If trekking through jungles with leeches, cold showers, no flushing toilets and four-hour bus rides on bumpy roads full of potholes does not sound like your idea of a good holiday, i98FM breakfast personality Bianca Dye encourages you to think again.

Before heading to Indonesia, Dye was unsure it was the kind of adventure she would enjoy but a two-week experience in Sumatra changed her life so much, she wants to do it again and take 12 Wollongong people with her.

"I thought I would be much more of a princess but I was quite surprised," Dye said.

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"I just got my boots on and went for it. I loved it."

Dye pushed herself outside her comfort zone to see the plight of orangutans after watching a documentary about the critically endangered species.

Dye was so moved by the documentary, she found The Orangutan Project online, organised the Redheads for Redheads fund-raiser last September and become an ambassador for an organisation trying to save the primates, which are on the brink of extinction as a result of poaching and habitat destruction.

Native forests have been logged for palm oil and many orangutans have been killed for the tourist trade. There are now thought to be fewer than 7000 left in Sumatra.

Dye said trying to change a country's culture was not likely to work because logging for palm oil gave people jobs and kept food on the table for many families.

"What the Orangutan Foundation and other groups are trying to do is protect areas of land ... so when we do, hopefully, save the species and get the population back up to around 20,000, they have got somewhere safe to live."

Dye said she had been shocked to discover many orangutans had their hands chopped off to be sold to the tourism trade.

"Who buys an orangutan's hand? It makes me feel sick," Dye said.

"They share 97 per cent of their DNA with us. They are so like human beings."

The Orangutan Project was also setting up quarantine areas for orphaned orangutans and funding a program to educate the locals not to see orangutans as meat or a product to sell.

Dye was keen to raise awareness in the corporate world and educate companies about the importance of not using products that came from areas that caused an impact on the orangutan population.

"And we want people to be able to make an educated choice and know what is in the product they are buying," she said.

Dye believed if more people went on the eco-friendly trip she experienced, more would want to help save the primates.

"It is a holiday with a conscience ... for people who want to give back on their holidays," she said.

"I paid and went to Sumatra with Orangutan Odysseys. It was only $1500 but then you raise money on top of that to give as a donation. Last year, I raised about $4500."

She described her first encounter with an orangutan as a moving moment.

Dye encouraged people to adopt an orangutan for $50 a year or go here to make a donation or sponsor one.

"I would also like to go back next year and it would be great to take some people from Wollongong," she said. "If anyone is interested, just contact me.

"If I get enough people, we will do it. You only need 12 for a trip and it will change your life."