ROADMONKEY PIONEERS “ADVENTURE PHILANTHROPY” – A NEW WAY TO TRAVEL

Expeditions Combine Rugged Adventure with Hands-on Volunteer Work

NEW YORK, NY – April 28, 2009 – Roadmonkey (www.roadmonkey.net), an adventure 

philanthropy company that blends rugged outdoor travel with organized volunteer work, 

today announced 2009 expeditions to Mt. Kilimanjaro and Vietnam, 

and groundbreaking 2010 expeditions to Peru and Cuba. 

Roadmonkey was created in 2008 by a New York Times reporter and Iraq war correspondent, Paul von Zielbauer, to allow people to become hands-on adventure philanthropists. Roadmonkey travel is physically challenging, intellectually stimulating and, by completing meaningful volunteer projects that help people in need, deeply gratifying. With “planned serendipity” as a guiding principle, Roadmonkey is designed for explorers on a journey, not tourists on a schedule. All expeditions are limited to 10 people.

“Adventure philanthropy allows anyone with the energy and desire to push themselves physically while creating positive change for people in need,” said Roadmonkey founder, Paul von Zielbauer. “In an era of monumental economic changes, many of us have felt the urge to reconnect to something larger than ourselves, and Roadmonkey provides a way for people to do that in an exciting, meaningful way.”

In June, Roadmonkey heads to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest point in Africa. Descending the mountain, the expedition moves to a village near Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania’s capital, to build a clean drinking water system and paint classrooms at a school for 120 impoverished children. Roadmonkey’s non-profit partner in Tanzania is The Bibi Jann Children’s Care Trust, www.bibjann.org.

Roadmonkey pioneered adventure philanthropy with a two-week cycling and playground-building expedition through Vietnam in November 2008; Team Roadmonkey team pedaled 450-miles through northwest Vietnam and then built a playground at an orphanage, west of Hanoi. Roadmonkey returns to Vietnam in November 2009, to cycle the Ho Chi Minh trail and build an organic farm at a school for ethnic minority students. Next year’s expeditions head to Peru – to river kayak and build eco-friendly cooking stoves for indigenous people – and Cuba – to dive the Caribbean and build a playground for orphans outside Havana.

To fund its custom-designed volunteer projects, Roadmonkey asks members of each expedition to raise tax-deductible donations through their own networks. Those charitable contributions provide clean drinking water, playgrounds and better classrooms for children in Vietnam, Tanzania, Peru and Cuba.