Tuesday, August 14, 2018

About my first amazing workaway experience

About my first workaway experience in beautiful Tarifa, Spain. 

Workaway.info is a platform where you can find all kind of volunteering opportunities, from child care to charity projects. You can look up all these opportunities before paying anything, but when you want to contact someone you have to pay about 25 Euros for a one-year membership. In this year you can contact as many people as you want. The basic idea is that you work about five hours five days a week for accommodation and food.
If you decide to go somewhere via workaway I really recommend you to read the references of other workawayers, because I've met a few travelers that were not so happy about their experience, it's all about the people. It can be amazing or it can completely suck, reading references and asking other volunteers highers the chance that your stay will be one of the amazing ones. Good luck.

However, I was lucky and I couldn't imagine a better summer. I helped a family in Tarifa renting their apartments. I and another workaway girl were mostly responsible for checking in/out the guests and cleaning the apartments. We lived together in one apartment that was connected to the reception, we both had a nice single room and we got on extremely well with the family!

When someone asks me about my favorite place I have visited I say Tarifa. It was an amazing summer full of great people and unforgettable memories. There was also work to do, some days less some days more, especially Sundays weren't easy when most of the guests were leaving. Some of my friends thought I'm just tanning all day long, so no, I wasn't, but it was so worth it. Thanks to workaway I could afford spending two months in a place where other people make holidays and I didn't spend much more than I would have spent during the summer in my hometown.

What was a bit challenging was the language because even though Spanish wasn't required I can't imagine working there without speaking Spanish at least a bit. My level was not very high when I started there and calling, messaging and talking to people that can't speak one word in English is exactly as difficult as it sounds, but somehow we always managed. After a while, I learned the most common and useful phrases that I needed and it got easier. I even lost my hate of speaking with someone on the phone for a while. Sadly only for a while.

I could speak for ages about all the days full of adventure, the relaxed beach days and not ending nights, but I think I made clear how much fun I had because of workaway.info. I was a bit doubtful before going there because you know, you don't have a contract and you don't even know if the place actually exists. Also, I booked my flight after a ten minutes skype call and then I was supposed to remind my boss of my stay one or two months before, it made me a bit insecure I must admit. So always remember "those who move forward with a happy spirit will find that things will always work out."

Do you have any workaway experiences?

2 comments:

  1. To je úžasně inspirativní! O Workaway jsem hodně uvažovala loni, ale nakonec jsem kvůli zaměstnání vyjela jen na dvoutýdenní dobrovolnický projekt do Švýcarska. Teď mám Workaway v plánu, až budu někdy měnit práci, a rovnou bych chtěla zkusit nějakou exotičtější destinaci. Je to pěkná myšlenka a ráda čtu, že funguje i v praxi.

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    1. Určitě se na nějaký vydej, až budeš mít tu možnost. Dvoutýdenní dobrovolničení ve Švýcarsku muselo být ale taky úžasný!

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