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Category: Giving back

  • Project: Help Rohingya Refugees

    Update: Donations were matched by the Canadian government till September 28th, 2017. We raised $400 which was doubled, so a total of $800 was donated! As Nature PhotoHikes continues to contribute part of its proceeds to various causes, our next project is helping Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The conflict in Myanmar has forced over 415,000…

  • Our next Project – Helping local refugee youth

    Nature PhotoHikes’ events raise awareness and funds for various charities. Last year’s events helped raise over $1,200 for Take a Hike Foundation, which engages at-risk youth through adventure-based learning, academics, therapy, and community involvement. The reason Take a Hike Foundation resonated with our philosophy is the powerful healing effect of nature and the outdoors on our…

  • A Recap of our Fall and Winter Tours

    The last eight months brought many wonderful memories…of amazing trips and great friendships! It wasn’t easy to organize these events – we had the wettest and coldest fall and winter in over sixty years; and I had to postpone more events in the last six months than I did in the past ten years As…

  • Donate to the Alberta Fires Appeal

    As a community that thrives on the outdoors and what nature has to offer, we’re reminded of its wrath and power in times like these. Affecting an area hundred times the size of Calgary, the fire has reached such epic proportions that no amount of resources, money, infrastructure or oil can stop it, except one…

  • Our next Project: Take a Hike Youth Foundation

    Besides the obvious – our love for the outdoors – we’re a community first and foremost! Which includes friends and family, students and professionals, travelers and locals. Bringing people together is our motto, but we also like to give back. One of the main goals of Nature PhotoHikes events is to raise awareness and funds…

  • Hiking for Syrian Children Raises over $5,300!

    The Syrian conflict, now in its fifth year, has cost more than 200,000 lives and displaced 6.5 million refugees. The U.N. and Amnesty International call the crisis the worst since WWII, making it the worst humanitarian disaster of our era. Two years ago I left Vancouver for Istanbul, Turkey, to help with humanitarian efforts within…

  • Helping the homeless while traveling

    I’ve visited some amazing places during my travels but also witnessed a lot of poverty. Being sensitive to particularly child beggars, I’m always in conflict regarding how to help. Regardless of whether you’re in Istanbul, the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, or the ‘downtown eastside’ of Vancouver, we rightly feel empathy for every homeless person we come across.…

  • Project: Helping farmers in Cinque Terre after Floods

    As someone who’s travelled to 56 plus countries, I often get asked about my favourite place. Cinque Terre in Italy easily takes a top 3 spot. However, aside from the amazing scenery and friendly locals, another thing made this trip very memorable. Having visited this collection of 5 coastal villages in April 2014, I was…

  • Thoughts on ‘Meaningful Travel’ and Volunteerism

    One of my goals of traveling is to do it with a sense of purpose, rather than just checking off a bucket list of places to visit. Of course, any travel is guaranteed to change the way we live and see the world around us. But instead of using my privilege as a traveler to just…

  • Project: Helping the homeless of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

    Update: We raised $650 in 2016 and similar amount in 2013. In addition, our hiking community has volunteered once a month to feed the homeless for the past 12 years. We start our hiking and charity program locally through Feed the Hungry/Peace Meal project. Peace Meal has continuously served lunch once a month in the…