(MONEY Magazine) – CHARITY BREAK Before your kid books a trip to Daytona or Cancun, suggest a volunteer vacation. Projects range from building schools to planting trees, and last anywhere from one week to four. Council Exchanges, the nonprofit division of the student-oriented Council Travel, arranges the trips, which typically run $300 to $600, not including air fare. Past projects have included reforestation in Ecuador, farming in the Czech Republic and restoring coastal turtle habitats in Costa Rica. Visit www.councilexchanges.org or call 888-268-6245.

TEXTBOOK BARGAINS For students who want to avoid the long lines and big bills at the campus bookstore, there's Bestbookbuys.com, an online-shopping bot that compares prices at 25 online bookstores and reports the cost (including shipping and sales tax) for new and used books. We found a new copy of Ross L. Finney's Calculus ($124 retail) for $109, and Henry Gleitman's Psychology ($79 retail) for $70. Just make sure you get the right editions! When finals are over, use the site to sell the books back.

LISTEN UP The often cheap, flimsy headphones tossed in with portable music devices sound, well, cheap and flimsy--an insult to clever devices capable of better sound. Luckily, upgrading doesn't require an audiophile's budget. At $30, the lightweight Koss SportaPro sounds fuller--hitting both high and low frequencies more accurately--than any other portable headphones we've tried, and outperforms bigger, more expensive sets. Plus, it folds up for stuffing in your bag. Visit www.koss.com. For those willing to spend more, the $70 Grado Labs SR-60 boasts a wider range of sound reproduction than most headphones selling for $100 or more. And the bulky old-school design is so unsporty it's hip. Order a pair at www.audioadvisor.com.

STUDENT TRAVEL DEALS AirTran offers $52 X-Fares standby flights for 18-to-22-year-olds. You can travel only Monday through Thursday and bring one piece of carry-on luggage. The deal ends Dec. 18. Call 800-247-8726

--Travelers under 25 can buy bundles of four one-way tickets between New York and Washington or Boston on Delta for $247. Call 800-221-1212.

--Sign up for a $20-a-year Student Advantage card and get four $20 coupons for US Airways flights. Use the card to pay for your Amtrak and Greyhound tickets and get 15% off. Call 877-256-4672 or visit www.studentadvantage.com.

UNFLAPPABLE SOUNDS Shaking or bouncing Sony's new CD Walkmans won't make them skip. They house the company's second go-around at its "G-Protection" technology, which works by almost instantly readjusting the laser reader to compensate for sudden jolts. The best value is the $80 D-EJ621, which uses the same mechanism as the higher-priced models. The pinky-thin $200 D-EJ925 comes with rechargeable batteries.

Reported by Lenora Chu, Josette Compton, Jason Grunberg, Megan Johnston and Jeff Nash