Volunteer at a World Heritage site

UNESCO's World Heritage list is made up of the most historically, culturally and environmentally significant sites around the world. Basically, if you're traveling to a country that you know nothing about, visiting the World Heritage sites is a guarantee of an interesting time. Given the importance of these sites, help with research and conservation efforts is always needed. Most placements are at least two weeks long and will require you to pay some of the costs. But these experiences will still be cheaper than conventional vacations, AND you can put them on your resume, depending on their relevance to your career, AND you'll be getting special access to the world's most fascinating places. The available volunteer opportunities are listed at http://whc.unesco.org/en/71/. To mention just a few of these unbelievably cool-sounding opportunities:


- restoring ruins in Zimbabwe
- excavating dinosaur fossils in Argentina
- diving in the Great Barrier Reef to find materials that help in AIDS research


Effort involved: maybe a little more than a two-week sunbathing vacation, but you did see the 'unbelievably cool-sounding' part above, right?