Voluntourism
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A type of tourism which combines traditional travel and tourism with volunteer work. Travelers are given opportunities to contribute money and/or time to causes related to their destinations. uncountable
"As summer looms, many Americans — college students, retirees and others who stand at the cusp of life changes — will make similar choices in search of transformational experiences. An industry exists to make these easier to make: the voluntourism business. A voluntourist is someone like Jack, who wishes to combine exotic vacation travel with volunteer work."
Example
More examples"As summer looms, many Americans — college students, retirees and others who stand at the cusp of life changes — will make similar choices in search of transformational experiences. An industry exists to make these easier to make: the voluntourism business. A voluntourist is someone like Jack, who wishes to combine exotic vacation travel with volunteer work."
Etymology
Blend of volunteer + tourism with haplology.
Related phrases
More for "voluntourism"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.