[Green-Moo]

Has anyone here been WWOOFing before? I you have, I'd be keen to hear what you thought of the experience.

WWOOF - Around the World

You exchange your time for food & accomodation with a host family.

Green-Moo

[EviesEarth]

This is awesome. I am going to send it to my parents. They have a ranch, with apples, honey and a very large garden.
Thanks for posting link!

[tater03]

This is the first time I have ever heard of this. This sounds like fun to participate in. Also curious to know if anyone is involved?

[horselover]

That's so cool, I'd never seen it before.

[Lyndsey]

I actually WWOOFED three summers in a row, twice in France. Two out of three times were fabulous. The hosts were patient and made me feel at home. I learned some useful skills, even some masonry. Once was in a remote area with an impatient person who seemed to always be looking for an argument. If you're in a remote area with someone like that, you feel trapped. I would do it again, though and hope for experienes like my first two.

[tater03]

It sounds like overall you had good experiences with it. To bad the one bad one had to be in a more remote area.

[Lyndsey]

Originally Posted by EviesEarth

This is awesome. I am going to send it to my parents. They have a ranch, with apples, honey and a very large garden.
Thanks for posting link!

It can be a great experience for both volunteers and hosts. Just warn your parents that some hosts I met complained that volunteers were using wwoofing as a cheap form of travel and weren't very dedicated. They would dawdle over the work so that they didn't get new chores.

[mollyL]

WOW! I didn't have any idea that such an organization existed. Sounds like hard work, but definitely worth it for the travel and education. I'm wondering if perhaps there is message board or whatever where the bad hosts and/or bad workers can be outed so people wouldn't deal with them?

[Lyndsey]

Originally Posted by mollyL

WOW! I didn't have any idea that such an organization existed. Sounds like hard work, but definitely worth it for the travel and education. I'm wondering if perhaps there is message board or whatever where the bad hosts and/or bad workers can be outed so people wouldn't deal with them?

From what I remember, there definitely is a mechanism that protects hosts and volunteers. There is a head office that keeps track of complaints. You also have to pay a modest fee to become a member or renew your membership in order to get access to the lists of farms, and hosts or volunteers can be removed from those lists after a certain number of complaints.

[3plus3]

Very interesting indeed. I think this is a great opportunity to make more people aware of organic farming.