Volunteer on the Road

The Gulf Coast, though, was desperate for able bodies after the hurricane. "People from outside the state have come in droves, rolled up their sleeves, and helped us get our lives back together," says Bill Stallworth, a Biloxi city council member who set up a command center to handle the influx of volunteers. According to recent research by Independent Sector, a nonprofit coalition of charities and foundations, each of those volunteers saved the region about $18 an hour. They also gave a direct boost to the local economy. Johnson's crew bought all of their supplies on-site, paying particular attention to independent stores and restaurants—places that would benefit from a spike in business.

But these visitors have meant something more than cash and free labor. "When you go inside a moldy, wet house, all messed up, you pull that debris out and put it by the side of the road, you give something to that family that can't be measured," Stallworth explains. "You pulled all the despair out and replaced it with hope."

Tourists are not going to rebuild the Gulf Coast, develop poor nations, or spread English to remote communities. But put to the right kind of work in the right place, they can help, and see the world—even the United States—from a rare perspective.

Douglas McGray is a fellow at the New America Foundation. He has written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine, and West.