Here is a list of festivals and events taking place throughout Ontario. You can choose whatever suits you.

Family Day Geocaching Event

Date: December 21,2022 Admission: $24.35

The event will start with an introduction to geocaching(地理寻宝). After one practice, we’ll review important geocaching rules, helpful clues, and safety considerations. All equipment is provided. Children under 12 must be accompanied by paying adults.

Contact: Shawn Hermans, Email: info@geocachecanada.com, Phone: 4164026746

Winter Glow

Date: December 4-27, 2022, 5:30 p. m.——11:00 p. m. Admission: $40 per person

Experience a family-friendly outdoor winter festival as you celebrate the magic of winter with ice and snow sculptures, life size snow globes, light show and more!

Contact: Julie, Email: julie@ellevents.ca, Phone: 6477993187

Barrie Winterfest

Date: February 4-5, 2023,10:00a. m.-5:00 a. m.

Grab your gloves and celebrate winter! Enjoy spectacular ice & snow sculptures, lumberjack(伐木工) shows, polar bear dip, family entertainment, drop-in activities, pancake breakfast, and skating.

Contact: Arin Donnelly, Email: arin.donnelly@barrie.ca, Phone: (705) 7394285

Bridges Festival

Date: December 12-14, 2022 Admission: $0-35

Puppetry(木偶戏) and the animation of inanimate objects are some of the oldest art forms known to humans. But giving life to lifeless objects is not an art form of the past. We are proud to present world class puppetry and animation shorts to local audiences in Mississauga.

Contact: Aimee Poulin, Email: info@cranecreations.ca, Phone: 5149268781

Optional Tours Available in Langkawi

Did you watch the popular TV series Meet Yourself during your winter vacation? In the TV series, the heroine Xu Hongdou travels to a village in Yunnan province and volunteers at a local café. She gets free meals in return. As the show finds a growing audience, volunteer travel — an old yet — modern form of travel similar to Xu’s type of work—has attracted more attention.

Volunteer travel refers to taking a trip where all or part of the purpose of the trip is to participate in an arranged service opportunity to help others, according to Wise Tour, an online provider of tourist information. During the trip, volunteer travelers often provide services like teaching, cooking, animal caring, and cultural activities. In exchange for their help, the volunteers may get free or discounted accommodation, meals and laundry, activities, or classes.

It seems as if these long journeys could only be made possible in recent years by modern transportation. Nevertheless, volunteer travel dates back to the 1960s, when Alec Dickson and his wife Mora from the UK founded Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), an international volunteer organization.

Traditionally, the volunteer activities take place in a foreign country. However, just as what Meet Yourself describes, more volunteer trips have taken place within the same countries or regions the volunteer originate from in recent years. Sanlian Lifeweek magazine commented that volunteer projects in rural areas are now attracting more urban visitors as a break from the fast and stressful pace of urban living. Yang Yan, a founder of a volunteer platform, told the magazine that it has indeed been a growing trend for urban residents to volunteer in rural areas.

People try volunteer travel for several reasons. By working voluntarily while traveling, travelers may make a real, positive impact on the world. The services volunteers provide can be through charities with lower costs for the communities they serve. Another benefit of volunteer travel is that it helps urban dwellers to get a taste of rural life. For those who are sick of urban pressure but can’t make up their minds whether to move permanently to the countryside, volunteer travel can catch some relief from their busy lives, while rural communities also benefit by receiving more customers for local tourism industries and temporary high-quality labor.