look into woofing if your interested in organic gardening. i did it for 4 months in british columbia, and had a great time. but its worldwide and nearly every country has at least a few (if not hundreds) of farms to volunteer on. its a great cheap way to travel and meet people.
basically you work on an organic farm (and these farms can vary greatly in what they produce) for around 4 hours a day for free room and board. depending on how much of an alternative person you are (hippy...) you can meet some really like minded cool peopple.
That's definitely a possibility. 4 hours a day for free room and board sounds like a good deal. Although I wouldn't consider myself a hippy by a long shot, I tend to hang out with a lot of them so that would work.
If you haven't already and you're looking for a good laugh or several, I recommend reading "Innocents Abroad" by Samuel Clemens (e.g. Mark Twain). Definitely not the style of writing you'd expect if that name evokes Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer. Even more satirical and way fucken more hilarious.
that book
I guess, in the end, it comes down to what type of work you want to do. And how long you want to be there. Have you given any of this any thought? Along with a preferred continent?
I'm looking at a period of around a month. I can possibly go for three months max, but I'd like to keep it around 1-2 months. Unfortunately it seems that shorter volunteer commitments tend to cost more to sign up for. I don't want to pay more than $1000 per month for everything (room and board, food, plane tickets, program costs, etc.
I don't have any strong location preferences. I've never traveled outside of North America before. Although I know
basic Spanish and German, I'm not fluent in any languages besides English. Just for laughs I'll make a list of preferred continents from most preferred to least, although keep in mind that this is very loose:
1) Asia (esp S and SE Asia including islands - looking at India big time)
2) Africa
3) Europe (eastern)
4) South America (Peru or Chile would be cool)
5) Australia (Fuck kangaroos)
6) North America (I'm pretty well traveled throughout NA and so I would rather work outside the continent)
7) Antarctica (Actually I would go here in an instant if possible, but lolz)
As for the type of work I'm open to anything except major construction. Farming and educating/working with kids are both good. It would be MAJORLY good if I could do something health care related since I'm going into the medical sciences.
Thanks.
