As she scrolled by way of movies of vacationers doing volunteer work in change for free lodging, digital nomad Naiara Saiz Bilbao thought she’d hit the jackpot.
She went to certainly one of the hottest volunteer journey platforms, searched for one thing related, and got here throughout an inventory for a task at a hostel in Costa Rica.
The tag line, “Do you like nature and dream of living by the sea?” piqued her curiosity instantly.
As she learn on, Saiz Bilbao, initially from Spain, discovered that the volunteer place would contain finishing social media duties for a few hours a day, 5 days per week, in change for a free keep at a modern hostel in a preferred seaside city, surrounded by luscious jungle and full with a pristine pool.
A seasoned traveler who’d fallen laborious for the Central American nation after visiting a number of instances, Saiz Bilbao was excited by the alternative and rapidly signed up.
It appeared like a dream come true, and to Saiz Bilbao, a solo feminine traveler, the position additionally appeared safe.
“At least I’m going to feel safe,” she remembers pondering. “With a volunteer program organized through a paid platform, you feel sure the place you’re going to will take care of you.”
Unfortunately, issues didn’t prove as she anticipated. Earlier this yr, Saiz Bilbao arrived at a dilapidated constructing nonetheless beneath development, its entrance through a seemingly infinite stretch of stairs that led to a window-less hostel.
“It was a disaster,” Saiz Bilbao says. “It looked like a jail.”
She later discovered that the unappealing look of the hostel was the least of her issues.
Saiz Bilbao is certainly one of numerous vacationers to be lured by a volunteering alternative overseas.
Travel volunteering — exchanging expertise for lodging and typically meals or different advantages — has lengthy been a pillar of the backpacking group.
“The idea goes back to the time of Jesus Christ,” says Shay Gleeson, the founding father of Helpstay, a web-based platform which connects volunteers with hosts throughout greater than 100 international locations.
“It’s essentially bartering. In return for a free stay, you help out. You pitch in.”
Millennia on from the biblical age, journey volunteering has exploded with reputation, largely thanks to the web.
More than seven million people from 140 international locations are members of Worldpackers, the on-line platform claims, making it the largest participant in the business.
Its fundamental competitor, Workaway, affords 50,000 experiences, whereas ecological farming-focused volunteering platform Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) says it’s attracted greater than 100,000 members.
Volunteering alternatives throughout every of those platforms are as huge and various as every other type of journey, from hostels searching for receptionists, cleaners and occasion promoters, to surf faculties in want of academics, to native households trying for childcare staff.
There are even alternatives for reside musicians to play gigs or artists to embellish buildings.
Worldpackers says almost half of its hosts are non-profit organizations that credit score volunteers as being important to their operations.
The on-line platform additionally stresses that these exchanges are not jobs, however slightly cultural experiences, including {that a} new, separate “jobs” class might be launching on the web site quickly.
It’s not simply digital nomads like Saiz Bilbao who are trying for volunteering alternatives and are keen to pay the platforms’ subscription charges.
Millions of younger people are flocking to volunteering as a time-rich and cash-poor mode of seeing the world, with many viewing volunteering as an adventurous various to extra sanitized types of journey, resembling organized excursions.
“Younger generations are searching for more than photos or checklists,” says Worldpackers co-founder and CEO Ricardo Lima.
“They’re not looking for ‘mainstream tourism’ — they want immersive, authentic experiences.”
Traveler Jenna Pollard, initially from South Dakota, had her first worldwide volunteering expertise at a household peanut farm close to Pai, in northern Thailand, when she was 28.
Pollard, who labored on the farm for 10 days again in 2016, says she was attracted by the notion of having the ability to journey in a extra linked manner, slightly than merely “staying in a hotel and seeing the sights.”
“I made friends, learned some language, helped out with a ton of projects and ate amazing food,” she laughs. What extra may she need?
Today, Pollard lights up whereas describing her host’s 10-year-old daughter and the bamboo-built buildings they lived amongst.
Now the engagement and training program supervisor at WWOOF USA, Pollard considers volunteering a life-changing expertise.
“For a lot of people, they come out of it feeling like their faith is restored in humanity,” she says. “They’re living in harmony, not just with other people but with the planet.”
In Pollard’s view, this transformative magic alchemizes when full strangers join and change into buddies. It all “starts with a leap of faith that it’s going to be a good fit,” she says.
But whereas Pollard’s “leap of faith” sparked a profession and life-long ardour, Saiz’s resulted in catastrophe.
In addition to the host’s deceptive profile, she claims that she was handled extra like an unpaid worker than a volunteer at the hostel.
Despite having agreed to full social media duties, Saiz Bilbao was as a substitute instructed to clear the hostel’s bogs and different areas — at first a bit of each different day, then day-after-day, then for eight hours per day.
Saiz Bilbao says she wasn’t supplied with any protecting gear or formal coaching on dealing with the poisonous chemical compounds she was utilizing. “The bleach was burning my fingers,” she tells NCS.
According to Saiz Bilbao, the ultimate straw got here when she found her belongings had been rifled by way of, and the $400 she had saved in her backpack’s hidden compartment was gone.
After telling her supervisor that she wouldn’t be persevering with on at the hostel consequently, Saiz Bilbao says she was provided $50 in change for not posting a adverse assessment on the on-line platform that had marketed the position. She refused.
Saiz Bilbao’s volunteering expertise could have been memorable for all the fallacious causes, however was her choice to volunteer any riskier than conventional journey?
All of the main platforms say they severely prioritize volunteer security and take lively steps to stop harmful conditions.
Helpstay says its founder personally opinions each host on its platform, whereas WWOOF conducts ID checks and requests photographs of the areas the place volunteers will eat and sleep.
Worldpackers says it vets its hosts based mostly on references and will journey to examine areas the place potential.
Each of the platforms monitor efficiency by way of opinions and present members with help companies like particular hotlines to contact when issues go fallacious.
Yet, in the similar breath, these platforms stress that they solely present a connecting service, and hosts and volunteers are primarily accountable for themselves and their private security.
Travel isn’t risk-free, they argue, and volunteering isn’t any completely different.
Gleeson says Helpstay advises all its members to conduct their very own analysis and set up strong back-up plans as they need to in any journey scenario. He provides that almost all volunteers on his platform do so.
“We are not a hand-holding service,” Gleeson asserts. “This is travel for grown-ups.”
Lima goes even additional, saying that he’s ‘‘extra apprehensive about the dangers people take by not going touring than the dangers of it.”
But Saiz is apprehensive that the romanticization of volunteering on social media has minimized the significance of such preparation.
She feels that the volunteering platforms are marketed at people who can’t afford common journey – and for whom stepping into a foul scenario is very dangerous.
Worldpackers claims the influencers it works with are real volunteers who “aren’t selling a product – they’re amplifying a movement.”
Women are significantly susceptible to volunteering-gone-wrong. According to Gleeson and Lima, roughly 70% of Helpstay’s and 64% of Worldpackers’ members are feminine.
This over-representation is partly due to the notion that volunteering by way of a platform makes touring safer. Women really feel reassured that lots of the challenges they face when touring, resembling harassment and assault, might be considerably mitigated by the additional precautions of host vetting and opinions.
But when that’s not sufficient and a volunteering expertise does go fallacious, it is strictly these dangers that ladies can face, and that Saiz Bilbao needs have been mentioned extra on-line.
Gleeson says that Helpstay’s feminine members do focus on the difficulty, and that they are the ones driving conversations for enchancment, proactively leaving opinions, and flagging unacceptable hosts.
Speaking through Zoom from a special Costa Rican hostel, Saiz Bilbao stresses that she doesn’t need her expertise to dissuade ladies or different people from volunteering.
Rather, she needs to encourage different vacationers to stay cautious and analysis diligently.
“Don’t not go,” she says. “Go, but be prepared.”