Hands Up Holidays has conconcocted the perfect travel recipe. The secret ingredient is the combination of a fantastic luxury holiday with a ‘taste’ of volunteering. Combining the two gives you the chance to not only see fantastic sights, but to feel, touch and experience a destination. Don’t just scratch the surface, help that poor African girl get a start in life, teach the Colombian cocoa leaf grower English so he isn’t reliant on an illegal trade for a living, protect the Leatherback turtle hatchlings in Australia from extinction. In so doing you will find yourself immersed in local life, championing a cause and learning new things.

If being physical is your thing, repair and renovate houses.

Have a hankering to be a teacher ? Help in a school.

You can even put that MBA to good use and help create programs for villages and commerce.

Pick a country or world region, a type of volunteering you’re interested in, whether you’re traveling as a family, solo, as a career break, even on your honeymoon.

How about a 14-day India tour that sandwiches in renovating a slum or improving the lives of India’s poorest children between visits to Old Dehli, the Taj Mahal, the pink city of Jaipur, and a tiger reserve.

Or a trip to Morocco to help build a library, a IT department and a reading room at a remote community school, then shop the souks, see the snake charmers, taste exotic cusine.

Why not New Zealand? Relax in the finest luxury lodges and taste the wines of the Marlborough Sounds, watch whales in Kaikoura, immerse yourself in the intriguing Maori culture,

So get packing and send a postcard- we know you will be smiling.