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Sunday, January 22, 2012

Greece hopes for debt relief deal "very soon"

Poul Thomsen, the International Monetary Fund mission chief in Greece, speaks on his cell phone as he arrives for a meeting with Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos in Athens, Friday, Jan. 20, 2012. European Union and International Monetary Fund representatives start new round of talks with officials in the Greek capital on the course of Greece's austerity program and pledged reforms. The outcome of these talks will determine whether the EU and IMF release the next installment of Greece's vital rescue loans. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos arrives for a meeting with the senior international debt inspectors in Athens, Friday, Jan. 20, 2012. European Union and International Monetary Fund representatives start new round of talks with officials in the Greek capital on the course of Greece's austerity program and pledged reforms. The outcome of these talks will determine whether the EU and IMF release the next installment of Greece's vital rescue loans. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos arrives for a meeting with senior international debt inspectors in Athens, Friday, Jan. 20, 2012. European Union and International Monetary Fund representatives start new round of talks with officials in the Greek capital on the course of Greece's austerity program and pledged reforms. The outcome of these talks will determine whether the EU and IMF release the next installment of Greece's vital rescue loans. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) ? Greece is confident a debt relief deal with private creditors that is crucial to avoid default can be reached "very soon," a government spokesman said Friday.

Prime Minister Lucas Papademos met for a third day with negotiators from the Institute of International Finance, which represents the private creditors who are being asked to take a loss on their bondholdings to lighten Greece's debt load by euro100 billion ($129 billion).

"The atmosphere of the talks is good, they are continuing today and we hope they will be concluded very soon," government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis told private Radio 9.

"This is very important for the sustainability of the national debt and our ability to handle the debt."

Papademos was joined by Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos at a 90-minute meeting Friday with top IIF officials Charles Dallara and Jean Lemierre.

Venizelos told reporters the talks would resume at 7:30 p.m. (1730 GMT) following an afternoon tele-conference with eurozone officials.

An agreement is needed if Greece is to get the next batch of bailout cash that would prevent a devastating debt default ? Greece does not have enough money to cover a euro14.5 billion bond repayment in March.

The bond-swap deal is part of a second bailout agreed by eurozone countries, worth euro130 billion ($168 billion) in loans and support for banks.

Under the proposed deal, private creditors would cancel 50 percent of their Greek debt in exchange of a cash payment and new bonds with a longer maturity.

But the negotiations stalled last week over a disagreement on the interest rate those new bonds would have.

The two sides are now considering a proposal to set an interest rate of below 4 percent that would gradually increase until 2020, according to European officials.

Louka Katseli, a minister in the previous Socialist government, said the talks were being complicated by the involvement of a large number of parties with a stake in the debt deal.

"This does not only involve Greece and the creditors," Katseli told private Skai television.

Heavily involved behind the scenes are countries like Germany, which is paying the bulk of Greece's rescue loans, and the IMF, which is also involved in the bailouts. There are also the individual bond holders, like hedge funds which have bought Greek bonds but at the same time also hold default insurance, Katseli said.

Also Friday, international debt inspectors arrived in Athens to assess whether Greece is doing enough to get more bailout cash.

Officials from the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund met with Venizelos. They will scrutinize Greece's public finances to make sure it is on track with painful austerity reforms needed to keep tapping rescue loans.

Near-bankrupt Greece has been surviving on a euro110 billion ($142.02 billion) rescue loan program from European countries and the IMF since May, 2010, but required additional help to meet its funding needs.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-20-EU-Greece-Financial-Crisis/id-0fd51051c455447a909e88092e9a4f41

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HDNet joins up with AEG, CAA and Ryan Seacrest to become AXS TV this summer

It held on as long as it could, but HDNet is following the path of INHD (which became Mojo before disappearing entirely) and Discovery HD Theater (now Velocity) by rebranding itself, and will see morph into AXS TV this summer. Of course, HDNet has always focused on "lifestyle programming" and from the looks of it the new channel (pronounced: access) will be very similar, at least for now. HDNet is bringing programming like HDNet Fights, Dan Rather Reports, its concerts and more to the joint venture, which will be combined with its partners AEG, CAA and Ryan Seacrest Media. If HDNet is currently on your programming lineup AXS TV will simply take its place when it launches, and Dish Network actually plans to increase the channel's distribution by adding it to the America's Top 120 package. If you're distressed over the future of Art Mann Presents, check out the press release after the break or a Q&A on the site for more information about what's happening to Mark Cuban's baby.

Continue reading HDNet joins up with AEG, CAA and Ryan Seacrest to become AXS TV this summer

HDNet joins up with AEG, CAA and Ryan Seacrest to become AXS TV this summer originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Woman with ship captain defends his actions (AP)

ROME ? A young Moldovan woman who translated evacuation instructions from the bridge after the Costa Concordia ran into a reef emerged as a potential new witness Thursday in the investigation into the captain's actions on that fateful night.

Italian media have said prosecutors want to interview 25-year-old Dominica Cermotan, who had worked for Costa as a hostess fluent in several languages but was not on duty when she boarded the ship Jan. 13 in the Italian port of Civitavecchia.

The $450 million Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew when it slammed into well-marked rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio on Jan. 13 after the captain made an unauthorized diversion from his programmed route. The ship then keeled over on its side and is still half-submerged nearly a week later.

In interviews with Moldovan media and on her own Facebook page, Cermotan said she was called up to the bridge of the Concordia after it struck the reef to translate evacuation instructions for Russian passengers. She defended Capt. Francesco Schettino, who has been vilified in the Italian media for leaving his ship before everyone was evacuated safely.

"He did a great thing, he saved over 3,000 lives," she told Moldova's Jurnal TV.

Schettino, who was jailed after he left the ship, is under house arrest, facing possible charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship.

Eleven people have been confirmed dead in the disaster and 21 others are still missing.

Divers searched for the missing Thursday after a day-long break and a new audiotape emerged of the Concordia's first communication with port officials who inquired about what was wrong. In the tape, an officer insists the ship had only experienced an electrical blackout ? comments that came a full 30 minutes after the ship had rammed violently into the reef.

Italian media reported the officer on the call was Schettino, but that could not be independently confirmed.

Cermotan said on her Facebook page that she wasn't on duty the night of the grounding but was with Schettino, other officers and the cruise director on the bridge. She said she was called up from dinner to help with translations of instructions for how the small number of Russian passengers should evacuate.

"We were looking for them, searching for them (the Russians)," she told Jurnal. "We heard them all crying, shouting in all languages."

She said Schettino had stayed on deck until 11:50 p.m., when he ordered her into a lifeboat; the ship had hit the reef at 9:45 p.m.

Prosecutor Francesco Verusio declined to comment on whether he was seeking Cermotan as a witness, citing the ongoing investigation.

Without providing her name, Costa said the woman was registered with the ship and that it was prepared to give authorities both her identity and the paperwork for her ticket.

Divers, meanwhile, were focusing on an evacuation route on ship's fourth level, now about 18 meters (60 feet) below the water's surface, where five bodies were found earlier this week, Navy spokesman Alessandro Busonero told Sky TG 24. Crews set off small explosions Thursday to blow holes into hard-to-reach areas for easier access by divers.

Seven of the dead were identified Thursday by authorities ? four French passengers, one Spanish and one Italian passenger and one Peruvian crew member. Italian passenger Giovanni Masia, who news reports said would have turned 86 next week, was buried in Sardinia.

Italian authorities have identified 32 people who have either died or are missing: 12 Germans, seven Italians, six French, two Peruvians, two Americans and one person each from Hungary, India and Spain.

The ship's sudden movement on the reef Wednesday had postponed the start of a weekslong operation to extract the half-million gallons of fuel on board the vessel. Italy's environment minister issued a fresh warning Thursday about the implications if the ship shifts and breaks any of its now-intact oil tanks.

"We are very concerned" about the weather, minister Corrado Clini told Mediaset television. "If the tanks were to break, the fuel would block the sunlight from getting to the bottom of the sea, making a kind of film, and that would cause the death of the marine system."

The area is very close to a marine sanctuary for dolphins, porposies and whales.

Crew members returning home have begun speaking out about the chaotic evacuation, saying the captain sounded the alarm too late and didn't give orders or instructions about how to evacuate passengers. Eventually, crew members started lowering lifeboats on their own.

"They asked us to make announcements to say that it was electrical problems and that our technicians were working on it and to not panic," French steward Thibault Francois told France-2 television Thursday. "I told myself this doesn't sound good."

He said the captain took too long to react and that eventually his boss told him to start escorting passengers to lifeboats. "No, there were no orders from the management," he said.

Indian ship waiter Mukesh Kumar said "the emergency alarm was sounded very late," only after the ship "started tilting and water started seeping" in.

He was one of four Indians flown to New Delhi on Thursday, the first to return out of 203 Indians aboard the Concordia.

"The ship shook for a while, and then the crockery stated falling all over," said Indian Kandari Surjan Singh, who worked in the ship's galley. "People started panicking. Then the captain ordered that everything is under control and said it was a normal electric fault ... so people calmed down after that."

The ship's operator, Crociere Costa SpA, has accused Schettino of causing the wreck by making the unapproved detour and the captain has acknowledged carrying out what he called a "tourist navigation" that brought the ship closer to Giglio. The company had approved a similar maneuver in August.

However, Lloyd's List Intelligence, a leading maritime publication, says its tracking showed that the ship's August route actually took the Concordia slightly closer to Giglio than the course that caused the grounding last week.

Costa is owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp.

___

Alison Mutler reported from Bucharest. Fanuel Morelli contributed from Giglio, Italy and Angela Charlton from Paris.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_italy_cruise_aground

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Saturday, January 21, 2012

Apple announces free iBooks Author OS X app for publishing books to the App Store

We're here at Apple's education-themed event at the Guggenheim museum in New York City, and the company's just followed up its long-awaited textbook announcement with something unexpected: iBooks Author, a free OS X program for creating books. The intent is really for teachers and other educators to produce educational materials, but Apple says the format can apply to any genre. Aside from the free part, the real story here is ease of use, with the ability to drag and drop photos, videos and even Microsoft Word files into various templates. If you use Apple's own suite of office apps, in particular, you can drag and drop a Keynote presentation into the doc, and it'll live on as an interactive widget. (You can whip up other widgets, too, though you'll need to know Javascript or HTML.) Moving beyond the main text, authors can also arrange glossaries by highlighting and clicking words, and clicking again to add a definition. In a surprise move, Apple also said authors can publish straight to the store, though we're waiting for clarification that textbook writers and other scribes are actually exempt from Cupertino's notorious App Store approval process. In any case, the app is available now in the App Store so by all means, get cracking on that definitive Kurt Vonnegut glossary you never knew you had in you.

Gallery: iBooks Author

Apple announces free iBooks Author OS X app for publishing books to the App Store originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/19/apple-announces-ibooks-author-app-for-os-x/

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Video: The Bulls Keep Running

The market rally is shaping up to be the best start to a new year in more than a decade. So, how do investors play this run-up? Brian Kelly, Shelter Harbor Capital, and Jeffrey Kleintop, LPL , Financial, provide perspective.

In bid to unseat Wisconsin governor, whither the challengers? (Reuters)

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) ? Critics of Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker showed on Tuesday how unpopular he is with many voters, filing more than 1 million signed petitions -- nearly twice the number needed -- to force the first-term Republican to defend himself in a special election.

On Wednesday, they faced what is likely to be a harder task: finding a Democrat who can beat the battle-tested 44-year-old.

"There is no single preeminent candidate," said Charles Franklin, a political scientist and visiting professor of law and public policy at Marquette University, said of the Democrats who might challenge Walker, who gained a national following in leading a successful push to curb Wisconsin's public unions.

Although some Democrats have hinted in recent weeks they might be interested in running against Walker in a recall, so far no one with a marquee name has committed to what is sure to be a bruising fight. No date has been set for the election.

On Wednesday, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk announced her candidacy. But Falk, who governs the county that encompasses Madison, the state's capital, is viewed by the Wisconsin political insiders as a weak candidate given her past political losses and her liberal fiscal platform.

Due to those factors, political analysts say Falk will almost certainly have company. Other Democrats mentioned as possible candidates have included Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, former congressman David Obey and State Senator Tim Cullen.

None has the cachet of Russ Feingold, the former Democratic senator popular among progressives. But an effort last summer to draft Feingold fizzled when he announced he was not interested.

"Polling shows that (Walker) has one of the highest name recognitions in the country among active governors," Franklin said. "None of the Democrats are at that same level of name recognition and familiarity."

In November, 2010, Walker defeated Barrett in the governor's election by 52 to 46 percent -- a margin of 124,000 votes out of 2.13 million cast.

A Democratic primary, needed if more than one Democratic challenger enters the fray, could divert time and money from the fight against Walker, who set off a firestorm by curtailing the collective bargaining rights of unionized public workers.

A weak Democratic candidate, and a Democratic loss in the special election, could have implications for President Obama's reelection hopes.

Indeed, a Walker triumph in a special election could turn Wisconsin, currently a battleground state, into a GOP stronghold, according to Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics and a professor of politics at the University of Virginia.

"If Walker is reelected and Republicans are energized because of this, that will have an impact in the presidential race," Sabato said. "I bet if the White House had their druthers the recall would not be happening."

Organizers of the drive to recall Walker submitted what appeared to be more than enough signatures on Tuesday to trigger the special election.

Sabato said that shows the polarizing effect Walker and his agenda has had on the state.

"The hatred for Scott Walker on the Democratic side is white hot and that is what generated the one million signatures and that is what gives them a great base," said Sabato.

Walker has remained undeterred during his tumultuous first year as governor. During the passage of collective bargaining legislation, the governor pressed on even in the wake of massive protests at the Capitol each day.

When 14 Democratic state senators left the state in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to deny the Republican-controlled body a quorum and halt action on the proposals, Walker and his allies engineered passage without them.

"He was in a bunker mentality very quickly in February of his first term and maybe having survived that may make a more resilient politician now," said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin.

The Republican hold on the state legislature has also survived the political storm kicked up by the collective bargaining reforms, which Walker and his allies defended as necessary to address a gaping budget hole.

Although six Republican state senators were forced to defend their seats in special recall elections this summer, only two lost their seats. As a result, Republicans held onto a razor thin majority, 17-16, in the Senate.

In addition to Walker, four Republicans Senators, including Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, are facing the possibility of recall elections in a second round of special elections triggered by the union fight.

Officials at the state's Government Accountability Board said last week they may need more than 60 days to verify the signatures submitted on Tuesday. Currently, the law requires the process to be completed in 31 days.

According to a Government Accountability Board report, processing recall petitions will cost the state more than $650,000. The total cost of recall elections for the state and municipalities may be more than $9 million, according to estimates from board officials.

(Editing by James Kelleher and Peter Bohan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/democrats/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120119/us_nm/us_wisconsin_recall_democrats

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Friday, January 20, 2012

How to Book a $1700 Vacation for $700 by Volunteering [Travel]

Photo by ollie harridge.

You Can Practice Your Skills or Learn New Ones

If you have a specialized skill set, a volunteer vacation can be a good way to put your skills to use in another country. For instance, if you're a doctor you can volunteer your skills to a vaccination shelter. If you're a teacher, you can teach. You don't always need special skills though. If you've always wanted to learn more about carpentry, for example, you can build a house on your volunteer vacation. If you're a student, volunteering on a scientific exhibition can add flavor to your resume and experience in the field.

You Can Write Off What You Do Spend

How to Book a $1700 Vacation for $700 by Volunteering Of course, one of the biggest factors in choosing a vacation is cost. Some volunteer vacations will still require a hefty up-front charge to participate and don't include airfare. Others are totally free while you're participating. The price difference is directly related to the work your doing, the insurance required, and the materials needed. Teaching English to a farmer in Poland isn't all that dangerous, but diving into the sea to film turtles hatching is.

That said, any money you do pay can be written off as a charitable contribution on your taxes. As a general rule, you can write off any expenses you pay to the organization as long as they're a non-profit. Any non-profit you enroll in will have a 501(c) designation somewhere on the website. You can also search the government's registry to make sure the organization qualifies as tax-deductible. Your airfare, Visa, and travel-related expenses are also tax-deductible if you volunteer an average of eight hours a day.

If you've decided a volunteer vacation might be a good idea for your next trip, it's time to get to research. Let's look at a few of the sites you can use to find opportunities and verify you're volunteering for an organization you're comfortable at.

Photo by KOMUnews.

How to Find a Volunteer Job That's Right for You

How to Book a $1700 Vacation for $700 by Volunteering Planning volunteer vacations can require a bit more work than you may be used to, depending on how you normally plan your vacations. You won't find a bunch of deal aggregation sites that filter everything for you in a neat pattern. Instead, your best bet is to go directly through the non-profit. Here are a few places to get you started on your search:

American Hiking Society: As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to wander off into the American wilderness and go hiking, you might as well improve on the trails and area as you go along. From my own experience, volunteering with the American Hiking Society is a blast for a number of reasons. If you're a beginner camper, it sticks you with people who know what they're doing so you can learn the ropes. The work itself is as simple as constructing steps or transporting vegetation. You pay a $245 membership fee, but everything is free, including meals, boarding, and park fees.
World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms: This one is simple: work on a farm and get free boarding and food for your stay. You can do this around the world and for the most part, you know exactly what to expect. It's not easy work, but it might be worth it for the savings.
Habitat for Humanity: Remember when we mentioned building houses earlier? Right, this is where you volunteer to do it. Experience isn't as necessary but you should be physically capable.
Global Volunteer: This site isn't exactly the cutting edge of travel booking, but it gets you the information you need. As the name suggests, Global Volunteer is best for global trips and is at its best at providing information about volunteering in Africa and Asia. The work ranges from teaching English to building homes.
Sierra Club: If you're the type of person to spend your vacations outdoors, the Sierra Club's offering might be appealing. They usually cover the rooms, food, and materials you need, but they can get pretty costly. The benefit? On top of volunteering you also get to surf in the oceans off New Zealand or service trails in Hawaii.
Idealist: Idealist is a massive database of volunteer opportunities from around the globe. It's not geared directly toward volunteer vacations, but as a search engine, it's a good place to start and find the non-profits working in the country you're interested in visiting. You can find temporary volunteer opportunities that offer housing and food.
VAOPS: The site is not pretty, but what it does, it does well. Instead of concentrating on the middleman (and adding cost), VAOPS gives you links directly to the charities so you can plan through them. This means you can find zero cost trips easily. Transitions Abroad is a similar service.
STA Travel: If you're a student or teacher, you can use the already cheap STA Travel to find and book a volunteer vacation. These are typically on the pricier side, but include more "adventure" style vacations where you're chasing down sharks for rescuing turtles for a week.

If you're using one of the above search engines, keep in mind it's possible to use them as a suggestion as opposed to a booking agent. If you find a cause you're interested in and a location you'd like to go, try visiting the non-profit itself to see if you can schedule directly through them.

If you are planning on leaving the country, don't forget that aside from a Visa, you also might need vaccinations. The CDC provides a list of what you need. You should also do a little research into the non-profit to make sure it's legit. Charity Navigator, GuideStar, and The Better Business Bureau are good places to research before making plans.

Now that we have an outline of the resources available, let's go ahead and plan a sample trip and see how much money we can save in the process.

Photo by USFWS Mountain-Prarie.

Book a Trip to Hawaii and Save $1,000

While I've done smaller jaunts in North America, I've never gone for the full-force two-three week volunteer vacation across the globe. Personally, I've always had a desire to visit and work at the Chernobyl disaster site in Ukraine, but since I imagine most people don't share that desire, let's go with something a bit more exciting: Let's plan a volunteer vacation to Hawaii.

Step 1: Find a Volunteer Opportunity in Hawaii

How to Book a $1700 Vacation for $700 by Volunteering Let's start with some quick numbers. An average price for a hotel on one of the islands of Hawaii is around $100 a night (though you could easily find a more expensive hotel). A flight will cost about $850-$900 from the U.S. during most times of the year. So for a trip to Hawaii for one person and not included meal expenses we're looking at around $1,450.

Searching the sites above, I came up with two appealing options:

Sierra Club's hiking and service in Kauai ($945 + airfare): This trip requires moderate work on trails in a national park across a seven-day period and includes meals, in country transportation, and boarding. The work takes about eight hours a day and involves picking up trash, moving rocks for trail posts, and removing exotic plants. Three of the days are devoted heavily to work, while the rest of your time can be spent however you see fit. It's more expensive than the cost of a hotel, but gets you to the outdoors with people who know what they're doing.
American Hiking's Iao Valley State Park vacation ($245 + airfare): This trip also requires some moderate work on trails in a state park. You will be doing the same type of work as the Sierra Club for about eight hours each day. The price includes meals, permits, and boarding. As the cheaper option, this is the most appealing. A shared cabin isn't a hotel, but if you're in Hawaii, you shouldn't be spending too much time indoors anyway.

Deciding on the location and volunteer work is just the first step. Unlike a regular vacation, volunteer work requires you to apply to make sure you're capable of doing the work. This application process typically takes a week and can be submitted online. These aren't hard hitting questions. They typically cover your experience, physical condition, and volunteer history. Not having experience doesn't immediately bar you from participating, but the application process works to vet people who might be in over their head. Make no mistake about it, this will be work no matter what type of volunteering you do.

Before you settle on your plan, request an information packet and itinerary for your visit. This will help you make your final decision and guarantee no surprises will ruin your trip.

Once you hear back from the non-profit and are accepted, you can book your flight through any channel of your choosing. If you're getting picked up at the airport by the volunteer service they'll give you a time slot to shoot for. The same goes for the returning flight. Check out ultimate travel hacking guide for a few useful tricks to get cheap tickets.

Photo by Kristina D.C. Hoeppner.

Step 2: Figure Out What You Need

How to Book a $1700 Vacation for $700 by Volunteering Working in a foreign place is difficult enough as it is, but doing it without the proper gear is going to make your life miserable. You will receive a packing list from the volunteer organization of everything you need. Follow this as closely as possible. In addition to normal vacation items like clothes and a toothbrush, we'll need: a sleeping bag, rain jacket, hiking boots, mosquito repellent, and a day pack for this trip.

Photo by Nestor Lacle.

Step 3: What To Do When You Arrive

For many of these vacations, you get picked up at the airport with a group of other participants on the first day. They take you to the volunteer site and let you unwind before giving you an orientation on the program. Depending on where you are and what type of work you're doing, this will vary from a primer on cultural customs to a brief walk around the work site.

In our American Hiking Society example, we're not getting picked up at the airport. According to Google Maps, no good bus system gets us from the airport to the volunteer site, so we'll take a cab. At $3 a mile, a cab will cost about $24.

Once we arrive, we get checked in and go to the cabin to meet the rest of the volunteers. For the next week, we'll be cleaning up trails, taking hikes, and enjoying the wilderness of Hawaii. Meals are provided by our host, as is a plan for every day of the week. Sure, a big chunk of our day is work, but at least we're in a great location.

The Final Cost Breakdown

Before we break down the cost, we need to add a meals to the regular vacation. For three meals at an estimate of $10 a meal, we can add an additional $200 to the minimum cost. Every trip is going to net different results, but it's a fair starting point.

But we're not done yet. We volunteered for the full duration of our stay in Hawaii so the entire trip is tax deductible.

Donations to the American Hiking Society are completely tax deductible. This includes the plane fare, cab, and any additional fees incurred. For a full list of what you can deduct from your volunteer vacation, check out the IRS Publication 526 or get in touch with a tax professional. Your tax situation is different from mine, but for someone like me, a $1,100 tax deduction can add an estimated $400 to my rebate. This drops our basic cost to $700. Not bad for a week long trip to Hawaii.

Volunteer Vacation: $700

Regular Vacation: $1,650

Volunteering on your vacation isn't for everyone. Nor is it for every trip you take. It is a good way to explore a part of the world you would not otherwise see or be able to afford. If you're a student, it's a great way to get experience in the field by volunteering on a science expedition. Even as a working adult, these experiences are worth your resume. Personally, I see it as a way means to go on a trip and interact directly with a culture or landscape without the need for rental cars, bus schedules, or complicated itineraries. Plus, if worked right, it's a heck of a lot cheaper.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/iHiBHoRoTDk/how-to-book-a-1700-vacation-for-700-by-volunteering

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