It has already been 10 months since my first workaway experience in France!!!
What is a workaway? Workaway.info is an organization that allows travelers to work for someone for around five hours a day in return for food and accommodation. It is similar to worldpakers.com, woofing, or help-x, but the work is very diverse. While wwoofing focuses more on voluntary work in organic farms, workaway jobs are much more diverse, varying from painting an outhouse, farm work, to taking care of children, gardening, cooking, or language & culture exchange. You have to pay around 46 Euro (4000 INR Approx.) for a membership which is valid for one year. The host can be filtered by country and type of work you are looking for or city you wish to visit & live in. You will have to create your own profile with information about the country you come from, what volunteer work you would like to do, places you would like to visit, and personal information, you can also share your hobbies, skills, and your photo. And boom! your profile is created, you can now search and find a host and vise versa. The screenshot below gives an overview of my personal profile on workaway.info.
My work away experience
My plan was to stay for 25 days but I ended up staying for 45 days at a beautiful farm village in Limoise, France 03320. It was a great place, located in a little village which was surrounded by a lot of cereal fields & forest. Limoise has situated 30 km from the Moulins Sur Allier department in central France. I was fortunate enough to find such a welcoming and kind French Family that made me feel at home. I had a nice room for myself and lots of French food & drinks. The house not only had my host and her family but it also had her extended family and some lovely pets and there were Olaf, Panthère, prime 3 cats, Vahiné a dog, Romance & Gala 2 horses, and a backyard farm that had 250 cows and 1000+ pigs. Indeed, it was an incredible place and had a proper village vibe. My volunteer job was in the house, outhouse & in the garden. I remember playing and taking care of the pets almost every day, it was so amazing. Olaf & prime was hyperactive always running around and do stupid things was funny.
In addition, I helped with gardening, maintaining, and planting saplings. Moreover, I did other work too like wall & wood painting, vegetable gardening, cleaning, cooking & general maintenance. I enjoyed it the most when I was helping Corinne (my host) in the kitchen, particularly when she was home as we listened to music on the radio and had long conversations. At times accompanying Loïc (Corinne's Husband) to his farm for milking cows was a great experience. We used to swim, go on walks and visit the farmer’s markets on weekends, sometimes we also had barbecues for the weekends. I was able to tour the farms and watch some soccer games. I had a great time experiencing, enjoying, and knowing about horse riding on the weekends. I had enough free time to explore the surroundings, I used to cycle around the village, nearby farms & explore the real countryside. On one of the weekends, I went on an outing in Moulin Sur Allier and visited some museums and also the city center. I was super lucky to have had such an amazing experience on my very first workaway experience. Below you can see a picture of Limoise France. I am still in love with the beautiful nature of France.
Tips:
Do some good research, try to find some jobs you really like and see if you get a good feeling by reading the description and seeing the pictures of a particular place. Also, have a look at the reference, some might be months old and can be fake or not honestly written. You could also connect with volunteers who have been to that place and ask for their experience and advice.
Before agreeing to a workaway job, it is important to ask the questions you have in mind. Forex: Do you offer a separate room? Do you offer towels and bed linen? Do you have Wi-Fi? Do I get a meal? How many hours do you expect me to work? etc.
Be Flexible and open-minded.
Always have a backup plan. In case a workaway host does not show up at the meeting point or is not like what you expected, have something prepared to go to.
Keep in mind that you are not obligated to stay at a place. In case you do not feel welcomed, safe, or appreciated you can always leave.
Do you have any workaway experience? I would love to hear about it!!
And if you haven’t tried it, please do try it especially during such times where things are functioning from home, or if you have time in your hand, you could visit, explore, learn, make new friends and have fun!!
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That’s some wonderful experience Susmit! Very well written and makes me wanna visit soon!