Money from The Voluntourist Helps Fund Ecuador Research Project

All of Ken Budd’s earnings from
The Voluntourist are being invested in the places
and organizations where he volunteered. The latest effort: a $500 donation to the Cloud Forest Institute. The money is being used immediately to help fund a research
project by the Cambugán Foundation in Ecuador.

The project has two goals, says Anna Connell, U.S. representative for Cambugán. The first is to use camera traps to document wildlife in the Cambugan Reserve (an extension of the SURVIVE Camera Trapping project that targets wild cats in the Choco-Andean corridor). The second is to develop a GIS for the reserve and to generate maps for navigation and publication. The project is led by Mika Peck, who is featured in the Ecuador section of The Voluntourist (the photo, above, was shot by Ken in the Santa Lucia cloud forest).

A new review from PerceptiveTravel.com calls The Voluntourist lively and entertaining: “The author’s intelligence and autobiographical honesty engage the reader…Budd is a skilled writer with a good ear for dialogue.”