UR TV CAST

By train, Eurostar (08705 186 186; www.eurostar ) will get you from London to Leiden via Brussels in five or six hours for as little as £69.GET YOUR BEARINGSThe city’s form is dictated by two types of waterways. From Schiphol Airport, Leiden’s smart, modern station (1) is 16 minutes on the frequent fast train service, for a fare of €4.90 (£3.80) each way. The events are as diverse as a Rembrandt ice sculpture exhibition and a musical of his life. At any time Leiden is a refreshing change from the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam.TOUCH DOWN
The obvious gateway is Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, which you can reach on British Airways (0870 850 9 850; www.ba ), Bmibaby (0870 264 2229; www.bmibaby ), easyJet (0870 600 0000; www.easyJet ), Jet2 (0870 737 82 82; www.jet2 ), KLM UK (08705 074 074; www.klm ) and ScotAirways (08706 060707; www.scotairways ). This year the city celebrates the 400th anniversary of the birth of its most famous son: the artist Rembrandt van Rijn. Although the website www.gap-year is aimed at longer placements, it lists many organisations offering short projects.Additional research by Jenny Minard. WHY GO NOW?

Leiden was Holland’s first university city, and today offers an unbeatable combination of characterful architecture, high-quality museums and picturesque canals.

For charity challenges, Blood Sweat & Charity by Nick Stanhope (Eye Books, £12.99) distils the experience of hundreds of experts and participants. The advertising pages of Wanderlust and Geographical magazines contain many useful ideas.The only national database of volunteering opportunities at home and abroad is operated by YouthNet (020-7226 8008; www.do-it .uk), and InterVol (0845 601 4008; www.intervol .uk) matches skills and preferences with countries and opportunities. Contributions range from £1,250 to £1,500.WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE? The booklet Year Out (01380 816696; www.yearoutgroup ) has a comprehensive list of questions that can be asked of any volunteer holiday. Others set no limit providing you are able to obtain travel insurance.Families with children aged 11 or over are welcomed on several Earthwatch expeditions (01865 318831; www.earthwatch ), investigating an ancient civilisation on the Mississippi, the coastal ecology of the Bahamas and a mammoth graveyard in South Dakota (13 years up). Some stipulate an upper limit, largely because of insurance reasons; 81 is the limit for BTCV holidays, for example, unless a medical questionnaire can be satisfactorily completed. The organisation’s most popular project is volunteering at a Kenyan orphanage, followed by voluntary work in India.IS THERE AN AGE LIMIT? There is usually a lower age limit for overseas trips of 18; on those that accept younger people, parental consent is often needed.

Gap Year for Grown Ups (01892 701881; www.gapyearforgrownups.co.uk) offers placements of four weeks and upwards. You can help inner-city children or work on farms – in return for paying your board and lodging.For more structured planning, the Expedition Advisory Service at the Royal Geographical Society (020-7591 3030; www.rgs /eac) has unrivalled experience to draw upon for those wanting to make their own arrangements.WHAT ABOUT LONGER PLACEMENTS?One advantage is that the longer the stay, the cheaper the cost per day or week. For example, in Peru and Ecuador the South American Explorer’s Club ( www.saexplorers ) has lots of volunteering projects coordinated from its offices in Lima, Cusco or Quito. Further afield, you can help make recordings of Russian folk music as part of the work assisting an ethnomusicologist in the field (12 days, £1,050) or monitor crocodiles at night in the wetland habitat of Monte Cabaniguan in eastern Cuba (14 days, £1,525).CAN I ORGANISE A TRIP MYSELF?Scientific expeditions are not easy to arrange, but many other options are open for “casual” volunteering as part of backpacking trips. Costs start at £499 for a five-day trip from a UK port, and nearly all voyages are less than two weeks. A historic Norwegian wooden fishing vessel is home for 12-day dolphin-monitoring expeditions from Almeria on the south coast of Spain, offered by Earthwatch (01865 318831; www.earthwatch ) from £995.THAT SOUNDS SCIENTIFICYes, the Earthwatch Institute is the largest provider of field assistants to scientific teams. It offers 137 different projects worldwide that address such issues as conflict between humans and wildlife, endangered species and habitats, climate change and resource management.

In Britain you can study mammals in an Oxfordshire wood (six days, £315), join a grey seal survey in Cornwall (eight days, £495) or collect data on minke whales and bottlenose dolphins off the Aberdeenshire coast (12 days, £695). There are no passengers aboard and everyone takes part in crewing the ships to the limit of their abilities. The Tenacious sails in British coastal waters while the Lord Nelson ventures as far as Genoa and Antwerp. Offered by Global Vision (0870 608 8898; www.gvi.co.uk), it costs £1,195 including transfers from Tefe airport.You can experience life under canvas while looking after a less able-bodied shipmate aboard the two tall ships operated by the Jubilee Sailing Trust (0870 443 5783; www.jst .uk).