Tag Archive | "adventure"

Roadmonkey Combines a 270-mile Bicycling Adventure with the Volunteer Opportunity of Building a Children’s Playground

Posted on 24 December 2011. Tags: , , , ,

Help build a children’s playground after completing a 270-mile Central Highlands cycling adventure in picturesque Vietnam. For more information on the Roadmonkey Vietnam Expedition 2010, click here.

Roadmonkey's Vietnam Expedition 2010
Roadmonkey’s Vietnam Expedition 2010 combines the adventure of bicycling the rolling and picturesque Central Highlands of Vietnam with humanitarian efforts in building a playground that’s sure to bring many smiles to the local children and their families. The expedition begins Sunday, October 24 and concludes Sunday, November 7.
The expedition costs is $3,200 per person and doesn’t include international air transportation and visa, and not including the relatively inexpensive domestic flight from Dalat to Rach Gia (not expected to cost more than $130).
The cost includes all but a few meals – when expedition members are on their own for a half-day or day to explore a city or town – and includes all lodging at clean basic hotels while farther in the Central Highlands where most foreigners do not travel. The first and last nights of your journey will provide a soft landing in a single room in a superior hotel. Healthy, fresh and delicious food awaits expedition members if you are willing to try eating as close to local as possible.
Beginning in the southern coastal city of Nha Trang and heading towards the Central Highlands the cycling route will then take you throuh lush, serene valleys, over a few challenging mountain passes, to a Vietnamese retreat in cooler climates. Each day of cycling along this 9-day expedition will bring varied challenges through the rugged and lesser-seen regions of Vietnam’s breadbasket. This route will allow every expedition member the opportunity to meet, talk with and hopefully share a meal or two with members of these minority communities.
After completing your cycling adventure, expedition members will fly  from Dalat through Ho Chi Minh City (the official name of Saigon) to Rach Gia in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. This is where the Roadmonkey Expedition Vietnam 2010 begins a 4-day volunteer project. For several hours a day in the Delta’s steamy subtropical climate you’ll help build the first-ever playground for children from an impoverished and severly disenfranchised ethnic Khmer community in the Mekong Delta. Using localy available materials such as wood, rope, bolts, rubber, joists, and chain members will work with the local community. In coordination with the Catalyst Foundation – Roadmonkey’s non-profit partner for this expedition – will surely bring a lasting bit of joy, human connection and social interaction to the kids and their families.

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Combine an Adventure Expedition Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with a Hands-On Volunteer Project this August

Posted on 24 December 2011. Tags: , , , ,

This August Roadmonkey combines a 7-day climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and a 4-day hands-on volunteer project building an Earth friendly kitchen and goat shed at a local school in Babati. Learn more about how you can join this trek here.

Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is only part of this adventure expedition.
The expedition will last two-weeks, August 1 to August 14, and costs $4,995. All meals, expect for the two or three lunch/dinners during group free time, are included in the expedition cost. The price doesn’t include the airfare to reach Tanzania or the cost of purchasing a travel/volunteer visa (about $100 USD). It does, however, include camp-style lodging during the seven-day Kilimanjaro climb and all transportation and lodging in Tanzania, including hotels near Babati.
Once arriving in Tanzania, expedition members can expect a single room at a superior hotel. After the soft landing and plush atmosphere it’s a more rugged life in two-person tents and then back to a hotel in the end. Although the last hotel is more basic in nature it will provide a clean stay.
Meals on the mountain are hearty to keep your strength and energy up. You’ll start your day with a breakfast typically comprised of eggs and toast with sausages. A combination of soups, vegetables and some meat dishes are provided for lunches and dinners. Tea and coffee are readily available at the campsites. It’s recommended that all expedition members bring high-energy snack foods, crackers, or nutrition bars for the longer hiking days.
The Kilimanjaro expedition begins with a 7-day climb up the Machame route. Heading up Mount Kilimanjaro from the southwest side, expedition members will head through a rain forest to moorland to above the cloud layer to lunar-like rocky surfaces above 14,000 feet. All for creating a unique Kilimanjaro experience Roadmonkey has decided to camp in the ice crater allowing expedition members to visit the summit twice. Located only two hours’ hike from the top, trekkers will have the opportunity to summit once at sunset and again in the morning, for sunrise.
In coordination with the Livingstone Tanzania Trust Roadmonkey and their Kilimanjaro 2 Expedition group will next head to Babati, a small town southwest of Mount Kilimanjaro. There volunteers will spend 4 days building an environmentally sustainable kitchen and goat shed to help conserve school resources and the dwindling forests in the region.
Rural Tanzania Villages Depend on Firewood to Cook their Food
To help the rural village of Babati the Roadmonkey expedition members will help the local people through education, new cooking tools and the idea of planting more trees. Some of the lessons will be to teach the local students the simple benefit of putting a lid on a pan to save energy and fuel, to pre-soak dry foods for faster cooking, and to use dry wood to increase fuel savings. Industrial cookers to enclose cooking fires will help maintain heat and this simple concept will save up to 80% of fuel. Instead of merely creating the oven Livingstone Tanzania Trust teaches the women who collected the firewood to make these domestic cookers so they can sell cookers and make more money than previously collecting wood. And last is a tree planting campaign.

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Mark Your Calendars – Roadmonkey’s Latest Expedition Announced for Patagonia Wine Country in January 2011

Posted on 11 August 2010. Tags: , , , ,

A first trip to Patagonia, Roadmonkey recently announced it’s January 2011 Patagonia Expedition will combine horseback riding, bicycling, and a local volunteer project. This expedition will be Roadmonkey’s second trip to Latin America and will include some of the most breathtaking landscape on the planet. Located in Argentina and Chile, the Patagonia Expedition will take 8 days. Stops along your route include tastings in Patagonia’s developing wine country followed by 4 days of building either a playground or a community fruit and vegetable garden in cooperation with a Patagonia indigenous community.

 Roadmonkey's January 2011 Patagonia Expedition takes you to South America. Along the Patagonia Expedition Route you'll experience some amazing views.

Further details of Roadmonkey’s 2011 Patagonia Expedition will include an itinerary and route map, cost and exact time frame as well as information regarding lodging, food and other pertinent information will be revealed when arrangements are finalized.

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