Nine Places to Find Vacations That Give Your Wallet a Holiday

During the holidays, it’s appropriate to honor companies that charge a low price for real value in travel, enabling budget travelers to enjoy vacations that are rewarding and affordable. Some of these companies are nonprofits; others, though outwardly organized for commercial purposes, seem to pursue what they do as much for the love of travel as for profit. Here are some that are noteworthy:

* Wilderness Inquiry of Minneapolis, telephone (612) 676-9400 or (800) 728-0719, Internet https://www.wildernessinquiry.org, operates vacation trips costing less than $100 per person per day that enable physically handicapped travelers to enjoy challenging outdoor adventures by including them in expeditions undertaken by non-disabled individuals. Even on complex trips, costs have been kept to a level that permits average-income and even low-income travelers to participate.

* Sierra Club Outings, tel. (415) 977-5630, https://www.sierraclub.org. This conservationist of our natural heritage offers 330 outdoor trips each year, including walking, climbing, rafting, kayaking and sailing. Prices start at $40 per day, all in support of a 99-year-old effort to protect the environment.

* Escapes Unlimited, tel. (800) 243-7227. This 17-year-old California company helps Americans visit exotic destinations at unusually low costs (Bali for $829, Peru for $975, others). Its goal is learning and heightened social consciousness through travel.

* Capricorn Leisure, tel. (800) 426-6544, https://www.capricorn.net. Since the late 1980s, this for-profit company has played a unique role as a champion of travel--including budget-priced travel--to Central America. Capricorn regularly offers such deals as a five-night air-and-lodging package to Belize for $414 (from Miami); or $659 for six nights to Costa Rica, including air fare (also from Miami), hotel and car rental. Other destinations include Panama and Honduras.

* Evergreen Bed & Breakfast Club of Falls Church, Va., tel. (800) 962-2392, https://evergreenclub.com, has, for nearly 20 years, offered comfortable yet inexpensive lodgings for travelers 50 and older in 1,000 cities in North America. Members offer rooms in their homes to other members at the nominal nightly charge (they call it a “gratuity”) of $10 per single, $15 per double, including breakfast. The yearly membership fee is $60 single, $75 double.

* Council Travel, tel. (800) 226-8624, https://www.counciltravel.com, is the granddaddy of student travel in the United States, helping collegians plan their learning and adventures abroad for more than five decades. A clearinghouse for information on foreign study, work and volunteer programs, Council Travel also secures low-priced seats on flights and books clients on a variety of student-geared tours.

* Adventure Center of Emeryville, Calif., tel. (800) 228-8747 or (510) 654-1879, https://www.adventurecenter.com. By acting as the U.S. representative for budget-priced tour operators headquartered in Britain and Australia, and by keeping its own markup low, the 23-year-old Adventure Center enables cost-conscious Americans to enjoy inexpensive adventure tours. And because it performs its tasks efficiently and carefully, it permits you to safely--and conveniently--book tour departures thousands of miles away.

* Hostelling International, tel. (202) 783-6161, https://www.hiayh.org, is the former International Youth Hostel Federation, renamed to overcome a common misapprehension that its properties were open only to young persons; they are, in fact, used by persons of all ages. Of the 5,000 hostels in more than 70 countries, 217 are in the United States and Canada, where the charges run $8 to $24 per person per night for gender-separate, shared accommodations (occasionally for private rooms). These are warm gathering places where people mix and converse without barriers of race, religion, age or class.

* Intervac International Home Exchange, tel. (800) 756-HOME (756-4663) or (415) 435-3497, https://www.intervac.com. Lori Horne’s Intervac is typical of the vacation exchange clubs that enable American vacationers to swap their homes or apartments with people in other cities, here or abroad.