These days, people are looking for more from their holidays. Jaded by the mass-produced, identikit travel experiences pushed out by large corporations, they’ve tapped into a growing trend to give something back whilst away from home. And who can blame them? Travel is all about gaining new experiences, seeing new places and developing as a person. Volunteering during a holiday gives you all these opportunities.

In the best-selling book and motion picture ‘Eat Pray Love,’ Elizabeth Gilbert spends an entire year on the road. She visits three different countries for four months each. How did she do it? Apart from having a book deal already in place to fund her journey, she also travelled smart and travelled slow, especially in her choice of lodging. From Italy to India and Indonesia, she chose longer-term apartment and lodge rental.

We believe that the different forms of local transport are unique qualities of a place that, when experienced, are a vital part of a local travel experience. To know a place is to get around it the way local people do: cramming yourself into a chicken bus in South America, throwing caution to the wind in a tuk-tuk in Southeast Asia or boarding a ferry in Africa. We’re sure you will find these rides to be a brilliant bonding experience with locals.

Imagine if you could tell about actually getting to drive a rickshaw. Yes, today it is possible to get your hands on the steering bar of this ever-popular mode of transport. In which case it’s game over: Your tale would triumph, hands down. Get ready to tell the best stories about your time as a rickshaw pilot, because we’ve found the top five rickshaws that you are actually allowed to drive.

The picture here is of an evening Aarti performance at Dasaswamedh Ghat in Varanasi, India. While many ghats performs this grand prayer ceremony, the one held at Dasaswamedh Ghat is one of the largest and best known. Here, five young, extremely talented Hindu priests preform the highly choreographed ritual with super agility and dexterity.

One of the main features of Buddhist monasteries in Sikkim is the prayer wheel, found in lines on monastery premises. Pilgrims turn these wheels, for it is believed that a prayer is released with every rotation of the wheel. The picture here is of one such wheel in the making. The artist is painting the prayer ‘om mani padme hum’ on it, which is a very popular Buddhist mantra said to increase the effect of a prayer.