- Cheap, as I am on a budget, under a grand a month not including airfare would be wonderful
- Adventurous, nothing too touristy or too similar to America
- A place with hiking and the outdoors
- Reasonably safe as I will be alone, but I don't mind a fair amount of risk
- Also I only speak English so somewhere where I can still get by would be great
- opportunity to do a little volunteer work, I want to beef up my grad school applications so I figure two birds one stone
I understand no one place will likely have all of these but if anybody has any ideas that fit most of these I would love your feedback.
Thanks for any input!
INDIA is the place for you. It's cheap,adventurous,place where you can hike and go outdoors as it's a BIG and DIVERSE country,it's safe if you are careful,you can find english-speakers at the same time. And absolutely you can do volunteer work and stuff. You can do your own research as well. Hope you can go there and discover India in your way. It's just strange and beautifully colorful country. If you decide coming down here I can help you. So don't hesitate at all lol. :)
Well, two months is a long time and you can easily cover about 2-3 countries.
You indicated that the place should not look similar to America so arguably Europe is out, what’s renaming would be South America, Middle East, South Asia and East Asia.
You said reasonably safe, so I guises Africa and middle east (given the so called Arab Spring) is out of the question :)
So, what’s remaining would be South America and Asia
You said you prefer English speaking countries,- English is not widely spoken in South America and East Asia.
So, My friend, answer to your question is that you should visit South Asia :) Probably about 45 days in India and rest in Sri Lanka (which is about an hours flight from India).
There are number of volunteering opportunities in India, I found this site to be useful http://www.volunteeringinindia.org/
India is land of contrast and you would be spoilt for chose, so, do your research, but I strongly recommend you to go to Shimla,I loved the place and there are number of trekking trails too.
As for Sri Lanka, it’s a land like no other ..its a very diverse country (beaches, green hills, wild life, heritage).. if you want to know more details on Sri Lanka visit http://trabanatours.com/ and if you need more details, drop me a mail
Consider Belize or Costa Rica. Either have nature preserves/parks where you could volunteer. My daughter spent one summer volunteering in the Monteverde National Forest and loved it there.Both are relatively close to the US, so the transportation costs will be lower than going somewhere further.
New Zealand
I would say Sweden.
