Earthwatch Institute is a venerable old organization that sponsors delicious-looking field trips. Basically, you pay to accompany a researcher for a week or two to mostly exotic places around the world (Africa, Asia, Central America, Caribbean, Europe, Middle East, North America, Pacific Region, Russia and South America) to help conduct research. Because Earthwatch is a nonprofit organization, your payment is tax deductible. This is real hands-on stuff. I've been dying to go for I guess about 20 years and I still have one or two expedition catalogs from 20 years ago.
Earthwatch used to issue a handsome print handbook of its research trips but now you can cruise the web site reading about each project. It is a virtual education! Even the titles of the projects make your mouth water: South African Elephants, Kenya's Black Rhinos, Drums Along the Gambia, Madagascar Carnivores, Kenya's Wild Heritage, Community Health in Cameroon, Cheetah, and Tanzanian Forest Birds, to name a few of the African trips. The trip titles sound like the titles of programs you'd see on television's nature channels.
I'd love to do Snow Leopards of Nepal, Green Turtles of Malaysia, and Saving Borneo's Rain Forest. Closer to home, in Central America, you can try Sea Turtles of Baja, Costa Rica's River Wildlife, and Dancing Birds, among others. How about a Bahamian Reef Survey?
If you like to go down under as I do, Australian trips include studies of the Koala, Platypus and Echidna (a cute little spiny fella). If you're into people, you could study the Queensland Island Aborigines.
In the U.S. you've got Moose and Wolves, Blue Ridge Bears, Whooping Cranes, Mountain Lion, Oregon Wildflowers, and Caring for Chimpanzees. I can't stand it! I want to go on all of them!
Of course, you have to pay your way to get to the embarkation points for these trips, so airfare is an extra cost, but it too is tax deductible, I believe. Accommodations vary depending on the location of the research project. You could end up living in a house or bedding down in a tent. Because research is an ongoing activity, projects offer several periods to pick from.
The number of companions on an expedition various too. The Whooping Crane project, for example, uses a team of four, Moose and Wolves takes 10, and South African Elephants takes 8. There may be larger trips but I didn't hunt for them.
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