A Mad Guide to Kiwi WWOOFing

What is WWOOFing you say? Well for short, it is your ticket to an incredible farming experience in one of over 50 countries in the world! Think of any country and they will likely have WWOOF hosts there, ready to take you in with open arms. The acronym stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (http://www.wwoofinternational.org/), but some still refer to it as Willing Workers On Organic Farms. People of varying experience levels and all ages (usually minimum of age 16 and no maximum) have been taking advantage of this excellent program since it started in the UK in 1971.

Here is the idea:

You, the WWOOFer, agree to volunteer on an organic farm working for at least four to six hours a day for at least a week in exchange for the host providing: free home-cooked meals, a free room, and free advice on organic farming. You do not pay any money and the hosts will not pay you any money. You want the experience of living a truly organic and sustainable lifestyle and they need the extra hands on the farm. Win, win!

I was a first-time WWOOFer in October 2009 and spent two months with my wife working our way down New Zealand at five farms. It was an incredible experience and I wanted to write this guide to present the lessons that we learned so that future WWOOFers can have the best experience possible. So here are the steps to get you on your way WWOOFing in no time!

Visit the WWOOF web site for the country you are interested in

Each country has a separate national WWOOF organization (part of the international WWOOF Association) which runs things in their country. You have to register in each particular country that you would like to work. Here is a handy list of all the national WWOOF organizations. So in our case, we went to the New Zealand page, WWOOF New Zealand. For Latin America, they have joined together under a single page, WWOOF Latin America.

Sign up / apply and pay the organization fee

Hey wait, I thought you said this was free? WWOOFing is free, but you have to pay an annual fee for each organization to cover their expenses in maintaining a central place that connects WWOOF hosts with WWOOFers. It is usually not that steep of a fee and well worth it. In our case we had to pay NZ$50 for the application and a book, including postage. For Latin America the fee is only $10, AUD$60 for Australia, 25€ for France, etc. Many organizations offer a significant discount for couples and cheaper on-line only memberships.

After filling out the application you will be given a WWOOF membership number and possibly a WWOOF book with the latest WWOOF hosts. I recommend opting for the book since there are so many farms and it is better to leisurely and dreamily read through them off-line in free time or on airplanes. You will need your membership number when arriving at the different farms where you will work. One other advantage of the book is that many WWOOFers only look on-line to book a farm and since some farmers are still old school, they are not yet on-line and are only listed in the book. One disadvantage of the book is that the information is dated to when the book was printed (usually the start of the year), and some farms are still listed that are not accepting WWOOFers anymore. So it is up to you.

Create on-line WWOOF profile

Many people do not create a profile and it really is to their detriment. The only thing the host has to go on before letting you into their home with their family is to look at your profile and have quick conversations with you over the phone / through email. Obviously, they would rather see some pictures and hear a bit about you and why you are WWOOFing to feel more comfortable and welcoming. We created a nice profile with several pictures and our background for doing our round-the-world trip and WWOOFing, and the hosts gave us great comments about the profile. It is also important that if you have special farming, construction, or art skills that you list them in your profile. Sometimes the competition to get on good farms is quite intense and anything that can set you apart will give you one leg up on the competition.

Browse WWOOF host farms

Either in the book or on-line, look over the host farms and read their blurb / look at their pictures. It is quite overwhelming at first because of the sheer volume of farms. This gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside that so many people are participating in such a great program related to sustainable living, but also gives you a false sense of security that you can just worry about which farms to go to later. For us, we looked over the book several times and eventually decided on an order to work our way from the top of North Island down to the bottom of the South Island. We emailed a few farms in Northland and they said to wait until a couple weeks before to contact them about working. However, when we emailed the week before we left, many of the farms were already booked. There are two important points here. First, farms in a specific area on a specific date are not as abundant as you may think after looking at the giant WWOOF host list. Second, many farms only accept one or two people and therefore fill up quickly. The overall message for this step is that you must figure out a general plan of where you want to be and when in the country of interest. If you are super flexible about dates and location then you are fine, but if, like us, you have limited time and want to explore the entire country then you have to put a game plan together. Think of what types of work you would like to do. Think of how big you would like the farm to be. Do you want animals on the farm? Lastly, think of whether you want other WWOOFers to be there with you.

Come up with a date / location plan

Like I said, you may not be able to book a farm very far in advance. Most farmers are busy you know, farming, and cannot keep a giant schedule of WWOOFers. They might not have things for everyone to do anyway. Some people are not the most organized individuals on the planet and take things one day at a time. Others treat WWOOFers like kings and queens and having the guests is more of a burden than it is worth. I would say if you find a farm you like, send them a message or call and see what the availability looks like for the month you are interested in. They may say, “oh sorry we only accept WWOOFers in the winter” or some other crucial piece of information. Others will tell you that they always have plenty of room and constantly have more than five WWOOFers helping them. So contacting them is helpful.

There is always a catch, though. In New Zealand, the hosts get tons and tons of emails every day from wannabe WWOOFers and it is overwhelming for them. This manifests in them not answering most emails. So although a bit tricky and possibly expensive before the trip, you are better off trying to get them on the phone. However, be respectful and courteous about what hour you call since many farmers wake up super early and work very hard. At the end of this step you should have a flexible plan for where you want to be when, with some potential favorite farms that you would like to work at along the way and some feedback from those farms on when to contact again and their availability. As you can imagine, some places are much more enjoyable to work at during specific seasons. Weeding on the lower part of the South Island of New Zealand in the middle of winter is not ideal. Think about this when planning.

Sign up with some hosts

When you are in the window of time that a host is accepting WWOOFers for the time period when you want to WWOOF, send them a message or better yet call them. Get things arranged as soon as you can. We had a few farms that sounded awesome but were completely booked for the entire two months we were there. Even a month in advance we could not find a single place with availability in Otago on the South Island. We waited too long to contact them. It is okay to play things by ear and wait if you don’t mind where you end up, but if you have certain farms in mind, you better be organized and persistent in getting them. Be sure to write down the important details like your hosts’ names, address, directions to their place, phone number, email address, and your agreed upon dates. There is nothing worse than being in the middle of nowhere and having no internet access to look up directions and no phone number to call for help.

When signing up with your hosts, be sure to be very clear on what your role and responsibilities will be. It is a sad fact, but some farms (very few) do try to take advantage of WWOOFers. A poor Japanese girl we met was working 8-9 hours a day cleaning a woman’s house. You do not want this to happen to you. Agree on the number of hours that you will work per day, the general type of work that you will do, and the accommodation that you will have. Your bed can vary from sleeping in a tent, run-down camper van, shack, all the way up to a super comfortable bed. It is good to know what to expect up front, especially when planning how many days you will stay. If you want to adjust your stay, that is fine, just be sure to tell your host well in advance.

Go work and enjoy

With all the planning out of the way, now it is time to enjoy the simple life. Take your flight over to your target country, get a car or some form of transport worked out and go. Each farm has a unique feel. Some have families with children while others have lots of animals and others still have neither. Some places are mega farms with over 1000 acres and others are really just houses with a vegetable garden. The variation is huge and this is part of what makes it interesting to do at least a few farms. Some WWOOFers find a place they love and stay as long as the host lets them. We heard of cases of over a year. The norm, however, is between 7 and 10 days and we both think this is the perfect amount of time.

There are some key things to do when showing up at a WWOOF host that can make things easier on all of us WWOOFers. Please, please, please actually show up. We heard so many times that a WWOOFer signed up, called, emailed, and then just never came. People, this is unacceptable. These families go buy extra food and make up an extra room just for you. Have common decency and at least call if you really cannot make it. Do not sign up for more than one farm for a given time period. People are flexible, but don’t abuse this flexibility and waste their hard earned money. This is especially true if you say that you are a vegetarian or have special dietary requirements and they make extra special arrangements for you. Emergencies happen, but there is always a phone around to give the host a call.

Next, be respectful of the house rules. We stayed on a hippy farm where pretty much anything was okay, but also stayed in homes with strict rules. Figure out the rules quickly and act accordingly. Do not treat their home like a free amusement park and eat all their food. So many hosts had all sorts of rules for things like Internet, the refrigerator, alcohol, etc. All because inconsiderate WWOOFers of the past took advantage of a great situation. Please don’t add to the problem. At every place we stayed, the people treated us like family and provided excellent meals and accommodation. The least we could do to repay them is to help out with the dishes and respect their customs within their home. Think of it as your grand parents’ house. Would you help with dinner preparation? Would you help with the dishes afterward? Would you take it easy on the alcohol and partying? Yes.

Here is a side note about getting to each of the farms. By their nature, farms are out of the way. So you really need to think out how you will reach each farm that you sign up with. There is no one way to go about this. We met WWOOFers who hitched all over New Zealand. Understand that this includes waiting for long stretches of sometimes six hours or more for someone to come along and give you a ride. We also met some girls who took the tourist bus everywhere. This works, but has the disadvantage that you arrive in the nearest city, which may be 100 or more kilometers from the actual place. The host will have to come and get you, and this does not make the best of impressions. We found the best option to be buying a car. With your own ride you have the ultimate in flexibility and if you are able to sell the car when finished, then it can be just as affordable as busing it around.

We bought our car on our second day in New Zealand and sold it for a similar price on the way out. New Zealand is an especially great place for inexpensive and reliable used cars that backpackers can buy at the auctions. We bought ours at the Ellerslie Car Market in Auckland on the North Island and sold it at the Backpackers’ Car Market in Christchurch on the South Island. Be sure to have the car checked for proper functionality and paperwork before making the deal. We heard lots of horror stories about cars not having certain crucial gears, breaking down in the middle of nowhere, etc. The old camper vans are awesome, but you really need to know what you are getting since these things really are old. If it breaks down for good, you are out the resell money that you are likely relying on getting back.

The Work

So what kinds of work can you expect? Well…there is weeding, and weeding, and more weeding. It is not the only thing you will have to do and most hosts are reasonable with their assignments, but the sheer fact is that there is a lot of weeding to be done on an organic farm. Nobody enjoys doing it and the free help are the perfect candidates for the job. Some other things we got to do are: build a retaining wall using a sledge hammer and chain saw, disassemble a camper van to turn it into a goat shelter, set possum traps, plant vegetables, feed goats and chickens, pull out a ton of rocks from a river bed turned garden bed, milk and feed 800 cows, sew clothing, paint signs and a house, make a wall out of wine bottles, carve a trail through the bush up a hill, ride and groom horses, put down compost, weed a field with thousands of cloves of garlic, harvest and sell vegetables at the market, hoe and thin huge garden rows, and use the ride-on mower to cut the yard grass. There are still many other jobs that we heard about and did not have the chance to do. The more you already know will provide more opportunities for interesting work. However, you do not need to be an expert in anything to join the fun. Most hosts love to teach and each place is unique and full of so many opportunities. If this sounds like the kind of thing you’d like to do then go to step 1 and get started. There is no time like the present.

My wife and I are trying to locate a good lifestyle block for ourselves in the USA northwest. Hopefully soon we shall have WWOOFers of our own. Good luck!

PS. Be sure to visit our blog entries to read about our kiwi farming adventures and post any questions you have about WWOOFing.

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