Workaway - The Website That Changed My Way of Traveling

When I started looking for possibilities of volunteering in India, I came across Workaway. I didn't realize it's value with the first visit, but it didn't take long until I found another link from a volunteering forum. leading there I started reading about them and it didn't take long until I was very much impressed and intrigued. I decided to register and pay the 22€ fee for two years the next day.

How does it work?
Workaway is a portal that brings together two groups of people:
1. People who want to travel to a country and get to know the locals, the culture and/or the language.
2. People who need help with something and can't (or don't want to) pay for the help.

The first group doesn't need a lot of introduction. A lot of young people want to have some time off before their studies begin or before they start with their first jobs. But I've come across quite a few middle-aged workawayers as well, most of them probably taking a sabbatical to do some traveling and volunteering. These people, workawayers create a profile in which the possible countries, the time frame and the kind of work wanted are shown. Of course there's a possibility to tell about your skills and abilities for the possible hosts as well. You can set up the profile to only to be seen by hosts, but if you - for some strange reason - want to, you can leave it public as well. In that case a Google search with your name might find your profile and make it accessible to all.

The second group is much harder to introduce and classify. I told you the second group of people need help with "something". I was deliberately being vague there. The examples below show the reason for my vagueness (click the links to see the host profile):

Teach two kids in Tonga, live in a sailing catamaran and swim with humpback whales.

Help renovate a thirteenth-century castle in the Pyrenees.

Help on a farm in Missouri.

Teaching and supporting children with learning disabilities in Ghana.

Help for friendly small hostel in Berlin.

And this is just a small selection. I could list a hundred of them and they would still all be very different from each other. I just saw that there are almost 5000 hosts registered, more than half of which come from Europe. There are about 750 hosts from Asia, Africa and South-America combined, so there is a definite bias to the western countries at the moment. I still had enough to choose from, because there are 89 Indian hosts registered.

I do realize I'm not allowed to claim Workaway to have changed my way of traveling, before I actually have traveled somewhere with their help. The title of this post still claims that, because it has revolutionized the way I think about traveling. It almost seems wrong for me to go on a "normal" holiday, if there's a workawaying possibility in that country or area. Well, maybe the big expectations and this hype will vaporize after India and after I've had some real workawaying experience.

The point I'm trying to make is: If you want to travel and get to know locals instead of just seeing hotels, big sights and other tourists, this website is definitely worth checking out.

I hope this has given you some idea of Workaway. I promise you, I'm not getting paid for this and it's not meant to be an ad for them. This post (and I guess the whole blog as well) is meant to show you that life is about fulfilling your dreams and doing things you really like. It's never too late!

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