via
https://ift.tt/2WmetrwSo, it’s called WWOOF, which stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Each country runs its own program and has its own website. We have WWOOF farms in the US, but they’re generally out west and more popular for pot farms. Still, there are other farms here too!
I was having a bad time, so I contacted some farmers and booked my tickets within a few days.
I highly recommend Norway. I hear the UK sometimes turns WWOOFers away at customs, so I avoided them no matter how much I love visiting Scotland.
I considered countries such as India and Japan as well, but after comparing a few specific farms, I decided on Norway based on the type of farms (produce, livestock, etc.) and availability (I was emailing farmers pretty late in the season).
My advice to everyone is that WWOOF does NOT background check you or these farms. If a farm gets enough bad reviews, the organization visits and shuts them down if they don’t like what they find, but that means some WWOOFers have to go through bad experiences first. You don’t want that to be you.
The reality is that you are contacting strangers in another country and agreeing to stay with them for weeks or months on end. You need to be realistic about your expectations. This is NOT the time for awkward politeness, so be ready to battle your social anxiety.
So here is how I assured myself a good time when I went:
-Don’t choose a farm if the work doesn’t sound interesting! Does berry-farming sound boring? Don’t contact berry farmers. Yeah, not ALL of the work will be fun all the time, it’s a farm. But find a farm whose “theme” seems exciting to you, like the goat farm did to me.
-Be upfront about your meal expectations. I eat a lot. I told the farmers I am used to being able to snack throughout the day between meals, and that having access to snack food would be important to me. They said it was no problem, and it really wasn’t! I ate more there than I get to home. Some farmers will accommodate vegetarians, but many of these farmers grow their own meat and will not. And if you’re going somewhere like Norway, unless your independently wealthy, you are NOT going to be able to afford to buy your own food. Farmers also sometimes accommodate dietary restrictions like gluten intolerance, diabetes, etc. Just ask.
-Be wary of farmers with a lot of children. Look, I don’t want to judge parents, and I love kids, but I’ve heard of WWOOFers getting stuck as babysitters instead of learning to farm. Unless you want to be a nanny, make it clear to farmers with children that you wouldn’t ever want to be the only adult in charge of the children. Be firm about this! Also, it’s sort of scary to me that they trust random travelers alone with their kids in the first place? Anyway, I just went ahead and avoided farmers with children in general. Nothing personal.
-Be realistic about your capabilities. if you can’t lift a hay bail, be honest. If you wouldn’t be comfortable learning to drive a tractor, be honest. They’ll almost definitely have something else that needs done without you having to totally sacrifice all comfort.
-Understand that, under organization rules, WWOOF work days aren’t supposed to last longer than six hours. But also understand you are on a farm, which has weird hours. The goats didn’t care if my work day was over, they needed to be milked again after dinner. Now, my hosts exempted us from this. But at that point, hey, you’re on a farm, and everyone else is farming. You may find you don’t mind doing low-energy chores “after hours.” I didn’t mind milking the goats in the evening. And if you and your crew are halfway through haying a field, you’re not gonna want to stop suddenly and leave it for the next day. SO yeah, while the farmers are mostly good about keeping you to six hours or less, if sometimes going over that to get the job done would piss you off, don’t WWOOF. You’re also supposed to get two days off a week to rest or explore, which was never a problem for me or anyone else.
-On the topic of exploring, choose a farm near something that interests you. On your days off, what do you want to do? Hike? Swim? See the Fjords? GO to a museum? Be sure you’ll have access to public transport unless you want to be stuck on the farm unless the farmers will drive you somewhere. On my first farm I spent about 99% of my time there, but we could hike to a lake and up a mountain, and I was beyond content.
-DONT!!!!! GO TO A FARM!!!!! WITHOUT REFERENCES!!!!!!!!!! NO FARMER should have ANY problem giving you the contact information from their last WWOOFers so you can ask how their stay was. Of the TWENTY farmers I contacted, I only had ONE tell me “sorry. I don’t want to violate their privacy by giving out their email.”
That was dumb, because they should’ve just given me their WWOOFing profile username? Also? Most WWOOFers give explicit permission to give their emails to new WWOOFers.
That farm actually got enough complaints it was shut down. Huge redflag, disaster averted.
The other twenty farms gave me contacts, and most of the references responded enthusiastically, and those references ultimately helped me make my choice!
Anyway, if you’re interested in WWOOFing, you can contact me off-anon, and I can even tell you the farms I went to. One of my follows actually went ot the same farm as me after she read my posts, and she had a great adventure, which I got to follow after friending her on facebook!
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