WWOOF: Free Room & Board Along With The Time Of Your Life
We all know it, traveling is the best thing possible for your soul. However, financially, at our age, travel is not exactly easy. You want to see 5 countries in a span of 2 weeks. This involves flights, tickets, hotel costs, eating out, an arm, a leg, a small child….you get it. A small fortune. And for someone who has to check their bank account multiple times a day to make sure you have “enough”, I feel you. What if I told you that there is an organization that lets you come work for them, they pay for your food AND housing, and you get the weekends off? Well you’re in luck, because there is. And that is exactly how I was able to work on one of the most beautiful vineyards in Tuscany, Italy and a bamboo farm in Algarve, Portugal.
World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) Is offered in just about EVERY country and in the most amazing places. You get to live and learn about organic farming, meet people from around the world (or wwoofers as we call them), and go exploring on the weekends!
How to start:
Everyone is different when it comes to traveling. To start, you need to decide on what country you would like to do your WWOOF in. If you want to do multiple ones, plan out your trip and exactly how many farms you will be visiting. To enroll in WWOOF is super simple. You simply pay a fee for each country you plan on going to. The fee varies but it is about $50-$80 per country. Simply type in WWOOF and whatever country you have decided on and sign up!
Once you have signed up and paid the fee, you are given access to thousands of farms and what location they are in. There are SO many different kinds of farms to choose from. Because we had our heart set on Italy it only made sense we worked on a vineyard, and I HIGHLY suggest you choose Tuscany as your region if you are considering Italy. Research all of the farms, they have awesome descriptions and reviews from past WWOOFers and then START EMAILING ASAP. These farms fill up quick, and typically they want you to stay at least over a week. These people become your family, so the longer you can stay the better. Come up with an email template that you can send to multiple farms, state a little bit about yourself, why you want to come to their farm, the dates you are looking at, and how many people are going to be with you (if you are going in a group).
Once you are accepted you’re in! It is that simple! And the experience that you get from working on these farms are one of a kind.
My favorite farm was in Tuscany, a tiny town called Borgo A Mozzano. We stayed for about two weeks on a vineyard called Macea. During the week, we worked mostly with the vines, getting them ready for the upcoming harvest. When it rained, we worked in the cellar bottling and labeling wines for production. I never thought working could be so much fun, to actually see the amount of work that goes into one single bottle of wine is honestly amazing. My best friend and I lived in a house with two other WWOOFers and ate like kings. The food in Italy is no joke, and when it’s huge (not to mention FREE) home cooked meals by your host family everyday it’s even better. On the weekends we would get Airb&b’s in the surrounding cities. Florence, Cinque Terre, Pisa, Lucca, I’m literally tearing up just thinking about how much I miss it.
For anyone thinking of doing WWOOF in their travels or if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me! I will babble on for ages and probably not let you get a word in (that’s what I’m best at).
