14 Jun 2017

If you’re strapped for cash but determined to get yourself into some gap year action, read on. There’s this thing called WWOOFing and it’s worth considering; it stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms.

So here’s the deal: you visit a farm and volunteer your time for 4 to 6 hours per day in exchange for food and accommodation. You have to work but it’s the kind of thing that you’ll enjoy if you’ve got an interest in growing your own food, living off the land and immersing yourself in nature. Basically, it’s a hippy gap year dream.

WWOOF is a worldwide community, so there are plenty of people who travel around, going from farm to farm, making friends with their hosts, eating for free and living on the cheap.

If you’re proper cash strapped, you might just want to head up to Queensland for a bit and live on a banana plantation. Or if, say, you’re already travelling around Europe, you could settle in France for a stint picking grapes at a winery. You could even learn how to build a mud brick house in rural Thailand. There are literally thousands of different farms worldwide that could take you on, depending on your interests and availability.

Those who value healthy organic food will really dig this as well, because it provides an opportunity to get a better idea of where our food comes from and the best practices for farming it. Many WWOOFers say the food is some of the best they’ve ever had. As blogger James Woodriff put it:

“There are organic farms all over Australia who truly need, deserve and appreciate, your elbow-grease. They gratefully accept it in exchange for food, board and a game-changing education about where your food comes from.”

Considering that most of us are addicted to our phones these days, spending your gap year on a random farm in the middle of the bush is a pretty radical lifestyle choice, but it could also be a really rewarding one. And if you’re cash strapped but keen, it’s an option that makes a lot of sense.