It’s been over three months since Japan was wracked by devastating earthquakes and a massive tsunami. While the country’s troubles have mostly faded from the headlines, they are far from over. In fact, more than 11,000 people are still stranded, with no place to call home.<\/p>\n
If you want to visit the country in person to help, Inside Japan has the tour for you (via Jaunted). The four-day package includes a trip to hard-hit Tohoku to work on disaster cleanup with RQ Citizens Disaster Relief Network Japan. You’ll be doing grunt work: stuff like clearing roads and cleaning up houses.<\/p>\n
For \u00a3450, or about $730, you’ll get 3 nights accommodation in a shared room with 2 to 6 people, 3 square meals a day, an English-speaking guide, equipment and protective gear. You’ll need to pay for your own international flight and to get to the meeting place in Tokyo’s Shimbashi Station.<\/p>\n
To take this tour, you’ll need a big heart, a strong back and a willingness to get dirty. You’ll also need a passport. Right now, it’s taking about six weeks to get a passport application processed if you use standard processing. If you don’t already have a passport and you’d like to go to Japan this summer, ordering express passport processing instead would be a prudent move on your part.<\/p>\n
Express passport processing costs an additional $60 and cuts processing time down to about three weeks. That’s fine if you’re leaving in August, but if you book a trip in July you may need it even faster. In that case, you have two options: request an appointment at one of twenty-four regional passport offices, or use a private passport expediting company like RushMyPassport. We hand-deliver your passport application to the Department of State for processing in as little as 24 hours, with no need to make an appointment or wait in line at a passport agency office.<\/p>\n