Colum­nist Carol Wise talks about travel for the Seat­tle Times. Wise asks the ques­tion if we really do need more stuff this hol­i­day sea­son, and has a cou­ple of ideas on how to give a gift that gives back.

Help some­one inter­ested in world travel con­nect with a sweet-potato seller in Tan­za­nia or a butcher in Nicaragua through Kiva.org. This is the San Fran­cisco non­profit that uses the Inter­net to link small lenders with entre­pre­neurs in 187 coun­tries, includ­ing the United States.

Gift cer­tifi­cates (www.kiva.org) for $25 are avail­able for loans that can be made to small busi­ness peo­ple whose bio, pic­tures and busi­ness appear on the site.

Kiva had some explain­ing to do recently after a blog­ger raised ques­tions about how funds are dis­bursed by the micro­fi­nance orga­ni­za­tions with whom Kiva part­ners. Details are in the “About” sec­tion on the Kiva Web site. Click on “Kiva Blog.”
…

Shop for art and hand­i­crafts at stores ded­i­cated to sup­port­ing fair wages and work­ing con­di­tions for arti­sans in poor coun­tries. The own­ers of these “fair trade” shops are usu­ally well-traveled with first­hand knowl­edge of the coun­try and crafts people.

The pos­si­bil­i­ties are more than I have room to list, so please add your own sug­ges­tions in the “com­ments” sec­tion online at the end of this column.

Among my favorite holiday-shopping stops is Ten Thou­sand Vil­lages, 6417 Roo­sevelt Way N.E., Seat­tle, where Men­non­ite Church vol­un­teers run a store stocked with the work of arti­san groups in 38 countries.

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