Workaway

Workaway has really been a defining feature of my gap year so I feel it deserves a whole blog post of its own. The platform has allowed me to have so many unique experiences this year and to meet lots of wonderful people from all over the world.

What is Workaway?

Workaway is an online platform connecting travellers with hosts to promote cultural exchange, volunteering and sustainable travel. Hosts can be anybody at all who has some work they want done (charity groups, families, individuals, businesses, farms). Hosts provide food and accommodation to travellers in exchange for approximately five hours of work five days a week. Travellers may stay for a few days, a few weeks or even several months depending on the agreement made with the host. It cost me around 30€ to create an account for the year.

Where has it taken me?

I have stayed with a total of eight different Workaway hosts this year and I would not consider a single one to be a negative experience. Through Workaway I volunteered for a hobby farm in Belgium, two B&Bs and an organic farm in France, a ski hostel and a small family in Switzerland, an asparagus farm in Italy and a community farm in Ontario. I found myself in places I would never have thought to go to and making friends with people of all nationalities, ages and mindsets who I would never have met otherwise. The thing about Workaway is that you go wherever the host happens to be so although you can decide you want to go to Italy, you can't always choose the exact destination. For instance, I wanted to go to Venice (visited by millions of tourists each year) but I ended up about an hour outside the city in a village which hardly ever sees tourists and I got a far more authentic Italian experience because of that.

Why I recommend Workaway

Personally I love Workaway because it allows me to travel more or less where I want when I want without having to pay for food and accommodation.

I like this kind of volunteering as an alternative to paid work for a few reasons:

• Paid work is hard to find - it usually requires application forms, letters, CVs, references and interviews.

• Paid work is usually on a longer term basis, minimum of a few months. This restricts travel and reduces flexibility.

• The expectations of a volunteer are lower. Not that I don't still work hard but I like the more relaxed environment.

Aside from the obvious financial benefits of travelling with Workaway instead of staying in youth hostels, I find my entire experience of the country is enriched as well. By staying with a family or a group of local people I can really immerse myself in the culture of each place instead of just observing it from outside as a tourist. Hosts have very often taken the time to show me their traditional meals, take me to special places that wouldn't be listed in a guidebook, share their favourite things to do in the area and teach me some of their native language. In Italy I learnt to make white asparagus risotto, lasagne and parmigiana. In Switzerland we ate cheese fondue at the top of a mountain at sunset.

When I was first looking into Workaway I also looked at other websites which provide a similar service - Helpstay and WOOFING for example. In fact, many of the Workaway hosts I stayed with were using these other websites as well so I met a number of WOOFERs during my travels. Personally, I chose Workaway because it seemed be the biggest platform with the most choice of hosts and variety of volunteering possibilities. I also found the website easy to navigate and the subscription fee was approximately the same as other sites. A Workaway subscription gave me access to hosts in every country I could possibly want to visit. Unlike WOOFING which seems to have a different website for each country and is only for organic farming. Workaway has a huge variety of volunteering roles on offer so although I have done a few farmstays, I have also helped with ski tuition, language exchange, cleaning, babysitting, cooking and more.

What makes for a great Workaway experience

I find it hard to say which of my Workaway experiences was "the best" because they have been so different and they have all had their positives and negatives. However, overall I think the experience I enjoyed the most would have to be the three weeks I spent in the Swiss Alps helping at a ski and language camp. I met some really awesome people; the work I was given was super varied and I got to try new things like ski instruction; the location was ideal for winter sports and we got lots of time off for making the most of this; volunteers got to join in on excursions like day trips to nearby cities and activities such as laser tag and night skiing and we were generally treated really well by the managers. There were lots of other young, like minded people working there and it was a very international community. We had the best evenings playing board games late into the night and we all slept in a big dormitory which made it really fun and basically it was like being back at a school camp!

My favourite Workaway experience in terms of cultural immersion on the other hand, is the month I spent on an asparagus farm in Italy. I felt like I learnt so much about Italian culture that I could never have understood otherwise and it really made me want to learn more of the Italian language. The people I stayed with were so generous and really made me feel part of the family - I met aunts, grandparents, cousins, daughters, pets, everyone! They wanted me to try local liqueurs and Italian cuisine; I was taken on nights out in the nearby towns and cities; I got to try horse riding and real mountain climbing; I went to see a basketball game for the first time. As far as cultural immersion goes it was unbeatable and I am incredibly grateful for the lengths this family went to for me. It was definitely above and beyond what I would expect from a Workaway host!

Through Workaway I have had some incredible and unforgettable experiences and I have tried tonnes of new things. It has made me more adaptable and open-minded as a person. I have had all kinds of accommodation, from a mattress on the floor of a barn, to a gypsy wagon in the garden, to shared dormitories, to my own bedroom in a family home. The ones that aren't the height of luxury only make me appreciate the ones that are all the more.

I have also tried all kinds of different foods and in doing so I have realised that some of the things I have gone through life hating are actually not so bad! I now choose bananas in the supermarket, boil eggs for myself, voluntarily add mushrooms to salads and can even tolerate Italian-style espressos. It makes life so much easier when you're not fussy about food!

#workaway #travel #volunteering #gapyear #newexperiences