This August 4-15, Global Eco-Spiritual Tours will return another volunteer team for an adventure in the heart of the Himalayan Mountains in Leh-Ladakh, India. As a charitable contribution you participate in as you travel, tour members spend 10 days in the environmental landscape and ancient culture of northern India. The combination of a strikingly beautiful yet fragile ecology and the mystical rich heritage of the Buddhist culture provides the ideal setting for combining eco-tourism and spiritual discovery.

Tour members will work together on low impact ecological projects and learn about the spiritual heritage of the Ladakh region, a former Himalayan mountain kingdom, situated west of Tibet. Tour activities include planting sapling trees, bottling spring water, donating solar panels, visiting ancient monasteries, interacting with monks and lamas, making sand mandalas with monks, attending a Buddhist meditation technique seminar, enjoying summer harvest festivals, a river raft ride down the Indus River and a 3-day trek through the Himalayan Mountains. Part of the tour includes visiting schools where tour founder Christopher Perry presents donations from tour members to the educational organization.

“The cost of the tour is a charitable donation that you actually get to participate in as you travel,” says Perry, a professional geologist and environmental consultant based in south Florida. “Ladakh is a mysterious, spiritual place with a delicate ecology and a lot of poor kids. Our goal is to help improve the lives of the Ladakhi and Tibetan refugee children through our member donations.”

Since 2001, Global Eco tour members have continually described our program as one the best volunteer vacations in the world. A 2007 volunteer, Valerie Larenne remarks that, “the Global Eco program is unsurpassed for those seeking a unique combination of spiritual enrichment and volunteer service in the Ladakh region of northern India. I was thoroughly impressed with the way Global Eco was able to put us in direct contact with spiritual leaders and enable us to improve the community with tree planting, water bottling and solar panel donation activities. The tour was an experience I will remember and treasure forever.”

An added bonus is that the tour members may have the chance to see the Dalai Lama during a public ceremony on his annual August summer visit to the Ladakh region.

The former US Ambassador to India, Robert D. Blackwill visited the tour area with his wife commenting that “the Ladakh region is one of the best places to visit for adventure travel in the world and it is also very safe because of the mentality of the people, its culture and the natural beauty of this Himalayan region.”

The tour groups will travel the region by jeep caravan and spend most nights in a Tibetan-style guest house. A few nights will be spent trekking and camping in the Himalayas. Openings are still available for the tour from August 4-15 this summer.

To learn more, go to http://www.GlobalEcoSpiritualTours.org.