Tourist: a person who is traveling or visiting a place for pleasure.

The majority of my travels outside of the United States have been in the Caribbean portion of Latin America. Whereas many historians define Latin America as the portions of the new world (outside the United States and Canada) controlled by Spanish and Portugal at some point, I see the entire new world as Latin America. I have never participated in a service trip of any kind. The majority of my travels took place in the summer as tourism experiences. That said my family and I were never oblivious to the standards of living outside our comfortable resorts.

Only one travel was more a learning experience then a vacation. In the summer of 2008 my family spent two weeks in Haiti. On this occasion there were no resorts but time spent going city to city, sometimes 8 hours away, to meet family members and help out in anyway we could. This was my first experience with development in developing countries. It is also my fundamental reminder of why development is so important to me. My time in Haiti was my only incidence in which I witnessed a change in the human experience. It is a beautiful thing!

This begs the question: can a tourist experience also be a service experience as well. I think it really depends. For example the Dartmouth-Nicaraguan service program was engineered, so that Dartmouth students are provided a meaningful service experience. The experience requires a direct application of the things we have learned, but is also a pleasurable experience for everyone involved. I think this is because Dartmouth and bridges to community have a long-standing relationship with Nicaraguan communities. As service trip tourism increases in popularity, the question grows in importance. The goal is to develop a mutually-beneficial service tourism where developing communities are receiving the basic services they need, workers are provided an opportunity to see these beautiful places and meet different people and tourist organization establish relationships with developing community. Ultimately the future of service tourism is bright.

Places I have visited: Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cozumel Mexico, Bahamas, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, St. Maarten, China

Places I want to go: Everywhere else in the world.