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For American identical twins, Lia and Katrina Engelsted, spending three months volunteering on Conservation Volunteers’ projects throughout Australia enriched their travel experience. The Rio Tinto funded Future Volunteers program in Western Australia was among their many adventures.

The 19-year-old sisters from Massachusetts explain they wanted a structured vacation that allowed them to do some conservation work along the way.

“We thought that working with Conservation Volunteers would be a great way to understand the impact humans have on the environment and to do our bit to help,” says Katrina.

“We arrived in early September of 2006 and over several months worked on 15 projects in Broome, Cairns and Brisbane.

“Our first project was turtle monitoring in Broome with the Future Volunteers program, which was just amazing - we hung out all day and relaxed and at night we monitored turtles.

“We knew we were working in an area where there were crocodiles, which added an element of danger and excitement!

“With Future Volunteers we also did ‘toad busting’ in the Northern Territory and our final project back in Broome was at Lake Gregory – a beautiful location known for bird tourism. It really felt like classic, outback bush Australia.