The 100 Best Affordable Vacations (80 page)

 If you plan to share a room, discuss sleeping and grooming habits. Does one of you snore? Hog the shower? Smoke? Be prepared—or get separate rooms.

 Bring a book, Kindle, or some other reading device—perfect for when you need alone time but don’t have separate space.

On the road

 Keep a list of expenses. Invariably one person ends up paying for one thing, the next person for something else. Keeping a log makes it all clear.

 Set up a kitty. Even if you intend to pay for everything separately, you’re bound to have some joint expenses.

 Be mindful of space; you might find it useful to determine a boundary line as soon as you get into your room.

 Be flexible and take your sense of humor. Both are essential to keeping your friendship intact throughout the trip and beyond it.

help preserve the past

NATIONAL FORESTS & BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT LANDS NATIONWIDE

Most people enjoy the process of fieldwork more than just about anything else. It’s the perfect combination of physical activity and mental work…Field archaeology is just too much fun.

—
AUTHOR ADRIAN PRAETZELLIS,
DUG TO DEATH
(2003)

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Archaeology isn’t quite like an Indiana Jones movie. A typical day on the job rarely involves dodging deathly booby traps or menacing villains. You’re more likely to encounter mosquitoes and long hours of physical labor.

But that reality hasn’t stopped thousands of volunteers from literally getting their hands dirty on archaeological and historic preservation projects through the U.S. Forest Service’s Passport in Time program. The work, they say, is fascinating.

Anne Grove, a 55-year-old Colorado resident, spent a week surveying an aspen forest in Wyoming looking for carvings on tree trunks left a half century ago by lonely Basque sheepherders. She found everything from initials to stylized nudes, and took photos, made drawings, and recorded GPS coordinates so researchers could document the life of these former residents. Working with specialists on other projects, she also has rebuilt a Civil War–era log cabin in Missouri’s Mark Twain National Forest and repaired an aging adobe church in Colorado’s Comanche National Grassland.

“It’s work, it’s hard work, a lot of times it’s dirty work,” says Grove, who has been on more than a dozen PIT projects, as the Passport in Time program is known. “But it feels good to volunteer, and I learn a lot.”

The program began in 1989 as a way to provide labor for an archaeological study on U.S. Forest Service land in Minnesota. Since then it has grown to include the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and some state parks. Potential volunteers find a world of choices from excavations deep in the wilderness to detailed lab work.

Volunteers have to provide transportation to the project. Often basic accommodations are provided, usually a bunkhouse or dormitory. But sometimes, it’s tent camping. Food is only sometimes included. Some volunteers, like Grove, specifically seek out projects where she can bring her RV.

Most programs attract volunteers in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, although some projects include teenagers as long as they’re accompanied by a parent. “It’s fun,” Grove says. “The people for the most part are of similar mind-set. The whining and complaining is virtually nonexistent.”

Despite the Spartan conditions, organizers have no problem filling several dozen annual projects. There’s often a waiting list, so volunteers are encouraged to apply for more than one opportunity at a time. Group leaders are requested to reserve some slots for new volunteers, so it’s likely you’ll be accepted for something.

“It’s the popularity of the program that has kept it alive all these years,” says national PIT director Jill Osborn. “The archaeologists love it because they get to be with these incredibly enthusiastic volunteers.”

The project requirements vary from site to site. Some projects seek people who are comfortable camping in the backcountry, or willing to do long hours of physical labor, while others may require walking or surveying plants or wildlife.

The lab work has its own fans, too. Larry and Sandy Tradlener have rebuilt log flumes and searched the Wyoming plains for ancient antelope tracks. But they were both drawn to a project in California’s Lassen National Forest that had them working indoors documenting artifacts collected long ago on western-immigrant wagon trails. “We’ve both been interested in archaeology almost all our lives,” Larry says. “This gives us an opportunity that’s very satisfying to research our heritage.”

Some of the projects in the archaeology and historic preservation program resemble our vision of archaeology: digging pits, sifting through dirt, and cleaning artifacts with toothbrushes. But these activities represent just a few of the needs in PIT projects. Other projects are devoted to historic—or more modern—research, requiring different skill sets. One New Mexico project, for example, involved aviation archaeology: tracking down beacons that had been placed in the wilderness nearly a century ago to help guide some of the earliest transcontinental pilots.

$PLURGE

EARTHWATCH EXPEDITIONS

Earthwatch Institute offers an opportunity to join research scientists around the globe, assisting with field studies and research. Most programs involve wildlife—for example, you can help track bottlenose dolphins off the Mediterranean coast of Greece (8 days, $2,350), or work with Kenya’s Samburu people to preserve the endangered Grevy’s zebra (13 days, $2,950)—but some are cultural: A program in Bordeaux, France, for instance, has volunteers working in vineyards helping to test and improve wine-growing practices (5 days, $3,395); accommodations are in a chalet and meals are prepared by a French chef.

Prices do not include airfare, but can be considered tax-deductible contributions.
Earthwatch Institute–U.S., 114 Western Ave., Boston, MA 02134, 800-776-0188 or 978-461-0081,
www.earthwatch.org
.

For many volunteers, their favorite program is Sierran Footsteps. Volunteers spend four days with the Me-Wuk Indians in central California’s Stanislaus National Forest harvesting reeds and then making baskets. They also learn Indian legends and cook traditional foods. The project is designed to help keep these Indian traditions alive.

It might sound like summer camp, but this program, and all the others, has a serious side.

“We don’t stage projects for the public,” says Osborn, the national director. “It’s actually engaging the volunteers in our job, in what we do on a day-to-day basis as archaeologists and preservationists in the government.”

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH

Passport in Time Clearinghouse,
P.O. Box 15728, Rio Rancho, NM 87174, 800-281-9176,
www.passportintime.com
.