#TRAVEL HACK: How to Stay Free, Enjoy More Using Workaway & Caretaker Gazette

Updated MAY 2024 

It’s no secret that travel can be expensive, and accommodations are the second most costly item after airfare. Here are 2 of my favorite resources I’ve discovered for keeping down costs when it comes to where you lay your head each night while increasing your adventure potential and stretching your travel dollar!

Long-term travel is amazing. How fabulous to see the world in a more leisurely way, rather than dashing from place to place on a break-neck, frantic 2-week vacation! If you have the time and inclination but perhaps not the means to slow-travel and to do some in-depth exploration of a place, read on for some great tips on how to do so while saving money!

WORKAWAY  My go-to website for finding incredible experiences, sleeping in unique accommodations, meeting locals and taking part in amazing travel is www.Workaway.info. This site is fantastic!  Here’s the concept – you trade your skills, elbow grease, knowledge or other talents in exchange for a bed and meals. Sound simple? It is! The work you do can be anything from harvesting grapes in a vineyard in Bordeaux, helping children learn English in their Colombian home, assisting with social media for a catering business in Singapore, working on a permaculture farm in Costa Rica, renovating a home in Seattle or being a yoga instructor in the Canary Islands!

Search the Workaway database and use keywords like “wine” or “horses” or “surfing” to find your perfect match. Here’s one example: you can work at a dive shop in Bali for 5 hours a day/ 5 days a week and in exchange, you’ll receive a bed in a dorm with 3 other Workawayers and 2 meals each day…and you’ll get to do all the diving you can handle or end up with your Master Dive certificate at the end of your stay.  Not sure you want to stay in a dorm? Ok,  how about this? You could live with a family on a farm in Norway, helping a few hours each day with household chores and taking care of the chickens, goats and a donkey named Fred in exchange for a tiny stone cottage of your own on the farm and 3 organic meals each day.  

There are all types of accommodations – bunks in a dorm, private cabins, spare bedrooms, even RVs and tents. Some folks offer two meals a day, some offer three. Hosts may ask for a minimum stay of 2 weeks or 1 month, and others are ok with 3 or 4 days…the possibilities are endless. When you’re not working you are free to explore the area – your hosts often will take you around, drop you off in town for the day or even lend you a kayak or a bicycle…or even their own car!  They’ll also give you the insider dope on where the best places are for coffee, pizza, great hikes, gin & tonics and more. 

So far, I’ve had three amazing adventures using Workaway.  My first was doing trail maintenance on Skopelos, a tiny Greek island floating in the turquoise waters of the Aegean Sea. Before I committed to a week, I googled to see what there was to do in Skopelos – and was thrilled to find out this was where the movie “Mamma Mia!” was filmed; in fact, the church where the wedding takes place in the movie is up a rocky cliff on Skopelos. 

After working one afternoon, my host drove me and the other Workawayers around the island, showing us the different locations where the movie was filmed, and waited in the car while I hiked up to the church.  (Hey now – don’t judge me – I love that silly movie and oddly enough, ended up on the other island where the second movie was filmed – which was NOT in Greece! If you’re a MM fan, read about it here)

In exchange for 5 hours of tough work each day clearing brush, vines, weeds and overgrowth from an ancient Grecian cobblestone path, I was given breakfast and dinner, and a bedroom in the owner’s ancient stone home in the village. Now to be perfectly honest here – this Workaway didn’t “work” out so well – the house was dirty, the bed was a small loveseat that couldn’t pull out to a bed because of all the construction clutter in what was supposed to be “my” room and the bathroom was – well, I hate to say – disgusting and horrible.  I left after just 3 nights rather than my original commitment of 1 week.  But I didn’t give up hope for Workaway, figuring this was a one-off and not the norm.  There are reviews you can read from previous Workawayers to get a sense of what you can expect and this listing didn’t have bad reviews. I honestly think this was bad timing for the host with the unexpected roof leak construction going on…so I just packed up and moved along. 

My next Workaway was at a children’s home in Nepal.  I had the great pleasure of working with 11 adorable, smart, hard-working kids for two weeks. I picked beans, weeded the garden, read books to the kids, helped with homework, walked the younger kids to school each morning with 4 girls jostling each other for the great “privilege” of holding my hand, cleaned the kitchen twice a day, peeled perhaps 1000 pounds of potatoes for the twice-daily dal bhat… and as an unexpected and bonus I learned how to make the packets of hay and rice for the elephant next door and was allowed to feed her one night! If you’d like to read about this exceptional experience, click here for the blog post and lots of pix of my adorable Nepali crew!

Although Workaway hosts in countries like Nepal and Africa often charge Workawayers to help defray the cost of feeding and housing them, the price is nominal. I paid 500 rupee (approximately $4.25US/day) for three huge meals of just-picked organic veggies, freshly butchered local chicken (butchered by the older boys at the orphanage and the feathers plucked by the 9 and 10-year-old girls), lots of rice, steaming hot masala tea – and had my own private bedroom and bathroom across the street. Super simple and quite rustic accommodations to be sure, but just fine for me! 

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My 3rd Workaway was in January 2020 at a vineyard in Wanaka, New Zealand. “My Frenchman” and I stayed in this beautiful town for a week and in exchange for 22 hours of labor for our week-long stay, we were given a small apartment with a fully equipped kitchen and private bathroom and a lump sum of money to purchase groceries or use at local restaurants.  Some hosts cook meals for their Workawayers, but the owner, Jackie, laughed and said she doesn’t cook for her own family so she sure wasn’t going to be whipping up meals for us! She showed us how to prune the grapevines (she called it “trimming the laterals”) to allow the sunlight to ripen the teeny tiny grapelettes to grow up to be delicious Pinot Noir.

It was easy and somewhat monotonous work, and I listened to podcasts while we worked in the sun each morning for 4 hours, which left the rest of the day for exploring the area and doing wine-tastings all around the neighborhood! 

 

THE CARETAKER GAZETTE  Another incredible resource for work exchange opportunities is The Caretaker Gazette, a newsletter emailed to subscribers every other month, with updates and new opportunities sent to your inbox once or twice a week.

Here you’ll find postings seeking housesitters and caretakers for deluxe Caribbean estates, Australian cattle ranches needing workers, remote Alaskan jobs off the grid, and help at a Costa Rican bed and breakfast. This was how I found myself living in a 15th-century villa in Tuscany one summer! 

For two glorious months, I watered the multitudes of flowers and potted plants, picked up bits and pieces of litter (cigarette butts and wine bottle corks mostly!)  on the estate, and assisted at a few gorgeous weddings and special events (“assisting” meaning I pointed to the hallway where the bathrooms were when asked by guests and nodded, saying “bagno?”  and smiling!)  In exchange for that “hard work,” I received a Cinderella-like suite at the top of the spiral staircase in the villa.

These simple accommodations included a twin bed, cooktop, dorm-size fridge, microwave and kitchen sink, a few pots and pans and a “moka” to make my morning coffee, as well as my own bathroom with bidet.  Some days I took a quick bus ride from the stop at the end of the long winding driveway to Pisa to sit under the Leaning Tower and people-watch. On other days, I’d take the bus going the opposite direction to Lucca to stroll along the top of the medieval wall encircling the ancient town. Sometimes, I’d take a walk into the next town, San Guiliano Terme for fresh pizza.  I had a rickety old bicycle with a large wicker basket on the handlebars I could ride to the grocery store nearby to stock up on food and supplies. Occasionally, I took a comfortable, quick train ride to Florence for lunch and a stroll around the piazza admiring the Duomo (which never ceased to amaze and impress me to the point of tears!)  and eat a ginormous sandwich from the famous All’ Antico Vinaio on the Via de Neri. 

And oftentimes, I simply read a book in the garden next to the colorful and prolific hydrangeas, sipping local wine…this was how I spent my days.  And all for just 2 or 3 hours of work each day, with a full day and night off each week to explore further.  Using that extra night, I visited the Cinque Terre to hike from village to village, ate award-winning ice cream in medieval San Gimignano and took the train to see Andrea Bocelli perform in the Verona Arena, a 1st-century Roman amphitheatre! 

What an amazing experience it was to actually live in Italy for two whole months.  Think about that for a minute – living in a villa, watering flowers and picking up bits of trash for a couple hours – in exchange for a place to sleep every night at NO COST to you, and giving you the chance to spend time in one place learning the culture, practicing the language, and actually being a local!

Another time, I found a housesitting gig in the Caretaker Gazette – in July, I spent a week in the charming oceanside town of Port Townsend in Washington State taking care of a fluffy cat and exploring the coast. There are tons of cool options in this little homegrown publication!

I do want to add one important tip… When you are flying to another country to do one of these work exchange opportunities, do not – I repeat – DO NOT share with the border or customs control person that you are arriving to be working or even housesitting in their country. Unless you have a work visa, you are prohibited from working in most countries. Even without money 💰 changing hands, some countries may consider work exchange programs “work” because of the exchange of value… work for accommodations/food. 

When they ask, tell them you are a tourist.

I personally know at least two people who were being truthful when asked upon arrival and said they were there to do a workaway or housesitting and were turned around and sent back to the US because they didn’t have a work visa.You’ll be doing touristy things and traveling as well, so saying you’re there as a tourist is still a truthful statement.

To enjoy these opportunities and find so many more that will change your life, subscribe to Workaway ($49/year www.workaway.info) and/or to The Caretaker Gazette ($29.95 for 1-year online access or different pricing for mailed newsletters). 

There are other websites that offer work exchange as well, including WWOOFing (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms), WorldPackers and HelpX, but I haven’t explored opportunities with them…yet! ☺  

Using these resources, you’re sure to have an amazing, one-of-a-kind authentic travel experience, learning more and spending less!

Want to follow and travel along with me? Join my adventures at Facebook or on Instagram…

See you there! 😉

 

 

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.