Responsible Traveler’s Guide Cambodia

#398
Title: Responsible Traveler’s Guide Cambodia
Authors: Pujita Nanette Mayeda and Friendship with Cambodia
Publisher: Wild Iris Press
Year: 2010
118 pages

The heart of this guidebook is an extensive, current list of where to stay/buy/tour that is based on factors like local ownership, commitment to a living wage or health benefits, hiring trainees or graduates of non-governmental organizations' (NGO) programs for poor or disenfranchised people, anti-sex tourism policies, training and scholarship programs, fair trade, ecological practices, and similar human rights/quality of life issues. For example, Lotus Blanc restaurant is a training site for restaurant/hospitality students who as children picked trash on the garbage tip. Cambodian Women's Crisis Center trains women who experienced domestic violence or were prostituted to make crafts. Villa Siem Reap hires graduates of an NGO training program to work in the hotel and restaurant, has a no-child prostitution policy, asks guests if they'd like to contribute to the fund that supplies water filters made by Trailblazer to orphanages and other agencies with no clean water, and runs tours of social service programs and local village markets and craft sales. In addition to the listings, there are short orienting essays on why not to give money directly to begging children, how to be respectful, the history of Cambodia, and others. There are color photos throughout.

Profits from the book go to Friendship with Cambodia. You can order the book directly from them to increase their margin: http://www.friendshipwithcambodia.org/