Off the beaten track...

When you venture abroad, do you consider yourself to be a tourist or a traveller?

The tourist that visits the big cities’ main attractions for those carbon copy postcard photos, or the traveller that breaks away from the crowd to explore the hidden depths lurking beneath the tourist’s radar? For the past three months I became that traveller, or rather, I became a fully fledged ‘Workawayer’. Let me explain..

Workaway is one of many non-formal organisations that have developed worldwide networks of projects and volunteers, effectively becoming interfaces for both parties to contact one another with a view to working on mutually beneficial terms. The volunteer is able to seek out suitable projects, where he or she then lends a helping hand in return for food and accommodation. However, the exchange goes much deeper than this, effectively transcending into an exchange of culture, knowledge, ideas, skills, and languages that both volunteers and hosts gain extensively from. Sound good?

Having recently graduated from university, I was searching for a cost-effective way to travel through Europe that allowed me to settle in foreign environments for weeks at a time whilst learning new skills. The Workaway experience was therefore perfect in meeting these criteria. I spent a month apiece in Bulgaria, Portugal and Spain between January and March of this year, working on a variety of projects that included various workloads and a diverse range of people as company. I had also tactfully arranged my placements with due consideration to their seasons and climates; wanting to experience a snowy Bulgarian January, a wet and windy Portuguese February, and the beginnings of a sunny Spanish Spring in March. Living and working in such diverse conditions from day to day was a big learning curve for me with regard to my own adaption, and was especially satisfying reflecting upon the -23°C Bulgarian temperatures from my deckchair in Southern Spain!

I originally set off on this venture in order to broaden my horizons and to get back in touch with what – I believe – the current, conditioned way of Western living has suppressed since my childhood. The goal was to get truly re-integrated back into nature, and to re-engage with the sophistication of the simple things in life. So the experience definitely assisted me in realising this objective with regard to working outside every single day, learning about the intricacies of nature, and working within the varied and beautiful surroundings of waterfalls, woodlands & mountains. The work also varied daily, ranging from animal care and rabbit hut-building to path-building and gardening depending on the seasons and what projects the hosts are working upon. Furthermore, I found myself relying on various sources of sustainable energy over the three months; dining upon the smallholding’s home-grown produce in Bulgaria, relying upon solar energy for heating and showers in Portugal, and drinking pure tap-water fresh from the Alpujarras mountain springs in Spain. How much more earthy can it get?

With regard to the travelling itself, I managed to fit in the grand cities of Veliko Tarnovo, Porto, Granada and Barcelona in between placements, whilst also visiting countless small towns and villages on my well-earned days off. Exploring these hidden pockets proved immensely refreshing in enabling me to embrace their local cultures away from the flashing of cameras, where I could engage in the events and traditions that just don’t get a mention in the travel guides.

So why not try it yourself, venture away from the beaten track with this alternative form of travelling that is easy on the bank balance yet provides you with much more than you bargained for...