Workaway: new frontier for travellers or lion's den?

Very often at the end of a trip, you return home with the sense of not having lived the experience fully. Maybe you visited lots of different cities, seeing the places recommended by the Lonely Planet and sharing your space with other travellers doing the same as you. But at the end of it all, did you really understand the place? Did you feel it? Did you see life beyond the tourist attractions? Did you see things that other visitors didn't? A year ago I was plagued by these questions and I realised I wasn't satisfied with how I had travelled up to that point. I wanted more.

That's how I found Workaway.

What is Workaway?

Workaway is a website for travellers where you can find free food and lodging all over the world in exchange for work, offered to the traveller by a network of hosts.

I will explain: this platform is divided into "Hosts" and "Workawayers" (the travellers). Each Host publishes a description of their own project (personal home, hostel, farm, etc. ), explaining the hours expected per day and the type of work required. The work often involves gardening, helping with cleaning around the house or hostel, eco-construction or something else more specific to the project itself. It is rarely something that you need particular experience to do, and more often than not, provides help to your hosts' daily life.

There are many different types of projects and therefore many different types of job; some of the most intriguing I have found is helping rear and train huskies in Finland, accompanying a photographer on trips to see the Aurora Borealis in Norway and renovating a traditional old farmhouse in France.

The strength of this Workaway platform is that, once you meet your Host(s) and get to know them, you will create a direct contact with the locals. I truly believe this will teach you more than a tourist guide or an organised holiday can. To be in direct contact with people who open their doors to you - a stranger - and let you into their lives is a great testament to their courage and wish to share their lives with others.

Pros and Cons of Workaway

Pros:

  • The platform is truly global, and the traveller simply types in the continent, country or region in which they are interested in to find their options.
  • The only expenses are the Workaway membership (valid for 12 months and includes hosts worldwide) and the cost of your ticket to get there.
  • The Workaway community is large and revolves around feedback, so you know what you are letting yourself in for.
  • The working hours asked by the host aren't usually many (generally 20-25 hours per week), and the traveller often has the freedom to choose their hours and rhythm.
  • The website itself is bright and intuitive.
  • Hosts are often very open-minded and prepared to give their time and a glimpse of real life where they live to the traveller. This will often include sharing little-known places off the regular tourist trail, telling stories or simply teaching traditional recipes. The key word is sharing.
  • Often the Hosts have more than one Workawayer staying at any one time, so you will end up forming a group (large or small) of people from all over the world who live and work together.
  • Workaway makes it easier to travel in places where the cost of living is much higher, because your food and lodging is covered. This constitutes a huge saving for the traveller.

Cons:

  • The membership is the only thing required to enter the site. This means that it is very simple for everyone to sign up, both Hosts and Workawayers, but there are no kind of quality checks by the platform. Basically, there are no guarantees of the people you will meet, except for the feedback left by other Hosts or Workawayers.
  • Many Hosts are only available for longer stays, 3-6 months for example.
  • The website is not updated as often as it should be. Often the Hosts are at their maximum and can't host any more Workawayers but don't say so on their profile. For this reason I have received a lot of "no"s and plenty of others didn't even reply.
  • Despite having days off and few working hours, the Workawayer still has to fulfill their duties, and often this means spending a significant amount of time at the house even on downtime. Workawayers are also reviewed by their hosts, and it's sensible to make a good impression!

That said, a friend and I made a joint profile and, knowing we had only a couple of weeks to spend abroad, we started looking for hosts, focusing on the lesser known places.

We probably sent around 60 emails, and eventually one hostel in Malta replied saying they were able to host us. We had an informal Skype interview so we could "meet" our hosts. To be honest though, we didn't really want to go to Malta - we wanted to do something a little bit different, which is for us the point of Workaway. Suddenly an email arrived from a Host, which convinced us to forget Malta and go significantly further north:

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... to Norway!

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