How is it to Travel and Volunteer

In the month of March 2016 when I was working the last few days of my corporate job, I was contemplating my choices as I was planning to travel the next few months across Southeast Asia. Although I had enough finances to just keep traveling, I chose to try being a volunteer as suggested by one of my blogger friends. Since then, I have volunteered at four different places across Cambodia, Indonesia and India helping local communities in their endeavors. Volunteering as a concept sounds like a good thing done with noble intentions, however, the experiences lead to polarizing opinions from travelers. Drawing from my own time as a volunteer, here is my honest take on a few significant aspects of being a volunteer while traveling.

You learn skills that you were not even aware you had

I spent nine years of my life working a corporate job, believing that computers, finance and banking software were the only skills I had. I had big plans to make a great future for myself using those skills. My love for writing aside,I had scarce knowledge about practical life skills at that time. When I first traveled as a volunteer at an environmental conservation project in rural Indonesia, I made myself open to learning something new. During the next eight months, I volunteered in three different places helping in carpentry, farming, construction, graphic design, English teacher, social media management, waiting tables at the cafe, creative cooking in the kitchen etc. That was probably my biggest takeaway from working as a volunteer at different places. I got to learn a lot of skills and realized that I was really good at some of them. Learning those different skills made me explore a lot of opportunities about the future and in a way made me realize what I really want to do.

Meet locals and experience the way of life of the locals

How often we hear and read travelers wanting to live the life of the local communities of a destination? When you are volunteering anywhere, more often than not, you will mingle with a lot of local people. Whether you are working in an organic farm in some village, teaching English to local kids or helping rebuild a disaster stricken town, you will have to interact with the local communities of that place. There is no better way and opportunity to learn, understand and live their way of life. You get to experience different cultures on a much deeper level. You get to eat foods that you would never find anywhere else. You never know you might end up finding some unexpected connection between your culture and theirs. I got invited to a few weddings in rural Indonesia and even got on stage with the local band to sing a famous bollywood song at one of those weddings. I got to learn the local celebration dance of that region and fell in love with the special jackfruit curry they served at the weddings. Experiences like this makes traveling as a volunteer worth all your time, energy and efforts.

Stay and food are taken care of

While traveling, the most significant costs (besides flight tickets) are accommodation and food. Budget and long term travelers like me try to minimize these two costs in every way possible. Being a volunteer while traveling helps this cause in a big way. At almost every place you volunteer, you would be provided with accommodation and meals. Yes, the accommodation at most places will be a shared dormitory style stay but personally, I have always found it totally worth. Not only you get your stay sorted out, you also get to share a community space with people from different places in the world and all walks of life. If you are really lucky and don’t prefer to share your living space, sometimes you might also get your private stay instead of a shared one. During my volunteering stints, I have stayed in a shared dormitory, a cozy corner surrounded by couches in a living room of the local Indonesian family and a small private mud house at an Ecostay.  

Sometimes the visas can be tricky

Tricky is the word I would use when it comes to the particular visas for volunteering and social work. Usually travelers can volunteer while on a tourist visa since they won’t be paid by the hosts. However, I have seen two people being deported from Indonesia because (apparently) they are not allowed to do any sort of volunteering or social work while traveling on a tourist visa. I myself was volunteering at the same place on a tourist visa and I had to move out of that place after the deportation incident with the other two travelers. While there would not be an issue to volunteer while on a tourist visa or a visa exemption scheme, some countries might have particular regulations regarding the same. For example, as while volunteering (or traveling/staying) in India, your host has to provide your details to the local police authorities which is the same in Indonesia and many other countries too. It is always advisable to get these factors clarified with your host before you travel to that place. If you are applying for volunteering through websites like workaway, you will find the required information on the host’s page more often than not.

Experience traveling in a destination in a different way

If you are someone who likes to take the off-beaten track and tends to search for the lesser known places while traveling, then volunteering might be just the right choice you make. You are mostly in the company of some amazing local people, living their lives, eating their kind of food and also traveling their way. You would end up going to places that you didn’t even know exist such as hidden waterfalls, hot springs, unknown hiking trails, fishing trips, camping high up in some remote mountains and many more unexpected adventures. I was amazed to find a natural hot spring along a riverside somewhere deep in the jungles of South Sulawesi in Indonesia during my time volunteering in that region. Over there, with my local friends from the village, I ended up traveling a different path having some wonderful experiences.

These few mostly positive factors of volunteering however don’t shroud the fact that everything will not be that great all the time. You will be out of your comfort zone and will be forced to live a life you had never imagined. Some basic amenities that you have lived your life with, will seem like a once-in-a-while privilege when you are there and that is understandably difficult to adjust to. Also, some volunteering projects might not be entirely ethical especially the ones at child rescue centers or Elephant camps. In fact, a lot of volunteering opportunities at orphanages and rescue centers in Southeast Asia have gradually turned into commercialized tourism activities. This is why I recommend going through workaway where you can get more accurate details about the project you want to get involved with, especially through the feedback from previous volunteers. So, do I recommend volunteering while traveling? Of course I do. For all my life changing experiences, the lifelong friends, my home away from home, the contribution I made to the community and the taste of true wanderlust, traveling as a volunteer was worth it for me.