Long term volunteering abroad?

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I was wondering if anyone has done such a thing.. I'm thinking of quitting my job and volunteering in Europe or somewhere for say.. 6 months or so.. kind of a big break, but I'm tired of the same old and have done very little in the past decade or so. Only concern will be getting a job again when I'm done ofcourse...

Things you should ask yourself- if you quit your current job will you lose benefits such as medical insurance and retirement plan? How close are you to retirement? How healthy are you? Healthcare is very expensive in Europe and the waiting list to see a doc can be months or even a year for specialists according to what friends overseas have told me.

If you go to Europe- are you sure you can handle it as an Aspie? If you are prone to emotional outbursts and meltdowns you might think twice about leaving the US. A wild outburst as a foreigner might land your butt in jail with no recourse to get out.

Also how well do you adapt? Someone who fixates on certain foods might meltdown big time if they go overseas and find the only foods they will eat are not available.

You haven't posted here much so we don't know much about you.

I can only tell you from my experience that volunteering and working in foreign countries is the most fulfilling thing I've ever done.

Dude, don't work for free!

I've thought of doing this myself, but the financial aspect wasn't attractive. For all the overseas volunteering opportunities that I've seen it's the volunteer that finances the entire opportunity. Also I realized that I'm more attracted to the overseas travel than the actual volunteering.

Volunteering is something that I'm really considering as a selfless activity, but a local opportunity is more practical for my resources. I'm more than willing to give my time. My money is another matter entirely. You may also be interested in leaning vacations. Try -
http://www.shawguides.com/

He doesn't say, but he might be offered housing and other amenities for the volunteer work. Housing, access to the Internet, and some small spending money (100-200$) per month sounds good to me for a few years of labor. If one were married or had kids, especially, it would be more difficult though.

Yeah but he can have the same experiences and get paid for it by teaching english abroad. I did it. It was great. The onyl reason I came back was to get on with my real life...my timein china was like a permanent vacation

I've spent a semester in a Western European country and I'm currently spending one in another one, as an exchange student. I'm not from the US but maybe I could be of use. Ask away if you want to know specific things. (Of course, the fact that I'm an exchange student means my place is still waiting for me when I go home! I don't know if I dared leave if it meant having to look for a new job, though I don't know about your job prospects.)

Ticker:
I don't think anyone could "land in jail" in Western/Northern Europe with outbursts unless they physically attacked passers-by. And even still (I haven't attacked people myself here, so I can't tell, but I did have public meltdowns, though not on the scale I used to have in my home country - but I think even if you attacked people, you would be taken to an acute mental ward and not jail. Which might be worse, I dunno!) Especially not in Northern Europe. Overall I found that people here treat me much better than in my native country (a developing country), and I think my behavior is mentally filed under "Weird Unpredictable Foreigner" and not "Totally Insane Person" as it seemed to be the case when I lived at home. Sometimes people are condescending - not in Northern Europe though, they make huge efforts to be PC, you might actually find it annoying -, but since you're from a developed country they probably won't be condescending to you. (They might make remarks at Bush and US foreign policy, though.)