free farmstays worldwide 22 March 2005 at 1:36AM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Overseas Holidays & Travel Planning 16 replies 12.6K views

robonz

this is something that will appear mostly to anyone going backpacking around the world on a budget. its a scheme that allows you to help out for about 4 hours a day and in return get free accommodation and meals. hosts are usually farms but there are quite a variety of non farm places too. its a great way to meet locals and experience new things whilst seeing the world. the majority of hosts are located in Australia and New Zealand but there are quite a lot to be found in Europe and North America and beyond. its called Help Exchange and its totally free to join and use. find out more at:

https://www.helpexchange.net

HOLsale

another option along these same lines is

http://www.wwoof.org/

we've always known it as willing workers on organic farms (and indeed i found it doing a google search with those terms) the the website says World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms

it is our intention to one day run an eco village so we are interested in wwoof for that reason though we may actually travel via this method someday so we can try it out for ourselves.

definately worth a look

thetheboy

I have been woofing in canada and I can thoroughly recomend it. its a great way to travel on the cheap. you meet some great people - wierd and wonderful as well. some farms want you to do about 8 hours work but some only 4. you also eat very well as most of the food is grown on the farm.

As I said its very cheap I went to canada for 6 months and took £1000 and I came back with chaNGE!

I would say it is a life changing expierience - just ask my mate who I went with - it was 6 years ago - he is now living in canada - the !!!!!!!

:j

competitionscafe

HOLsale wrote:

another option along these same lines is

http://www.wwoof.org/

Wwoof is excellent - you get to meet some great people and you are not usually expected to work too hard. There are lots of Wwoof farms in the UK too if you fancy doing something different with your weekends. Highly recommended.

Hadn't heard of https://www.helpexchange.net - so thanks for that - will look into it.

robonz

by the way help exchange is free but wwoof is not

sonnie

thanks for the tip great site

robonz

no problem

robonz

and its still free

competitionscafe

Yes, it's still free.

robonz

over 1300 hosts now!

rich_45

Also, in New Zealand I used https://www.fhinz.co.nz (Farm Helpers In New Zealand) and can recommend them...costs about £10 for the brochure which allows you to stay at hundreds of farms throughout NZ, and there's a review and rating of each one in the brochure.

I stayed on a farm near Cape Reinga in the Far North and barely saw another soul for 2 weeks! We went fishing and were accompanied by a pod of dolphins, and also went hunting and looking for oysters...a great experience all round.