I’m slowly finding places that are the sort of places that I would love to work in - i.e. ecotourism for the cash-strapped. I already wrote about Koeye Lodge, and last week I read in British Columbia magazine about Mountain Hostel in the Kootenays.

This is a proper hostel - all bunk-beds, shared bathrooms and bring-your-own food. The difference is that it is extremely eco-friendly and based in a wilderness setting (you can explore on your own or pay for a guide to take you to the good hiking spots). It is in the Incomappleux Valley in the Kootenays, which I had never heard of (always a good thing, you know you’re going somewhere rare and special in BC if I haven’t heard of it), and is one of BC’s last pieces of Inland Temperate Rainforest.

The place looks spectacular and is so remote that a rock slide closed the road to the hostel back in 2005 and it is only just being repaired. All this time the owner of the hostel has had a vehicle at either end of the rock slide so that he can get supplies (including petrol for his cut-off vehicle) from the nearest town, clamber over the rockslide with it and then take the supplies to the hostel - guests at the hostel drive as far as they can and park up then get shuttled to the hostel by the owner.

Guess what? I really want to visit. And having a quick look at their website has brought up two possibilities: 1) Get some friends to join us for a long weekend away there and/or 2) Ask Graham if he’d be interested in the live/work option mentioned on the website next year (they are on the lookout for couples who will stay for 2 or 3 weeks and work a bit, play a bit - perfect experience for me!).

I think I have found the perfect volunteer opportunity, if they will take me on. Tourism Vancouver recruits volunteers to serve as Greeters/Visitor Counsellors. As long as I can get my head around the sales aspect of it (which has always been a bugbear of mine - I like to tell people of all the great things to see and do in Vancouver and BC regardless of if the particular company/tour operator/hotel is paying for us to promote them), I think I’d be perfect at it. I love meeting people from all different backgrounds, I love showing off Vancouver, I love helping people to enjoy themselves and I’m very good at researching questions people ask of me (in fact I’m far better at that than any of the Visitor Counsellors I’ve ever met in this country).

If you are a successful applicant you go through some serious training and orientation:

“All volunteers are required to complete a mandatory 3-day provincial certification training program called Tourism Visitor Information Counsellor training.

During this training, volunteers receive an introduction to Tourism Vancouver’s customer service expectations, a review of a variety of travel counseling tools, and an orientation to the various aspects of the visitor centres. Following this classroom style training volunteers receive additional on-site orientation as well as 1-day Superhost training. After the completion of 40 hours of on-site counseling experience volunteers receive a performance evaluation which is the final step in completing the requirements of Tourism Visitor Information Counsellor Certification.

In addition to the initial training, in-house workshops and member product familiarization tours are organized as part of Tourism Vancouver’s commitment to on-going training and product knowledge development.“

The only problem is that because they spend so much time training you, you need you to commit for 4 hours a week for a minimum of a year, which sounds very doable but when you are working full-time that means you have 4 hours sheared off your weekend every single week, making it extremely difficult to go away for the weekend and explore! I’m going to have to contact them to see if there are any options for me to do evening shifts instead. I thoroughly doubt it, though, so maybe Saturday mornings are doable - if I can get out by 12.30 then I haven’t lost that much of the weekend and can still go on camping trips etc.