By Mara Gorman - The Mother of All Trips

The holidays are of naturally a time when we move back and forth between thankfulness for all the gifts we have in our own lives and thoughts about what we can do for other people. So as American Thanksgiving approaches, we thought it would appropriate for our family holiday travel blog carnival to take a look at how all of us give back at this time of year.

Here at Best Family Travel Advice, giving back around the holidays means Passports With Purpose. This annual travel blogging fundraiser that was the brainchild of two of our own Best Family Travel experts, Debbie Dubrow and Michelle Duffy. Along with Pam Mandel of Nerd’s Eye View and Beth Whitman of Wanderlust and Lipstick, these women decided that a great way to return some of the love and good karma they had received over many miles and years of travel was to use their blogs and their relationships in the online community as platforms to raise money. Two years ago PWP (as it is affectionately known) raised money for Heifer International. Last year we built a school in Cambodia (for pictures, see here). This year the goal is even more ambitious: To raise $50,000 and build an entire village in India in partnership with Friends of Lafti.

For more than 50 years, LAFTI has been helping the poorest of the poor in India. For about $2,000, LAFTI can build a home, for which the land title is given to the woman of the household. The hope for Passports With Purpose this year is to raise enough money to build approximately 25 homes to create the Passports Village in Karunganni, located in the state of Tamil Nadu in southeastern India.

So it is with great pleasure that today we announce the fabulous Best Family Travel Advice prize for the 2010 Passports With Purpose raffle: A 5-night stay at any of the nine Paradise by Marriott resorts in the Caribbean and Mexico!*

That’s right – you could win a stay in Aruba…Cancun…Grand Cayman…or one of six other swoon-worthy locations. And as fantastic as this prize is, it’s far from the only prize you can bring home. In fact, from gear to getaways there are lots of chances to win. Every $10 that you donate gets you once chance toward the prize of your choice. And it’s up to you – you can donate $50 and split your chances among five different prizes or put all your money toward one. You can even make the donations in someone else’s honor (they make great holiday gifts)! All donations are tax deductible.

To browse the other prizes and purchase chances to win, please visit the Passports With Purpose website between today and December 13, 2010 .

We hope that you are inspired by this post to donate to Passports with Purpose. If you’re a participating Passports blogger please feel free to share the link to your prize post below. And for everyone else, we’d love to know your answer to the following question: What do you do over the holidays to give back? Does it relate to your travels?

If you’d like to share a link, use the form below to do so, remembering please to link back to this post from your post. For more details see the About the Best Family Travel Holiday Blog Carnival page.

Many, many thanks to Marriott Resorts for generously donating this prize (and for letting us use that amazing picture). Marriott’s generosity to Passports with Purpose through best Family Travel Advice and other travel sites is a clear indicator of the company’s desire to make the world a better place.

*Prize is subject to availability and blackout dates.