Travel is making all the difference in lives and places across the planet

Some of the things I did in Rwanda would not be everyone's idea of a good time, such as hacking away for several hours at rich, dark, moist African soil with a hoe. But there we were, Americans and Rwandans, participating in a mandatory community service day. I confess to moments of doubt. What real difference could we be making? An expat living in Kigali, the capital, reassured me: "It's great that the Rwandans see the outside world validating their customs, their efforts at social reconciliation."

And, I have to admit, we had a good time. We met Rwandan villagers we otherwise never would have encountered, had conversations (in broken French) that we never would have had, and, most important, had the satisfaction of feeling that we had helped, however little.

I'd never traveled like this before, with this sort of purpose. Many of our readers, it turns out, have already found the same satisfaction. Starting this month, you can go to makeadifference.cntraveler.com and see their stirring stories of trips-with-a-mission—to New Orleans, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Thailand, Guatemala, and more. The way that travel can vividly personalize the needs of others is also the message from Matt Damon, who believes that "we are about to turn a wonderful corner and close this chapter of aggression, where the only American face that people see on foreign soil is the face of a soldier…When you see your fellow Americans feeding people or getting clean water or saving lives, you are really seeing the best of us…the best of who we are—and who we should be."

That, I would like to think, defines a new kind of soft power in which we can all have a role—hence the theme of this issue, the power of travel: travel as the enabler, the starting point, of so much that can be done in the world. If there are limits to what one person can achieve in philanthropy, Jeffrey Sachs seems intent on finding where they are. As we report, the indefatigable economist and ace networker (Damon is one of his disciples) has been using his own soft power globally, with striking results. Then we come to the remarkable work of the travel industry itself. Our 2008 World Savers Awards reflect a huge increase in the participation of the hotels, airlines, cruise lines, and tour operators that step up to the challenges of social responsibility.

As I said, I enjoyed getting down and dirty in Africa, but if for whatever reason you can't manage that, you can still do good works when you spend your travel dollars with philanthropically minded companies like those celebrated in World Savers. There is also, as we show in Stop Press, a tangible peace dividend for travelers as formerly war-torn parts of the world dust off their many enticements. Now—as I can personally attest—there is an equally potent good-works dividend, one that accrues not just to the host country but to the traveler.