The pros and cons of work exchanges
A different way to travel
Over the past year I have done four work exchanges in Portugal and each of them have been a completely different experience. After having done a variety of work exchanges over the past year, I feel adept enough to share my wisdom.
For anyone who doesn’t know exactly what a work exchange is, let me break it down for you. You go somewhere and work in exchange for a bed, sometimes food, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll even get paid a little bit of money. It’s normally around 5 hours of work a day and then you’ll get one or two days off per week. Each work exchange is different depending on the work and the host. They’re also commonly known for being a cultural exchange too, so a host will take you in and when you’re not working they’ll often do activities with you or recommend activities to do. The idea is that you both get something out of it, and it isn’t just a way for them to receive free labour (although unfortunately this is sometimes the case). You can do a work exchange as an individual or you can sign up as a pair, either with a partner or a friend. Some places won’t take couples or friends though, so you’re more limited in the options you can choose from if you decide to do it with someone else.
There are a variety of apps and websites where you can find work exchanges, but the main two I have used over the past year have been Workaway and Worldpackers. Both require you to pay an annual subscription of around $100AUD (depending on if you sign up solo or as a pair) which feels steep, but it’s very monetarily worth it if you end up doing at least one work exchange. Also if you end up doing one on a farm in the middle of nowhere, you tend not to spend any money, so it works out to be an extremely budget-free option.
There are pros and cons to doing a work exchange which are important to consider before signing yourself up.
Pros:
You’ll learn so many new things
Meet amazing people
It’s a great way to spend quality time somewhere/travel without breaking the bank
You’ll probably have experiences that will make for a funny story later (always look on the bright side of life hey)
Cons:
The hosts might be bad
The work might not be what you expected (in a bad way)
You might have to spend a lot of time with people who you don’t necessarily vibe with
You can feel as though you’re being used as free labour rather than it being an experience you share with the hosts
There are so many different types of work exchanges you can do. Some work exchanges can be kind of vague about what work you’ll be doing and they’ll often frame it as “helping around the house and some gardening”. My partner and I’s first work exchange experience was one like this, but it turned out that the host was a hoarder who was not a very nice lady, and the environment was completely unlivable. Our job there was to help her move the entire contents of one of her apartments into another place that she owned downstairs, but both were completely full of stuff, and the process was a tedious game of tetris. We were supposed to be living with and working for this woman for six weeks but ended up leaving after three days because the house was completely unlivable and she was just a nightmare.
A lot of work exchanges are on farms. My partner and I did two of those experiences back-to-back, one on a vineyard doing the grape harvest, and one on a pine tree and cork tree farm, which doubled as a wedding venue.
We had a great time on the vineyard. We were there for three weeks, and the work was hard but we got to stay in this amazing mansion on the vineyard and had delicious food cooked for us for every meal. There was also a handful of other volunteers there at the same time and we all became great friends.
The second farm experience was not great. It was completely isolated, and the owners barely interacted with us (when they did, they were not nice people). We also weren’t provided with enough food and didn’t have the ability to go get our own because it was so hard to get to the nearest town. It really felt like we were just being used as free labour, and didn’t feel like an exchange at all. The only good part was the other volunteers who we bonded with over how bad the experience was.
The final and current work exchange I’m doing is at a hostel in Lisbon. This has probably been my favourite work exchange so far, but it’s quite different to the rest of them. I’m doing this work exchange solo, compared to the others, which I did with my partner. Hostel work exchanges are very popular amongst solo backpackers as it’s a great way to spend a lot of time in one place without breaking the bank. It’s also an amazing way to meet new people and make new friends while overseas. Some hostels require you to do cleaning or reception duties, but at this particular hostel our job is mostly to just socialise with the guests and create a good atmosphere, which is so chill and fun.
My main advice to anyone wanting to do a work exchange would be to not trust the reviews. Each exchange has reviews from previous volunteers (unless it’s new) but I’ve found them to be very unreliable. The issue with Workaway and Worldpackers is that hosts often wait until you leave them a review before they’ll leave a review for you. Reviews are important if you’re wanting to do future work exchanges. The issue with that is when you have a bad experience, you don’t want to leave a bad review at the risk that you’ll get a bad review back. Hosts can also get bad reviews blocked, so you can see that they’ve been given a bad star rating, but you can’t see what the volunteer’s specific issues were. I think this is a huge flaw in the work exchange programs, as we didn’t want to leave bad reviews for the exchanges we hated because we still wanted to do others in the future. The main thing to look out for is if somewhere has anything less than a 5-star review. See that as a red flag and try to message the person who left a non-5-star review and see what their experience was like. Obviously, everyone will have different experiences with particular work exchanges and hosts but as a general rule, I would avoid exchanges that have anything less then 5-stars. On the plus side, Worldpackers shows you who previously volunteered at each exchange, so you’re able to privately message people to get their honest opinion about their experience before you apply.
My other recommendation would be to have a call with the host before you agree to go, to make sure you can get an understanding of what they’re like and what their expectations are of you while you’re doing a work exchange with them. You do have the option to cancel a work exchange beforehand or leave early if it’s not working out.
Overall, my work exchange experiences have been very mixed but the ones that have been good have been great, and I’ve learnt so much and met some fabulous people. I would totally recommend doing a work exchange if it’s something you’re thinking about, but just take the steps to ensure you’re going to a good one.