be mentioned in an article about volunteer travel in the travel section of this Sunday's (6/22) Chicago Sun Times. Check it out!

Join us on Facebook!

Join the Voluntourists Facebook group here, and invite your friends to join too. Thanks!

JVC

Here's a video that gives an overview of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. We both volunteered with JVC for a year after college. Our experiences during JVC definitely influenced our career paths and interests, and our decision to take this trip.

The itinerary is set! (Sort of).

Looks like we're long overdue for an update about our trip. In just over a month, we'll be setting out from NYC, headed to Prague with a few days to make our way to Budapest where we'll meet our fellow Habitat for Humanity volunteers and get started on that adventure. We've gotten some basic info about the other 12 people in our group, and are really looking forward to meeting everyone in person. We'll be receiving details about the building project we'll be working on and will share them here as soon as we get them.

We're really in the home stretch here. We've sort of finalized the packing list. We're planning to just have one carry-on bag each for the whole trip which will really makes packing a bit interesting. We've gotten stuck with all the vaccines we'll need. Or at least the ones that we're told we need. We're gonna bathe in bug spray just to be safe. And, we've got our itinerary somewhat set.

Here it is (Volunteer projects are in italics):

July 6th- NYC to Prague

July 18th-July 31st: Habitat for Humanity, Hungary

August 12th- Istanbul to Bangkok

August 18th-August 31st: Tsunami Volunteer Center, Thailand

September 8th-September 19th: WLS, Cambodia

October 5th- Bangkok to San Francisco

October 8th- San Francisco to Belize City

Details on Volunteering in Belize still in the works.

October 30th- Belize City to San Jose, Costa Rica

November 5th-November 16th: Pura Suerte, Costa Rica

November 19th- San Jose to New Orleans

November 19th-November 24th: Katrina Relief, New Orleans

November 25th: Home for Thanksgiving!

We've got some vague plans in the works for our between volunteer gigs travel plans but all suggestions are encouraged! We'll update this itinerary as we get more details.