Traveling, learning new skills, and making new friends—aren’t those all things we could use a bit more of? While there are plenty of awesome ways to get some community service hours logged during the summer, we’re putting the spotlight on an organization that allows you to explore a new city or country, meet new people, and immerse yourself in a different culture while putting in some good, old-fashioned hard work.
World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to lend a hand on farms all over the world. You decide where you want to travel, and then you can find a participating farm in that area that needs assistance. In exchange for your work, you’ll get food, lodging, and an unforgettable cultural experience. You’ll live and work with amazing new people, see a new place, and observe firsthand how your work helps your farm. Whether you’ve always dreamed of visiting Australia, Venezuela, Denmark, or Spain, there’s a farm out there looking for volunteers like you. If you’re ready to learn more about this incredible opportunity, keep reading!
How WWOOF Started
Originally founded as “Working Weekends on Organic Farms,” WWOOF (pronounced like “woof”) began in England in 1971 when founder Susan Coppard found that she didn’t have an opportunity to participate in the organic food movement. With so many farms out there, the concept had the potential to become a major movement, and she was eager to see if farms would respond to her enthusiasm. After working on her first farm in Sussex at Emerson College, more farms stepped forward to host workers, and more volunteers expressed their desire to be put to work. Now farms all over the world host volunteers to work on their farms, enabling both an exchange of skills from farm to volunteer and a cultural exchange between volunteers and their hosts.
Where You Can Go
As of 2012, more than 50 countries have farms to host WWOOFers. Some of the largest WWOOF organizations can be found in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and Italy. If none of those countries sound appealing, you could volunteer in Kenya, Belize, India, New Zealand, Norway, Greece, Mexico… the list goes on! There are so many different places to go that you’re sure to find a place that intrigues you.
How to Get Involved
To find a farm to work at, you’ll first need to sign up for the WWOOF organization in the country you’d like to work in. If you’re looking to stay in the United States, that would be WWOOF-USA. You can get a membership to WWOOF-USA for $30, which grants you access to the online directory. This directory contains farm profiles, WWOOF forums, and comments from past WWOOFers about their experiences on specific farms. To locate the contact information for other countries that have WWOOF opportunities, go to any page of the WWOOF international website and scroll to the bottom of the page. There you’ll find a list of WWOOF destinations all over the world. Each link will take you to that country’s individual WWOOF organization website.
Similar to WWOOF USA described above, each country has a membership fee, which, once paid, allows you to explore which farms you’d like to work at in your chosen country. Once you find a farm you want to work for, you will be responsible for contacting your hosts directly and discussing the length of your stay. Some jobs are only a few days long, while others can last a month or longer. This is a great chance to do some traveling in a more rewarding way, so if you’re looking to get a real taste for a new culture, see which farms in your chosen country are looking for longer time commitments from their volunteers. You’re sure to learn a lot!
Basic Requirements
Most WWOOF programs require participants to be 18 years old. Others, including Canada, Ireland, Italy, and Portugal, allow volunteers to be 17, but sometimes a letter of consent from parents is required. In Turkey, you have to be 20 years old. The easiest way to learn about age requirements is to contact the people that organize WWOOF in the country you’d like to work at and find out their current age policy.
Another important factor to consider when deciding if WWOOFing is right for you is how much it will cost. Maintaining good spending habits while you’re there is one thing, but financing a trip like this will require some serious saving, especially if you plan to venture out of the United States. Your WWOOF membership, travel expenses, and any other personal requirements will be coming out of your own pocket. Having lodging and food will help, but make a rough estimate of your expenses before you commit to WWOOFing to make sure it’s financially viable for you. The FAQ page of the WWOOF international website lists some common expenses that volunteers should keep in mind that will be helpful as you plan.
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Why People WWOOF
Rachel Rudder is a rising senior at Boston College who is currently WWOOFing in Hana, Maui, with her friend Sam Gervase, who is also a rising senior at Boston College. “I wanted to do something different this summer, and [I] was thinking of working on a dude ranch before Sam expressed interest in WWOOFing,” Rachel says. “I told him I was definitely interested, and it kind of spiraled from there. I have always been interested in organic ways of farming and [was] curious to learn about farming in general. I think it’s important to learn about self-sufficiency and how you can create it.”
Sam’s desire to go WWOOFing came from wanting to know more about food and how it’s produced. “Coming from a household with little emphasis on nutritional value, I always wanted to know more about the process behind food and thought it would be a great opportunity to learn and try a different kind of lifestyle,” he says.
Think about what you’d like to get out of your own WWOOFing experience. Perhaps you want to do something more exciting than a standard part-time job. Maybe you have a passion for food and want to see farm-to-table in action. Or maybe you want to learn something new in an unfamiliar place. All of these examples are great reasons to investigate WWOOFing more. If visiting a new country is your goal, WWOOFing allows you to explore a new place in a more intensive way than a traditional vacation. In this environment, you’ll observe the culture and get a look at what it takes to keep a farm running, something few people get exposure to in their normal lives.
Pros and Cons to WWOOFing
As with any new adventure, there are positives and negatives to WWOOFing. Magalí Leiva Bowes, a fellow WWOOFer working in Maui with Rachel and Sam, says that “the pros are the “living situation and the people, [plus] learning something every day even if it’s not related to what they’re teaching us.”
Rachel agrees. “[It’s] cheap living, [an] awesome way to see a new place, meeting cool/different people, living simply, [and] learning so much,” she says.
Sam echoes many of those pros and adds, “[it’s great to] learn more about what we consume.”
On the negative side of things, Rachel and Sam both say that your host can really make or break your WWOOFing experience. “The system is very luck of the draw as there’s a huge variety in the WWOOFing experiences,” Sam says. “Knowledge among WWOOFing hosts greatly varies.” Knowing that, it’s important to try and get as much information as possible before heading off to your WWOOF location so you can be as prepared as possible.
“It’s hard to know what it will be like until you arrive,” Rachel says. “Before trying it out, make sure you look at all the options, consider the location, and ask about the work you’ll be doing.”
What to Know Before You Go
While you’re in a strange place, certain aspects of your new lifestyle may take some getting used to, but keeping things in perspective will help you engage in your current situation in a beneficial way. “Have an open mind and be ready for an amazing experience with cool people,” Rachel says.
Sam adds that collegiettes should really think of how they want to spend their summer, where they want to be, and if they want to work on a farm with no other WWOOFers or with a number of other WWOOFers. “Also, they need to think about what audio book they want to listen to while working out in the fields,” he says. For a list of suggestions from the HC Team, check out this list of book recommendations to add to your list!
What You’ll Learn
Ultimately, it’s the lessons you learn that make WWOOFing worth it. “[I’ve learned about] living independently and cohesively with strangers,” Magalí says. Knowing how you personally live and interact with others is great knowledge to have, and it’s the kind of knowledge that can make future challenges easier to handle. WWOOFing is an opportunity to learn about yourself while helping others. It also presents the chance to improve on your own quality of life.
“[I’ve learned] practical knowledge about producing food and the process of cooking,” Sam says. This ties in with his original reasoning for wanting to give WWOOFing a try, and it’s an important thing to think about for collegiettes, as well. The more goods available for consumption, the harder it is to see what is best for our health and our bodies. WWOOFing has given Sam a way to learn more about food and take care of himself in the future, which he thinks are invaluable lessons.
“I’ve learned a lot about Hawaiian culture and my views about how I want to live my life in the future,” Rachel says. Different cultures are here to be experienced, and by taking a chance, Rachel has discovered a way of living that would have remained a mystery to her otherwise.
WWOOFing is an experience that’s not to be missed, and we hope we’ve given you the jump to start investigating the possibility. It’s like it’s own special variety of studying abroad—think of the stories you’ll have to share! Research carefully, budget responsibly, and prepare yourself for one wild ride. After an adventure like this, who knows where you’ll go next!