Why spend time volunteering abroad? Well, to be a volunteer is to freely offer up your time to work with animals or people in some way. This could be anything from assisting in the building of a new school to looking after a young child or helping injured animals. A huge benefit of volunteering abroad while travelling is that you are most often provided with free accommodation and food!
If volunteering abroad appeals to you then check out the rest of this post to discover where to find volunteer opportunities. There are many sites on the web nowadays with endless volunteering abroad opportunities. Some require payment while others offer free volunteering experiences. Certain kinds of voluntary work are difficult to come by as free so depending on what the experience is and how much it will benefit you, it can be worth paying. Make sure you know the money is going to a worthy cause though.
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” — Buddha
Volunteer World
I love Volunteer World! They have so many volunteer jobs available to peruse from all over the world. Most volunteering opportunities come at a cost. However, many are very low cost (less than you would pay for renting somewhere) and some are free. A wonderful free volunteering opportunity is the Dog and Cat Rescue Samui foundation in Ko Samui, Thailand. I plan to help out here next year.
Another great place is the Everest English centre in Hanoi, Vietnam. You can help to teach children here at no cost to you. Both of these overseas volunteering experiences will benefit the local community immensely and are completely free. Everest even provides you with a place to sleep and food as well! I plan to volunteer at the Everest centre next year to practise teaching before taking on a paid teaching job.
Work away
Work away is an absolute travel gem! It costs £32.80 per year for a single traveller which may seem annoying but bear in mind that not unlike Volunteer World, you will have access to worldwide volunteering and work opportunities worldwide wide which usually always provide accommodation and most often food as well. The difference between Work Away and Volunteer World is that you don’t have to pay for any of the opportunities you come across. If there is space available where you want to go, then if you come across as truly wanting to experience what the host is offering then you are likely to be accepted.
You can gather reviews from hosts and build up a good reputation as a reliable worker and volunteer. This will guarantee you are even more likely to be accepted. I applied to volunteer at a few hostels in Scotland for the Summer but unfortunately, they all have no space. However, I was advised to email a few others who are not on Work Away so we will see what happens! Super useful for global travel – you could go anywhere (well usually you could).
GVI
Global Vision International (GVI) is an award-winning organization that focuses on high-impact and high-quality conservation and community development programs. GVI offers many global work and volunteer opportunities. I don’t think there are any free volunteering opportunities but experience with GVI looks wonderful on a CV for future job prospects. Also, they offer internships which can lead to a possible job within GVI.
Although volunteering abroad anywhere with any company is a great addition to your life experience, in terms of career, I think GVI opens more doors. Although they can be costly, you can always hold a fundraising event to help you get the funds you need. They often offer scholarships as well which make the payment more manageable. I will be completing a 6-week turtle conservation internship with GVI in January 2022. I look forward to telling you all about it!
Hostel volunteer
Where ever you are staying, you can always take it upon yourself to email hostels before booking somewhere and offer up your help in exchange for accommodation. You can ask in hotels too but are less likely to have your request accepted. But try anyway, you never know!
Ask around
Maybe you just want to head abroad right now and plan to figure the rest out later. In this case, don’t be afraid to ask locals and other travellers that you come across about possible volunteering opportunities. They may have heard of somewhere or maybe they are volunteering somewhere and can get you involved. I read about someone helping out the ‘nonna’ of someone they met while in Italy with house chores in exchange for accommodation and Italian cooking lessons!
Planning to volunteer? Then pin this post for later!
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