Cheap Travels

When a close friend told me that he was traveling Europe one summer without spending a dime, my ears immediately perked up.

After he explained how a website called Workaway had matched him with a summer job that provided a place to sleep and food to eat, I knew I had to test it out.

I figured I would try to find a volunteership that summer. With the goal of practicing a new language in mind, I started looking around for interesting jobs in Germany and made a profile on the website.

I had begun studying German that previous year, first learning a handful of words and phrases from my roommates, and then resolving to learn as much as possible before that coming summer. I bought myself a textbook, started an account with Duolingo and began a language exchange with my roommate.

In the language exchange, I would buy my German roommate beers while we practiced German and I took notes. If you’re looking for some advice on getting started with quick language learning, take a look at my post on learning language for travel.

With this language learning regimen of daily study and practice, in a couple of months I had a basic German that was at least good enough to get me out of most sticky situations. It was far from good, but it was good enough. 

In this post, I’ll cover my experience as a Workaway.info volunteer and share some pictures from my time traveling around Germany.

What exactly is Workaway?

Workaway.info is a website that pairs up volunteer projects with willing workers from around the world. Whether you’re interested in traveling on a small budget or perhaps just getting to know the lesser known parts of a country, Workaway is a great way to travel. If you’re looking for an interactive travel experience in a part of the world that is less curated for tourists, this site could be for you. If you’re curious about other ways to earn a living or break even while traveling, check out my post on earning money while traveling.

Essentially you just have to create an account, fill in your profile and add a picture, and you can start applying to music festivals, organic farms, homesteads and all kinds of different volunteer opportunities. Most of the places don’t pay anything, but you receive meals and a place to sleep in exchange for your labor. If you don’t have a big travel budget, this can be a convenient way to get to know a different country and practice your language skills while immersed in another culture.

Make sure you are absolutely clear on the work and living arrangement expectations before you head out because if you are not truly up for working hard for around 5 hours each day then you might be disappointed. Think of it more like an exchange of services than a vacation, and you should be alright.

You should treat the initial conversations as two-way interviews where you get to know the hosts and what work is expected. Ask the important questions up front and save yourself the trouble down the line. It’s also important to spend time building out your profile, because as I’ll explain in a minute, it can help you connect with people who you’ll get along with.

Finding a summer volunteer job abroad

I had submitted an application to volunteer at a summer music festival in Germany that I thought sounded pretty good. I would help them set up the stages, work the festival booths and spend a few days breaking down the structures and cleaning up. It seemed like a good enough opportunity until the festival promoters canceled on me with little more than a month left to adjust my plans.

Devastated, I frantically started searching for a different listing, just so that I could be sure that I had somewhere to go once my lease ended in just a few short weeks. Though I had sent out dozens of letters of interest, I hadn’t heard anything back in the weeks since receiving the bad news. Then finally, from an account that I hadn’t even sent a letter to, I miraculously received a message offering me a volunteer position.

The message basically read something to the effect of, “I see you play guitar, my husband is always looking for musicians to play with, so if you want to come volunteer for a month or so we can work something out. We have a small organic farm on the Austrian border… and there’s also a stage here.” Like I said, it really pays to build out your profile in detail.

After some back and forth messages, I decided that they seemed like nice enough people and I would try it out for a few weeks then head somewhere else if it wasn’t a good fit. I was mostly just relieved to have somewhere to go once I left my place behind. Plus, I could always keep looking for other volunteer positions in the meantime.

Once I finished cleaning out the apartment I had been renting with some friends, I turned my keys over to the landlord on the last day of June. That very same evening I boarded an overnight bus that would take me to Munich, Germany for around €100. The only things that I brought with me for that summer were a backpack full of books, clothes and an old beat up Spanish guitar that a teacher from the school that I taught at had gifted to me. 

First impressions of the farm

After spending a night in Munich, I caught a train to the small border town. As I watched the German countryside glide by through the train window, it occurred to me how bizarre the whole situation was. My family was back in the United States working their 9 to 5 jobs, and here I was on a German train heading to the farm of some strangers I had met on the internet.

While hypothetical situations danced through my head, I couldn’t help but feel relaxed as I rolled past the quaint farms and villages.

The farmers turned out to be incredibly kind people, and we hit it off immediately. They had some beautiful gardens, livestock and honey bees all surrounding their massive farmhouse.

As it turns out, the house had been built by a German playwright who let his theater troupe live there when they weren’t out touring around the country. They had a stage for practicing performances and a number of spare rooms on several acres of land.

Each morning we would gather for a breakfast of homemade jams or honey on bread, some sliced vegetables or meat and some strong coffee. We would work all morning around the farm or in the gardens and then stop for the day around 2pm when we would eat a big lunch together.

When lunch was ready, they would ring a large bell and shout a few times at the top of their lungs, “Essen!” After that meal we had the whole day free, and I would often ride one of their bikes into town to explore or buy a few beers for later at night.

I would often pick up a couple bottles of beer and hope for them to last a few nights, though more often than not I would end up running out a day or two earlier than expected. Luckily, there was a beer vending machine on the farm that a carpenter who lived there restocked each week.

I lost a lot of coins to that machine, but it was a worthy investment. I still miss the Bavarian beer selection there, many of which can only be found in southern Germany.

My afternoons were spent studying German, sitting around talking, playing music with the people who lived there or exploring the nearby towns. There was another volunteer from Ireland who brought a car with him, and he would often drive us out to some harder to reach places.

As he brought his car down from Ireland, more than once I tried to get into what is usually the passenger side door, only to find myself sitting in front of his steering wheel. He didn’t like that much, but after a few times, I finally figured it out.

Medieval renaissance festival in Burghausen

The small town that was just a few kilometers from the farm features the longest castle in the world, which also hosts an incredible medieval festival each summer. People dress up, sell medieval handicrafts and of course eat, drink and dance.

Admission was free if you were in medieval garb, so my Irish friend and I were among the few people there not in costume. 

The beer comes in one-liter steins, so after a few hours the crowds start to get pretty rowdy. In the clip below of the renaissance bagpipe band, you can hear one drunken reveler shouting “Jubeln!” which was a cheer you could hear every 5 minutes or so. Roughly translating to jubalee, or cheer, I couldn’t help but chuckle each time I heard it.

I have a short clip here of some of the crowd work that the band was doing, which might give you a better idea of the overall atmosphere of the concert. It’s in German, but even if you don’t understand it, you can still get a pretty good feel for it.

The festival was good fun and a great cultural experience. Most weekends we had a day or two off, and it was not unusual to make trips into town to see musical performances or to get an ice cream and stroll around downtown by the river.

Working as a volunteer

On typical work days we would do tasks like tending to the gardens, harvesting vegetables and herbs or feeding animals. They would try to match your skills with a job that was doable, so the more you know how to do, the more exciting your days are.

I spent most of my time building simple structures like fences around the farm, feeding animals, mucking out stalls or driving a tractor around.

Overall it was an incredible month and a half where I met tons of people, learned some useful farm skills and a whole lot of German. As the summer was coming closer to an end, I was preparing my things to make a trip up to Dresden and then finally Berlin to visit some people there. I wanted to spend a few weeks with those friends before making my way back to Spain to start teaching English in the new school year.

Last day of ‘work’ on the farm

On the last day I was supposed to be ‘working’, I woke up ready for my final shift and was surprised to find out that my hosts had other plans. Instead of working at the farm, I was going with some of their kids out on a canoe trip around the Chiemsee lake.

We ate a light lunch and swam a bit after canoeing for a few hours. After reminiscing for a while about the different volunteers who had passed through the farm in the time I had been there, we got ready to drive back.

As I prepared my things to take off on the last day, I got ready to hitchhike my way to Dresden to visit some friends. While I have a whole lot to say about that experience, I’ll save that for another post.

After a little over a month and a half of adventures around southern Germany, I said my goodbyes and turned in for my final night of sleep on the farm. The next day I got a ride into town and starting thumbing my way up towards Dresden.

Overall summary of the Workaway experience

Just looking quickly online, it is clear that not everyone has had good luck finding quality hosts through workaway.info. Just like many other people, it took me a while to stumble across this farm. I vetted the reviews and asked thorough questions during the interview phase to make sure it would be a good fit.

The beauty of websites like Workaway and WOOFing is that you can leave reviews telling about your experience so that hopefully the people after you know what to truly expect when they turn up for a volunteership. So if you have a good experience, make sure you leave a positive comment to let other travelers know what they can expect.

I also understand that male and female solo travelers can have wildly different experiences, so take all of this information with a grain of salt. I know that not everyone would feel comfortable traveling to a farm where they don’t know anyone.

Aside from the first host who changed their mind with only a few weeks left to make other arrangements, I have had an overwhelmingly positive experience using Workaway. I also found another exchange later that summer, working at a hostel in Spain that also worked out very well.

I think like many situations in life, you have to come into these experiences with an open mind and be clear about what you expect from them and what is expected of you.

So what do you think? Would you volunteer on a farm for a summer? Let me know in the comments if you have had any good Workaway experiences or have done any other types of volunteer work abroad!