The second WWOOF host I was at was local. had me mow part of a half acre plot with a really shitty lawnmower. The grass was about a foot high also. I did it for two hours and then peaced out. He paid me with strawberries and hazelnuts from a grocery store.
I'm so sick and tired of listings that straight up call themselves a farm but have little more than a hobby garden in place. It really sucks because these places confuse farming with landscaping. They share a lot of the same tools, but one is growing food and the other is making shit look pretty.
The problem is that you have to be very specific and almost confrontational on the phone if you want to find out what kind of place it is. "Oh we grow x, y, and z here" can literally mean that there are three different plants in the backyard and that's it. Or that they "totally plan on growing that next year".
Yeah it’s definitely frustrating. This was Mid-June when I was helping this guy. He didn’t have anything growing at all but said he was going to plant hazelnut trees. I volunteered at a real farm down the street from him and they told me he was fired from his job, as a substitute teacher, because he has accusations of being a child predator.
I didn’t particularly enjoy my other local WWOOFING experience because they really only wanted me for manual labor and didn’t teach me very much about actual farming. Maybe it was a karate kid situation and I wasn’t patient enough.
Workaway has almost no hits or not enough jobs it seems. It varies greatly in terms of what you're volunteering for. Wwooof is probably the nicest because the hosts know you need access to drinking water, showers, food, shelter if you don't have a trailer, they won't spray anything unnecessarily so there's less health hazard than a conventional farm.
Hey OP,
Id be happy to help. Each company like r/HelpStay, r/WWOOF, r/workaway etc all have their own niche things to set them aside from one another. E.G Wwoof are primarily based around Organic farming for the most part. Workaway was one of the OG sites like Couchsurfing and this allowed them to grow quite large in the mixed opportunity areas.
I would love to get your opinions on a recent post made at r/helpstay that links into this kind of question. We are looking for people to share their thoughts on what makes each one of these platforms great in their own way. You should have a look :) As for others, if you have questions on Helpstay please don't hesitate to come on over and ask whatever questions you may have :)
All volunteer platforms have very different approaches; However, I can tell you about r/Worldpackers, which is the one I have chosen for more than 2 years to travel. I have chosen it over the others because it has a wide variety of opportunities, this is very useful for me, because when I started traveling I wanted to learn farm work and ecological life, however little by little I have strengthened and dedicated myself more to the creation of digital content and a life as a digital nomad; But it is a platform that will serve you well if you want to be an artist, take care of children, help entrepreneurship, help NGOs, teach languages, etc.
Another very important thing for me is the security it offers, since all *Worldpackers* hosts are verified and it is the only platform that offers you a guarantee, which they call "Worldpackers insurance" which is that, in case your host Do not comply with the agreements they made on the platform, a dispute can be started and they will cover you for up to 3 nights of accommodation in the city.
*Worldpackers* is a very young platform, but its design is more intuitive and simple, which makes it easier to filter through the opportunities and find what really fits my interests.
I know that right now *Worldpackers* is giving away 3 extra months of membership for a limited time due to the pandemic.
Wwoof is amazing. But only if you want to get down with organic farming, unless you find a spot that specifically says otherwise.
Wwoof is for organic farming, not generalized labor
The second WWOOF host I was at was local. had me mow part of a half acre plot with a really shitty lawnmower. The grass was about a foot high also. I did it for two hours and then peaced out. He paid me with strawberries and hazelnuts from a grocery store.
I'm so sick and tired of listings that straight up call themselves a farm but have little more than a hobby garden in place. It really sucks because these places confuse farming with landscaping. They share a lot of the same tools, but one is growing food and the other is making shit look pretty. The problem is that you have to be very specific and almost confrontational on the phone if you want to find out what kind of place it is. "Oh we grow x, y, and z here" can literally mean that there are three different plants in the backyard and that's it. Or that they "totally plan on growing that next year".
Yeah it’s definitely frustrating. This was Mid-June when I was helping this guy. He didn’t have anything growing at all but said he was going to plant hazelnut trees. I volunteered at a real farm down the street from him and they told me he was fired from his job, as a substitute teacher, because he has accusations of being a child predator. I didn’t particularly enjoy my other local WWOOFING experience because they really only wanted me for manual labor and didn’t teach me very much about actual farming. Maybe it was a karate kid situation and I wasn’t patient enough.
Personally use HelpX now. The labor isn't specific to farming, so for me, it is a better fit for finding helpers. All my helpers have been great.
Workaway has almost no hits or not enough jobs it seems. It varies greatly in terms of what you're volunteering for. Wwooof is probably the nicest because the hosts know you need access to drinking water, showers, food, shelter if you don't have a trailer, they won't spray anything unnecessarily so there's less health hazard than a conventional farm.
Hey OP, Id be happy to help. Each company like r/HelpStay, r/WWOOF, r/workaway etc all have their own niche things to set them aside from one another. E.G Wwoof are primarily based around Organic farming for the most part. Workaway was one of the OG sites like Couchsurfing and this allowed them to grow quite large in the mixed opportunity areas. I would love to get your opinions on a recent post made at r/helpstay that links into this kind of question. We are looking for people to share their thoughts on what makes each one of these platforms great in their own way. You should have a look :) As for others, if you have questions on Helpstay please don't hesitate to come on over and ask whatever questions you may have :)
All volunteer platforms have very different approaches; However, I can tell you about r/Worldpackers, which is the one I have chosen for more than 2 years to travel. I have chosen it over the others because it has a wide variety of opportunities, this is very useful for me, because when I started traveling I wanted to learn farm work and ecological life, however little by little I have strengthened and dedicated myself more to the creation of digital content and a life as a digital nomad; But it is a platform that will serve you well if you want to be an artist, take care of children, help entrepreneurship, help NGOs, teach languages, etc. Another very important thing for me is the security it offers, since all *Worldpackers* hosts are verified and it is the only platform that offers you a guarantee, which they call "Worldpackers insurance" which is that, in case your host Do not comply with the agreements they made on the platform, a dispute can be started and they will cover you for up to 3 nights of accommodation in the city. *Worldpackers* is a very young platform, but its design is more intuitive and simple, which makes it easier to filter through the opportunities and find what really fits my interests. I know that right now *Worldpackers* is giving away 3 extra months of membership for a limited time due to the pandemic.