<p>nyc, I agree completely. My husband and I have made that very argument many times to an organization we belong to, but it has fallen on deaf ears. People like the idea of their kids traveling on someone else's dime, coming home to talk about how the experience changed them forever while showing their photos which represent only the most extreme of conditions, and then listing on their resume that they built homes on a garbage dump in Mexico or repaired some indigent family's home in Appalachia. To them, the important thing is their kid's experience--it's really just another type of summer camp. My husband grew up in a third world country that was and still is very popular with missionaries, and thus is quite cynical about this sort of thing. But these trips have become so popular that some charitable organizations are becoming rather overwhelmed handling the influx of "helpers."</p>