By Heather Boerner

Doesn’t it just seem sometimes like the time you most need a vacation is when you can least afford to take one?

If you’re one of the thousands of Americans curtailing travel plans to save some extra money, the travelers you’ll read about here have one question for you: What if you could cut costs and do something good for the planet and your community?

It turns out that it’s not only possible but a great way to avoid the tourist traps and really get your hands dirty doing something good for others. And because few of these trips involve staying in environmentally wasteful hotels, the carbon footprint of many trips is next to nil.

Check out these new ways to travel and ways to get involved:

Homestay

Shel Horowitz has been sleeping on strangers’ floors, couches and luxury guest suites for decades now. In the process, he’s met peace activists, ecologists and friends with whom his family still interacts.

But he’s not just couch surfing. He’s homestaying, a travel option that runs the gamut from traditional foreign-exchange visits for students to the peace outreach program Horowitz has been involved in since 1983, Servas. The way he sees it, he’s doing his part to spread cross-cultural understanding while making travel affordable.

There’s the time he visited Colorado on a homestay and met a couple who gave him a private tour of their collection of Native American art. There’s last year, when he stayed with the director of Guatamala’s National Park Service as well as a man who’d been active in sustainable development work in the country’s highlands for years. Then there’s the time, years ago, when he traveled to Mexico during the Reagan administration and did his part to dispel the myth that all Americans supported Reagan’s involvement in Central American civil wars.

“You get such a richer experience traveling with homestay,” he says. “I’ll stay with someone who will take me to places I’d never see otherwise. Or they’ll say, ‘Don’t go there. It’s a tourist trap.’”

There are a few things to keep in mind however, says Horowitz, who lives in a farmhouse in Hadley, Massachusetts: First, the average Servas homestay is only two or three nights. More than that, and consider using a different network and paying your host for their hospitality. Second, don’t expect to experience the nightlife wherever you’re visiting, since you’ll be expected to stay home and spend time with your hosts at night. Finally, be prepared for any kind of accommodations.

“You have to be somewhat adventurous, since you don’t know what you’ll get with your visit ahead of time,” he says. “I’ve experienced everything from, ‘Let me move these papers off the floor so you can unroll your sleeping bags,’ to a private guest house.”

To join Servas, you’ll need to pay a membership fee ($50 for U.S.-only travel and $85 for international travel, according to the Web site) and a deposit on lists of potential hosts. And be aware that most other homestay programs require you to pay your host for what’s typically a longer-term visit.