The final post in my New Year’s Resolutions series, which includes Health and Fitness and Learning Vacations in Italy, focuses on doing good while on vacation. Of course, Italy may not be the first place you think of when you consider volunteering your time – indeed, Haiti comes to mind – but there are a number of ways that you can make a difference on an Italy vacation.

Causes you can volunteer for include teaching English, land preservation, farming help (e.g., grape and/or olive harvesting), archaeology assistance, building homes, and environmental cleanup, to name a few. Trips range from easy to challenging, making them a perfect fit for about any age group.

One of the best places to look for information on volunteer vacations in Italy is on the site Transitions Abroad. They currently list opportunities such as helping elderly and/or disabled Italians in sites near Milan, Verona, and Torino; dolphin and whale watching research in Liguria; and assisting archaeological digs near Rome.

The Earthwatch Institute has been offering educational volunteer opportunities all over the world since 1971, so it is a great site to browse if you’re looking for a diversion with a difference. For 2010, they have one working vacation with an adult and teen version. Discovering Italy’s Ancient Roman Coast allows volunteers to “excavate the Roman maritime settlement of Poggio del Molino, document all finds, collect organic samples with a palaeobothanist, and survey the area surrounding the dig site to collect, clean, and document artifacts such as pottery shards, mosaic, fresco, metal, and coins.” The teen volunteer component requires a larger monetary donation.

One of the coolest volunteer projects I’ve come across in my research is for the Art Monastery Project. Its mission is to transform an old monastery in Umbria into an international nonprofit arts production house. Although the project has already been featured in The Guardian as one of Five Great Workaway Working Holidays, the “Art Monks” still require assistance from art-loving volunteers in working “on arts projects, maintaining the grounds, cleaning the pool and guestrooms, organising concerts and artistic productions.”Leave it to these artsy visionaries for getting out the word about their needs, too. You can follow them on Twitter (@artmonastery) or on Facebook before you decide to volunteer (or to check the status of the project after you have left.)

The most typical volunteer opportunities in Italy involve working on farms. I profiled a volunteer vacation in the Cinque Terre on Italofile last year which offers travelers the chance to contribute to sustainable tourism efforts at a farm overlooking the Ligurian Sea. One of the best-connected organizations for finding volunteer opportunities on a farm are available through WWOOF, which stands for Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. In order to work on an organic farm in Italy, you’ll need to become a member of WWOOF:

WWOOF Italia…provides obligatory accident insurance cover for WWOOFers and, providing both host and WWOOFer can produce membership cards, justifies the presence of a voluntary collaborator on a farm. The WWOOF Italia list includes biodynamic and organic farms and smallholdings, some hosts live from farming and sell their products while others just want to be self sufficient, or simply to grow their own organic vegetables. WWOOF hosts do not expect that you know a lot about farming when you come, but they do expect you to be willing to learn and fit in with their lifestyle.

Finally, Volunteers for Peace is an organization doing good throughout the world as well as in Italy. Although at the time of this writing VFP had no projects listed for Italy in 2010, it has brought on volunteer travelers for more than 200 past projects in Italy, including manual labor jobs, working with kids, environmental works, arts projects, and more. The following video explains the agency’s mission. And you can also follow them on Facebook to find out about upcoming working holidays, whether in Italy or elsewhere:

Please note that volunteer vacations, which often involve manual or moderate labor, are the cause of many accidents abroad. If you do intend to take a volunteer vacation anywhere, make sure you check in with your country’s consulate or embassy before you travel so they have a record of you should you need medical assistance.

Do you know of other volunteer vacations in Italy? I am especially eager to learn if there are any ongoing needs for volunteers in earthquake-ravaged Abruzzo. Please comment with any details below!

Photo © clickr62

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The Cinque Terre, already a favorite destination for travelers to Italy, is one place where sustainable initiatives are taking root. Protect Cinque Terre operates out of Vernazza, one of the five “terre” (lands) and offers participants the opportunity to work with locals in landscape preservation such as “rebuilding the stone walls that support terraced agriculture, cleaning trails used by thousand of tourists every month, and harvesting some of the agricultural bounty grown on the hillsides around the town.”

For sure, this is a challenging working holiday. But it can also be fulfilling. Danielle Machotka, who volunteered for the program and wrote about it for Transitions Abroad, had this to say:

Over the course of the three days, we learned about the impact that tourism has on a small town like Vernazza. The population of 800 doubles on a typical summer day. Some tourists stay for a couple of hours, buy gelato and postcards, and t-shirts, and leave for the next town. Some stay for a night or two. Some return every year.

All create waste. Sanitary sewer lines and water treatment plants are at capacity. Nature-loving hikers increase the potential for erosion with every footstep. None of this is immediately fatal to the well-being of Vernazza, but it is eating away at the town’s surroundings and resources. Tourism and agriculture are the primary industries; neither creates great financial surpluses. Alessandro and Olga hope that the working holiday program will be the first step towards solving the problem by raising awareness.

Protect Cinque Terre has three programs in 2009, including a Wine Harvest Program in September. The price for three days/four nights, including lodging, all meals, guided tours, entrance fees, transportation during scheduled excursions, and tools required during the program is €445 per person.

Photo by Protect Cinque Terre

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Tuscany, with its beautiful vistas and thousands of hectares of nature preserves and woodlands, offers numerous opportunities for serious hikers and casual trekkers alike. This is the also the thought of the organizers of the Tuscany Walking Festival, a yearly event that happens goes on roughly between the first days of spring until the end of fall.

The festival highlights six of the great hiking areas in Tuscany, including the Maremma, the Monti Livornesi and the Tuscan Archipelago. In addition to the great walks are other events and promotions, such as photography exhibits, birdwatching courses, and restaurant discounts near the walking regions. What a great way to learn about Tuscany’s natural treasures and take a break from art overload!

Photo from Tuscany Walking Festival

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If you’re the type of traveler who likes to go it alone and doesn’t mind injecting a little technological know-how into your trip, then a GPS-driven self-guided tour may be the ticket.

Information about Zephyr Self-Guided Adventures through Italy just crossed our desks over the weekend. The company offers walks, biking, and driving tours through Tuscany, Umbria, and parts of Lazio, all of which are powered by GPS navigation. According to a press release:

The GPS Navigation systems have pre-loaded waypoints along the driving routes and are designed to accompany written turn-by-turn directions. With simple touch commands travelers can easily get from one destination to another. These portable systems not only allow for a comfortable traveling pace, but are also a cheaper alternative to the typical guided vacation.

In addition to the GPS Navigation systems, these driving tours come with a “virtual tour guide” in the form of a Portable Media Player loaded with short videos. In these videos, Zephyr Adventures President Allan Wright gives a daily route talk summarizing what to expect for each day while certified Italian guide (and Zephyr in-country support representative) Giovanni Ramaccioni gives entertaining cultural and historical presentations about sights on the route. The cultural videos were filmed at the exact spots the travelers pass through.

The combination of these two technologies allows for the ultimate driving adventure.

While Zephyr may have touched on a rather novel concept, we also like the fact that they have worked in the price of hotels and rental cars, so you don’t have to do any extra legwork (unless, of course, you choose to walk or bike your way through central Italy). Rates start at $1,250 per person, not including airfare.

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While browsing the web recently, I happened upon Emmanuelle Jary’s excellent primer on touring the Venice Lagoon on ViaMichelin (full disclosure: I have written for Michelin Travel Guides). But what, I wondered, was a pénichette? Turns out that it is a small barge-like houseboat - just the perfect type of transportation for getting around the city of canals on a mini-tour.

The word “pénichette” is a registered trademark, perhaps owned by the company Locaboat, whose photos are used throughout the Michelin article and which runs several tours of the Venice Lagoon. You can choose one- to two-week excursions, and travel from the base at Chioggia to points such as Treviso, Padova, and the Venetian islands. According to Locaboat, pénichettes are ideal for family or group travel and those “which bear the ‘R’ label are boats which have been updated with the latest low-pollution, high performance equipment.” So, your trip to Venice can be eco-friendly, too.

While you’re out and about, consider following Jary and Michelin’s suggestions for dining out or ordering in (listed at the bottom of the article) from some of the great restaurants in Venice. I’m salivating for the potato risotto and cuttlefish polenta from Do Farai right now…

Photo © Via Michelin

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This one comes from the U.K.’s Italy Magazine, which tells us that the Corleone villa of former Mafia boss Salvatore Riina has been turned into farmstay housing, a.k.a., an agriturismo. The Pio La Torre Cooperative, named for a martyred anti-Mafia activist, belonged to Riina before it was seized by the State after his 1993 capture. No word on when the cooperative will open, so watch this space…

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Did know that you can get honorary citizenship from the Terre di Siena (Siena’s provincial tourism board)? Citizenship entails signing a Sustainable Tourism charter. Here’s what the charter lists as an honorary citizen’s privileges:

• Receive full information about local activities in the community
• Receive detailed information that will allow you to select the very best of what is available in the local community, whether this be cultural activities or authentic local products
• Play a privileged role at any promotional activities organised by the Terre di Siena in the honorary citizen’s country of origin.
• Have the opportunity to give feedback on local projects and events.

Okay…no EU work permit or a free bottle of Chianti. But, it’s not a bad ploy to get tourists thinking about their impact on the world.

On that note, as Italofile continues to grow, we’ll do our best to profile “green” tourist options in Italy whenever possible. Here’s hoping all of us who plan to travel this year will leave a lighter footprint.

Photo © Terre di Siena

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