A Girl’s Guide to Travel, Studying, Working, and Volunteering Abroad

For the past year or so, I’ve been a fan and silent lurker on Nerdy Nomad’s website.  Usually, I’m not a big reader of ebooks but I decided that since Kirsty seems to really know her way around the world and has been pretty successful at making money while living abroad, that I’d like to know her thoughts on the best ways to do international volunteering.

At first glance, the ebook’s graphics were very well done and professional looking and that’s when I knew that this was going to be a quality book. With 63 pages filled to the brim with text, just the right amount of photos for your viewing pleasure, and an expertly formatted design I decided I had made a good investment.

What adds to the integrity of the book is that Kirsty has spent a lot of time personally volunteering. She’s not merely someone who paid $1,000 to spend a week volunteering somewhere and has come home to write about her adventure. She’s a repeat volunteer offender who seems as much addicted to volunteering as she is to travel and she has graciously committed to giving 50% of her earnings from each book to the organization near and dear to her heart, Hands On Disaster Response.  That’s $7 for every book sold going directly to the organization with a goal of ultimately donating $10,000. It’s a sizeable goal, but the book is gold and definitely worth the time and amount spent.

The book has a lengthy who/what/why introduction to volunteering detailing the benefits of volunteering for not only the volunteer but also the community in which they serve.  Just as you get that warm fuzzy feeling volunteering in your home country, so you shall with volunteering in a community outside of your own but you’ll be doing it alongside other like-minded but diverse groups of people.  Intertwined with the the benefits and myths of volunteering options are interviews of dedicated volunteers who are giving their accounts of the good, the bad and the ugly of the work involved.

Kirsty clearly dedicated a lot of energy and thought into the book evidenced by the detailed lists comparing different fee based volunteering programs and their focus as well as listing out build your own programs and supporting informative websites.

Overall, if you’re at all interested in volunteering abroad, this ebook is an excellent resource. It condenses hours worth of research into one nifty little package of useful information.  You can download the book from the Nerdy Nomad website.

Review by DIWYY co-founder, Jerri.