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  • LAVA Moderator: Shinji Ikari

Has anyone tried WWOOF-ing?

Dont bother with Turkey I did a TEFL and had no degree and I was used and abused there. Promises of hours that never materialised promises of pay on time that never materialised. Teacher abuse is rife there now. I taught for 2 years and I will never go back to work there again. Stay in a european country your much safer. You get diddly squat in Turkey.
 
Neither TEFL or WOOFING really meet the criteria you set out and implied in the OP. Both TEFLing and WOOFING are jobs, where you'll have to work and be serious about it. WOOFING would provide more opportunity to travel, because of the nature of the work. Teaching you'd be pretty limited, at least limited in the respect that most people think they're coming over to work a few hours in the classroom and then spend the rest of the day exploring etc... I can tell you it won't be like that. Er, after living in Asia for a while, I can say that I never met an english teacher who had much time to travel. You'll get holidays (Chinese New Year etc..) but that's about it. You can expect a 30-40 hr work week, where you'll be so tired by the end of a days teaching that you'll be ready to go home, plan tomorrows lesson, and maybe grab a few beers with buddies before settling in. It's a lot like....home.... in many respects.
I worked for an NGO, so I had it a little different. My duties included traveling, sometimes to isolated villages, other times to Singapore's CBD. The only time that I was truly on holiday though, having a good time and not worrying about work etc... was when I actually WAS on holiday, not working. This applies to most of my western friends who lived in Asia too. It was work, it just happened to be in a different country/culture/continent.

Jamshyd and Vegan both have a wealth experience in the teaching side of things, I suggest reaching out to them to get their opinion on their experience. I have less experience with woofers, they just didn't hang out with the young expat crowd too much. But I get that it's not going to be the means for an extended trip (in general. you may get lucky).
Now the good stuff...

Teaching and WOOFING in asia would be incredibly rewarding. Just getting to travel to those places is something many people wish for... and for good reason. If that's what you want, do it. But don't expect to find a way to support yourself and your travels from WOOFING or Teaching. Teaching will give you the opportunity to LIVE in the country (not much travel, but in the end, a more rewarding experience). WOOFING will give you a place to rest your head, but not much else.

I hope you end up going, but I think you'd be better off with a backpack and six months with no commitments, myself. Working in a foreign country is just that, working.
 
I have my TESOL masters and have not been able to find a job teaching English in another country. I do not know why. Some say you have to know someone to get in. All I know is, I have not been able to get in at all. Teaching English is what I do when I have a job. There are so many people teaching English, in fact, that some of us can't find jobs. Don't count on being able to get work teaching English, even if you have the degrees for it.
 
WWOOF'ing / Hitchhiking the world

I'm going to hitchhike from New York to Los Angeles in order to catch a cheaper flight to New Zealand, where I plan to WWOOF for a year. What I'm wondering is: should I bring a tent?

I plan on hitching across the United States at whatever pace seems appropriate. I have no time constraints-- I could take three months to get from East to West. But, the one thing that worries me is my sleeping situation. Sure, there is CouchSurfing, but I have no clear itinerary, so I cannot plan out shelter.

I've been thinking about just bringing a sleeping bag for stealth camping, but I'm not sure it would work with moisture, concealment, etc... Once I get to New Zealand, I plan on hitchhiking the North and South islands as well.

Does anybody have any advice concerning this issue?
 
Tents are expensive and bulky for things being used occasionally. Just take a tarp or a heavy duty rain poncho.
 
Yeah... I think a tent is necessary.

I think I'm going to go w/ this one: http://www.rei.com/product/827809/rei-passage-1-tent

Having one will not only be nice if I absolutely need shelter, but will also provide a considerable amount of psychological comfort as well. Once I make it to NZ, I think I'll have a good cause to camp in the backcountry often.
 
Sounds awesome, I've had really good experiences with wwoof, although not in New Zealand. A tarp would be cheaper than that tent. and you could probably find big sticks around to prop it up in a tent like manner. But the security of knowing you have a tent is nice too, unless you are well versed in wilderness survival and know you can make do with what is around you.
 
You're hitchhiking across the United States and the only thing you're worried about is whether you should bring a tent? 8o

This isn't the Sixties, man. I have a good friend who had a brother that got murdered while hitchhiking :(

Of course I can't say that I've never hitchhiked. I hitched from the Denver area to El Paso 5 years ago. A lot of the people who picked me up, smoked me out.

But I didn't plan to hitch that far. I was on a Greyhound and it stopped briefly at a gas station. I went in to get coffee and the bus left me in some little town on the interstate. I was out of money so I said fuck it, stuck my thumb in the air, and made it to El Paso.

I would never hitch that far intentionally.

What do you have to prove? Why don't you just take a Greyhound?

Flame me if you want for being a voice of reason, but I think hitchhiking across the United States in this day and age is fucking crazy.

.02
 
My parents paid to fly me to Denver. I stuck my thumb out and about 20 seconds later a Mexican woman picked me up, told me about her life and her six kids, and dropped me off an hour up the road at a truck-stop. From there, I waited an hour and got picked up by a trucker going straight to California. He has a Philoppina wife and two children with her. He was fat and scruffy, but I imagine she was beautiful, and he goes to the Philippines every two years for a couple months on the money he saves from driving the truck. He explained the rules of truck-driving and his business. We talked about life on the road, and decided that the two of us weren't very different from each other. He drove me nine hours west, covering 800 some miles, and dropped me at a terrible truck-stop on the Utah border. I got an extremely lucky ride with a guy that took me to a south suburb of Salt Lake City, but that was 2am and I had no chance of getting a ride at that time of the night. I tried, though, for five hours, and failed. I booked a train to Portland, with a stopover in Sacramento, and I've now got an apartment in Portland.

I have to say that people can be exceedingly nice and welcoming if you open yourself up to them. I spent the past week+ CouchSurfing with total strangers in Portland, and these people treated me like family. Hell, better than family. I drank some of the best beers money can't buy with a guy that simply didn't have anybody to drink them with before he met me. I went blues dancing with another girl-- I have a phobia of dancing. People bought me food, cooked me some of the best meals I've had, and showed me around the city, just because they're excited about Portland and life.

This trip renewed my faith in humanity, and I hope you guys can experience it sometime soon.
 
Changed said:
My parents paid to fly me to Denver. I stuck my thumb out and about 20 seconds later a Mexican woman picked me up, told me about her life and her six kids, and dropped me off an hour up the road at a truck-stop. From there, I waited an hour and got picked up by a trucker going straight to California. He has a Philoppina wife and two children with her. He was fat and scruffy, but I imagine she was beautiful, and he goes to the Philippines every two years for a couple months on the money he saves from driving the truck. He explained the rules of truck-driving and his business. We talked about life on the road, and decided that the two of us weren't very different from each other. He drove me nine hours west, covering 800 some miles, and dropped me at a terrible truck-stop on the Utah border. I got an extremely lucky ride with a guy that took me to a south suburb of Salt Lake City, but that was 2am and I had no chance of getting a ride at that time of the night. I tried, though, for five hours, and failed. I booked a train to Portland, with a stopover in Sacramento, and I've now got an apartment in Portland.

I have to say that people can be exceedingly nice and welcoming if you open yourself up to them. I spent the past week+ CouchSurfing with total strangers in Portland, and these people treated me like family. Hell, better than family. I drank some of the best beers money can't buy with a guy that simply didn't have anybody to drink them with before he met me. I went blues dancing with another girl-- I have a phobia of dancing. People bought me food, cooked me some of the best meals I've had, and showed me around the city, just because they're excited about Portland and life.

This trip renewed my faith in humanity, and I hope you guys can experience it sometime soon.
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Glad to hear you're doing well, man. :) And Portland is quite the city to have ended up in. ;)
 
TheSpade said:
There is no expense. WOOFING is free aside from having to buy a membership. The concept is you work in return for food and board.
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I just read this entire thread and have the itch bad but one of the things that is bugging me the most is the cost of a round-trip plane ticket across the world.
 
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