Volunteer tourism, transformative learning and its impacts on careers: The case of Brazilian volunteers

This study investigates how volunteer tourism's critical events can elicit reflections about participant's careers and lead to personal/professional. Content analysis of qualitative data obtained from semistructured interviews with 20 Brazilian volunteers suggests that adverse conditions of the destination, unusual situations faced during the program, and culture shock experienced at the host community, triggered transformative learning processes involving changes in social‐linguistic, psychological, and moral‐ethical perspectives, often interwoven. Research also suggests that volunteer tourism contributes to the practitioner's career sustainability and employability, as well as to careers re‐evaluations resulting from new behaviors and worldviews developed during their experience.