ABC News Money Matters: Socially Conscious Travel
Interview with Andrea Ross, CEO, Journeys Within Tour Company

November 2008

See Andrea and Narla discuss Journeys Within, JWOC, and the potential of philanthropic travel live on ABC News Money Matters.

Condé Nast Traveler: 2008 World Savers Awards

September 2008

The 38 companies celebrated on these pages are turning the travel industry's enormous potential to improve the planet into reality. Travel worldwide will generate $8 trillion in revenue this year, and these, our annual World Savers Awards, are one indication of how the industry is measuring up to that opportunity. The trend is striking: We received applications from 142 companies this year—a record during the 14 years of the awards, and a twofold increase over 2007.

The 17 judges—academics, activists, CEOs, and philanthropists (see page Jeffrey Sachs)—looked at five areas: poverty alleviation; cultural and environmental preservation; education; wildlife conservation; and health. But the process of arbitrating the awards belies the human drama of the achievements themselves. From building schools and furnishing much-needed medical supplies to restocking wildlife reserves and dispensing micro-loans, these World Savers are models for their peers—each story an inspiration for others to follow. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, here's hoping that this year's winners are flattered by every other airline, cruise line, hotel, and tour operator on earth.

Winner in Health: Journeys Within Our Community

When Andrea and Brandon Ross moved to Cambodia in 2003 to start a tour company and a bed-and-breakfast, they discovered that nearly two-thirds of the population lacked access to clean water, contributing to serious health problems. Little by little, the Rosses are changing that. They launched Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC), a nonprofit that offers scholarships for university students, holds free English classes, provides micro-loans for small businesses, and builds village water wells. Puzzled by the recent fad of Americans doing construction work on volunteer vacations, JWOC instead hires locals, helping to solve unemployment problems, as well. "You don't use someone with a Harvard degree to build a well," says Brandon. So far, JWOC has added more than 180 wells to the landscape around Siem Reap, helping nearly 4,000 Cambodians to escape water-related disease. Travel tip: For $300, you can pay for the construction of a well that will supply about 20 people with water and then visit the families and communities it benefits.

Honorable Mention in Poverty Alleviation: Journeys Within Our Community

Journeys Within Our Community runs a Village Microfinance Fund with profits from its tour business and guest contributions. Once a recipient has paid back the original loan (beginning at $100) and interest, he or she can take out another, larger loan.

Honorable Mention in Preservation (Environment/Culture): Journeys Within Our Community

This Southeast Asia company builds cultural experiences into all of its trips—visiting a Khmer dance class in Cambodia, a rice paper producer in Laos, or a weaving village in Vietnam.

Read more at concierge.com

Condé Nast Traveler: 128 World's Top Travel Specialists

August 2008

Over the past nine years, as online travel-planning tools have gotten better, our standards for the travel specialists on this list have gotten higher. To earn a spot, after all, you must be able to do for travelers what they cannot do for themselves. The travel planners on the following pages all have on-the-ground experience that is both extensive and recent — making their advice more timely than what you'll find on a lot of web sites — and also have insider connections and special access that no site can duplicate....

Cambodia: Andrea Ross
Journeys Within Tour Company, Truckee, California

Ross lives in Cambodia six months of the year — when not in California, she runs the Journeys Within B&B in Siem Reap with her husband — and can pepper Southeast Asian itineraries with philanthropic elements, enabling travelers to give back to the local community. Her favorite secret destination? Battambang, Cambodia's little-visited second-largest city, which fell under Thai rule for more than a century but today has few crowds visiting its beautiful temples. Her affordable rates make her a great option for travelers on a budget. Read more at concierge.com

Daily Traveler: Help Cyclone Victims in Myanmar

July 2008

Remember the devastating cyclone that hit Myanmar (also known as Burma) back in May? Just vaguely, right? While the news media quickly moved on to cover the riots in Tibet and the Democratic primaries, those in Myanmar are still trying to pick up the pieces, with little help from their ruling junta. More than 138,000 people are listed as dead or missing. The tourist season is approaching, and a drop in visitors could devastate the country's already battered economy.

That's where you can help: Consider planning a trip to Myanmar through Journeys Within. This tour operator has just announced that, from December 2008 to December 2009, it will funnel much of its profits from Myanmar itineraries to that country's relief efforts. Specifically, Journeys Within will donate ALL of the profits from the first ten trips that it plans to Myanmar, and half of the profits from the rest of the trips during the year. Journeys Within owner Andrea Ross told me, "Most of the country has not suffered any damage but is now struggling because the tourism industry has essentially collapsed. Guides, drivers, and hotel staff are all facing uncertain futures." I can personally vouch for the high quality of Journeys Within's tours: I traveled to Cambodia with them last December, and wrote an article about my voluntourism experience that appeared in Conde Nast Traveler's May issue.

The company's nonprofit arm, Journeys Within Our Community, has already been instrumental in Cyclone Nargis relief efforts. Director Jesse Wolfe was among the first aid workers let into Myanmar after the disaster, and you can read his assessment of the situation on JWOC's Web page.

You can also read a paean to Myanmar that was published in Conde Nast Traveler before the cyclone hit, and check out the suggested itineraries from Journeys Within. Read more at concierge.com

Condé Nast Traveler: Guilt Free Tripping

May 2008

You don't have to wear a shirt to do good. Brook Wilkinson goes luxe in Southeast Asia and figures out how to give back, too.

“You took the helicopter ride around the temples of Angkor Wat? How much does that cost?” the monk asked, his eyes showing an incomprehension that his shaved eyebrows could not. Appearing daily in his saffron robes, he was a standout student in the advanced English class that I was helping to teach. “Two hundred and fifty dollars,” I replied, staring ashamedly at the wooden desk in front of me. Over the course of my thirty-minute joyride, I realized I'd doled out more than many Cambodians earn in a year.

I had come to Cambodia on a luxury volunteer vacation arranged through Journeys Within, a tour operator run by an American couple based in Siem Reap. I'd be spending about half of my time – as most visitors to Cambodia do – exploring Phnom Penh and the cultural relics of Angkor Wat, staying at high-end hotels and touring with private guides. On the other days, I'd be volunteering with the tour operator's nonprofit Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC). At best, I hoped to alleviate some of the guilt that comes with being a moneyed traveler in the developing world.

Almost every tourist I met in Cambodia expressed a desire to help the country's people, who suffered so much in the 1970s and 1980s: U.S. bombing runs, a coup d'état, the Khmer Rouge genocide, and Vietnamese occupation. Tourism is now big business in the stabilized country, and improving the quality of life is at least a declared goal for many tourist enterprises. But when I spent $10 at a restaurant that employs street kids and $250 on a helicopter ride piloted by an Austrian expat, I wondered where most of my money was going.

When it came time to volunteer, the benefits were clear. JWOC has awarded scholarships to thirty Cambodian university students who, in return, work five to ten hours a week on one of JWOC's other initiatives – providing micro-loans to small businesses, building wells, and teaching free English classes. This division of labor is one of the most compelling aspects for JWOC: for the most part, the Cambodians are in charge. As Managing Director Jesse Wolfe told me, “Ultimately we hope to run ourselves out of business.”

I had been skeptical about teaching English; critics argue that short-term volunteers often do more to disrupt a class than to benefit it. JWOC's courses are all taught by English-speaking students, with volunteers assisting whenever possible. I arrived with no teaching experience. In the beginner class, I stumbled over grammar rules and failed to engage kids. But in the advanced classes, the students seemed to benefit from conversing with a native speaker. The teacher guided me through one lesson on past-tense verbs. As he wrote rules on the board, I spoke them: “Play-d. Talk-t. Need-ed.” If I could help these kids enunciate the final syllables, they would be better equipped to get a job in business or tourism.

In contrast to other volunteer vacation programs, JWOC assigns each volunteer based on professional expertise. One volunteer, a former pharmaceutical executive with a brain for numbers and organization, was put in charge of streamlining the micro-loan program's books; a volunteer who worked at Visa developed a curriculum that the scholarship students teach loan recipients to help them create business plans; I, meanwhile, was assigned to write two articles for the newsletter to donors. With this system, no time is wasted training volunteers, and JWOC benefits from know-how that it would otherwise have to pay for.

The guilt that I often feel as a traveler in the developing world had little chance to gain traction in Cambodia. My reticence to give money to beggars (I was once scammed by a girl in India) might have lost out to the land mine victims looking for handouts near Siem Reap. But while it was painful to walk by, each time I mentally added another dollar to the check I'd written to JWOC. Harder to justify was the traipsing around Angkor Wat: few sections were roped off, and my guide insisted that we could walk along the weathered stones. The director of Heritage Watch, an NGO trying to conserve cultural artifacts, agreed that unrestricted access is bad but argued that the larger challenge for Cambodia is the brevity of most trips: Tourists typically spend a day or two at Angkor Wat and then move on to Thailand or Vietnam. Journeys Within keeps guests in Cambodia longer, through volunteer work and tours like a kayak trip from a village on Tonle Sap Lake.

I left Cambodia without the weight of the world's problems on my shoulders. For once I stayed at a first-class hotel in the developing world and didn't feel some shame at my good fortune. As Journeys Within president Brandon Ross put it, “You may not be able to change the world, but you can change lives.” Just as important was the faith my visit gave me in JWOC. The ideal voluntourism program aims to both make use of travelers' time and earn their future support. After watching the staff – Americans and Cambodians – work so diligently, I knew that whatever money I could give them would be well spent.

Elite Traveler: Journeys Within Cultural Support in Southeast Asia

March/April 2008

The Mission: Brandon and Andrea Ross' boutique Southeast Asia tour company Journeys Within strives to give guests authentic experiences in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. The couple also formed the nonprofit Journeys Within Our Community organization to spearhead such projects as: a microfinance fund that has loaned over $17,000 to give the poor an opportunity to start or expand a business; a water project that creates wells to provide a safe, dependable water source year round; the Killing Fields Pagoda language school that offers classes in Thai, Japanese, Korean and English; the Dollars for Scholars Fund that gives students university scholarships; and the Than Xuan Peace Village shelter that helps victims from the Vietnam War, To really make a difference, join them on a giving tour of Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam while enjoying some of the region's finest accommodations and experiences.

Your Experience: Personal tours of projects run by president Brandon Ross and private tours of the Angkor temples bring cultural and historic connection so guests bond with the projects they support. Guests meet with Dollars for Scholars leaders to discuss the donors' interests and strengths. Visits to the villages include bringing donations, collection payments, assessing loan recipients' business plans and offering advice on how to improve productivity. Guests can donate their time and money to Journeys Within's English language school.

Give Big: $5,000 will sponsor a language school in Cambodia for a year; $400 will provide a one-year university scholarship.

LA Times Travel & Adventure: How to Positively Impact the World Through Travel

February 2008

Whether through volunteering or making donations, find ways to make a difference as you travel. An inside look at how to change lives in the places you visit.