Volunteers tips

This is part of a collection of stories celebrating the many shapes retirement travel can take. Read more here.

It’s a noise the former railway tunnel probably hadn’t heard in a while. Somewhere in the dark is a hooting part-owl, part-forlorn steam train. My sister Ele has stopped on her bike to blow determinedly across her cupped hands like a flute. As she recreates this long-gone sound, I pedal on through the cool, damp air. Water drips steadily from the stalactite-coated brickwork as my front light illuminates pedestrians and their dogs looming from the echoing shadows.

A British railway station can be many things. A place of tended flowers and toytown paintwork. A concourse of shuttered ticket booths and overpriced pasties. A terminus, a meeting spot, a gateway to escape. It can be heart-lifting or drab, bathed in birdsong or heaving with commuters. It can also be the starting point for a properly good walk.

By lending your unique skills and passionate spirit to a cause resonating with your values, you can catalyze the change you wish to see in the world.

Living in the tumult of the city, who among us hasn’t wondered if we’re really marching to the beat of our own drum?

Earth Day, celebrated each year on April 22, has evolved into the largest civic event on the planet since its origins in 1970, activating billions across 192 countries to safeguard the planet and fight for a brighter future. Its impact thus far has resulted in hundreds of millions of trees being planted, $7 billion in school grants, 2.7 billion Acts of Green and 36 million cleanup volunteers. This year’s theme, “Planet vs. Plastics,” calls to advocate for widespread awareness on the overall concerns associated with plastics.

When I was a teenager, I watched a TV documentary about a frozen human body that had been discovered at the summit of Mount Ampato in Peru. Dubbed “Juanita” or the Incan ice mummy, this girl had been a human sacrifice, killed in about 1450 at the age of 14 or so – the same age I was. Her body had mummified, preserved in the permafrost, which meant her clothes, her hair, even her stomach, containing her last meal, were all still intact.

A four-hour drive from Denver, the rural town of Granada, Colorado, is home to just 450 people—and, at the end of a bumpy dirt road, the now-empty barracks and haunting buildings of “Camp Amache.” Also known as the Granada Relocation Center, Amache was once an internment camp for nearly 10,000 Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes between 1942 and 1945. Now, after decades of preservation efforts by local volunteers, this site has officially become America's newest national park.

Last June, a segment on FOX 5 Vegas calling for Super Bowl LVIII volunteers caught my attention.

In Santa Barbara, California, the celebrities who live here—Harry and Meghan, Oprah, Gwyneth—aren’t the ones followed and fawned over. Whales, monarch butterflies, and a diversity of other wildlife draw fans who go on whale-watching cruises and e-bike tours, participate in beach cleanups, and volunteer for annual butterfly counts.

European airline Finnair will become the latest carrier to ask passengers to weigh in before boarding this month in an effort to collect data on aircraft balance calculations.

Another airline has started asking its passengers to volunteer to step on the scales before boarding.

ALG Vacations is launching a new fam strategy, streamlining more than a dozen escorted familiarization trips into two large trips.

Scoring free entry into America's national parks like Yellowstone and Grand Canyon might just be one of the best deals in travel—after all, America’s great outdoors are home to some of the country’s most stunning scenery and significant historical and cultural sites. Entrance fees, ranging from $10 per person to $35 per vehicle, are typically charged at 109 of the nation's 400 national parks to help fund the government's maintenance of the spaces for millions of annual visitors. But in an effort to ensure accessibility for everyone, there are a number of programs that allow visitors free entry to national parks, and state-run sites too.

If you’re seeking a special place for a vacation, honeymoon or business conference, you may just want to consider Maui in 2024. Always a spectacular destination, there is a reason for the saying “Maui No Ka Oi,” which means “Maui is the best.”

Walking tour showcases 180-degree views of Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay and Crissy Field’s Bird-Friendly Wetlands.

Nemacolin is a resort in Pennsylvania’s Laurel Highlands, outside of Pittsburgh, that takes me back to the spectacular castle estates in Ireland and Scotland that I’ve been lucky to experience over the last decade.

Hawaii Governor Josh Green said he is ready to “drop the hammer” or go “nuclear” on short-term housing rentals on Maui.

In our 5 Shops series, we'll point you in the direction of our favorite independent shops across some of the world's best cities. From food markets to bookshops, vintage and homegrown design, we've found a diverse and exciting mix of local retailers where you can pick up one-of-a-kind pieces.

Hawaii wants you to visit.

As I totter across a little footbridge in the gloaming, the water below takes on a treacly sheen, slithering out to sea in the fading light. Ahead, over marshy tussocks, the outline of a ruined barracks looms out of the mist and some lights flicker on in the little red-roofed cottage beyond it. A bank of rain is chasing me over the bog. It catches me just as I reach the village’s (closed) inn so I turn and sprint back to my holiday cottage, Taigh Whin, as the deluge draws a soggy curtain over the landscape. I’ve come to Glenelg, in Scotland’s north-west Highlands, to connect with nature and it’s seeping straight in.