WWOOF

[onethousandknives]

http://www.wwoof.org/

I just found out about this last night, and posted in the Asian section. But you can apparently do it in basically every country in the world, or in different states (after I told my sister about it, she said there was someone in her class that did it in Hawaii.) You work on a farm, generally an organic/small farm, or sometimes places like ski resorts, forests, etc. It's possible you'll do anything like manual labor like carrying logs, to housework, lots of stuff. You don't get paid money, but you get free accommodation and meals with your host. Generally they say you'll work about six hours a day, six days a week, but sometimes it's more, sometimes less. Some of the most positive experiences people actually got a little stipend of spending money for their work, which they're not supposed to do (Then you'd need a work visa.)

It's a pretty mixed bag of experiences, most I read are positive, some are negative. For this reason, if you go to a country doing this, it might be best to have some backup places you can WWOOF in that country until you can get a return ticket home, or bring enough money for a hotel/hostel. Maybe plan a vacation after your work period, ie, do 2 months work, 1 month vacation time to sightsee?

I think this would be of interest to lots of people here, if you wanna go abroad for a bit of experience and don't have much money. Also, in my case, I do have an interest in learning farming, so free experience helps me. It's not a bad skill to have in our current economy. And going overseas with a volunteer group like WWOOF probably doesn't look terrible on a resume, especially for someone like myself with no college.

Just figured I'd tell people here, as it might be of interest to some people, especially people who are still financially challenged regarding going overseas.