Vacationing With Charity-Minded Tour Operators

You don't need to sign up for a U.N. mission, deliver medical aid to a developing country or renounce your possessions to improve the planet. By enjoying a vacation with a charity-minded tour operator, you're already helping humanity. Many such companies give back to the far-flung destinations their leisure clients visit.

Take Boston-based Grand Circle Corp., which typically sends more than 100,000 travelers, mostly 50 and older, on trips each year. Since 1992, its nonprofit arm, Grand Circle Foundation, has donated or pledged $47 million to educational and humanitarian efforts around the world, a significant part financed by tour proceeds, said spokeswoman Priscilla O'Reilly.