Working hostels are simply brilliant and I would recommend them to anyone. Whether you are a backpacker looking to earn some dollars, or someone just staying in hostels along your travels, getting into the habit of staying in working hostels is a habit I would recommend. A working hostel holds that name as it actively looks for work for guests. So, upon arrival you can have a job in minutes, or at the most, within a couple of days. Almost always, the work is seasonal work – pruning, picking or packing fruit and vegetables. However, they also will often hire within the hostel itself but this is something I will talk about more in another post as almost all hostels follow this style of hiring.
Alongside the wonder that is word-of-mouth, working hostels act as one of the best gateways to finding a job when travelling. Not only this, but they also act as a source of the freshest and tastiest (free) produce – any crop being picked is almost always brought home by the basket load and shared. Whilst in Australia and New Zealand, I remember eating my lifetimes supply of the most amazing pineapple, melon, peaches, apricots and asparagus! As many find, when you are on a budget that enables for noodle sandwiches and not much else, being provided with this stuff is a gem.
The social life of these hostels is always wonderful too. It will be the most homely and welcoming space you will find along your travels, as they are always the smaller and less bustling hostels. Everyone knows everyone and the owners generally care about the guests like they are family. Sometimes this family vibe can feel a little intimidating upon arrival, but give it an evening of sitting on the sofa or a day in the fields, and this will pass and you will feel a part of it, so do not worry. Employers within the seasonal work industry are often known not always being as fair as they should, so by having a hostel manager or fellow pickers on your side, you have a good foundation of support to put anything right. Therefore I would recommend going through these to find seasonal work rather than sites you find online. By finding work through your hostel, it reduces your chances of having a jammy boss as working hostels have their regular farms they liase with, and so it is not in the farms interest to be stingy with any employees.
I recommend spending some time on Google prior to working out where to stay, as these days people seem to be pretty good at writing reviews of places they have stayed and/or worked. Also, if in doubt don’t be afraid to hop on the phone. By calling the hostels, you get a much better insight into the vibe of the place and what is on offer job and social-wise – try not to go solely on the website or online reviews. A chat is always the best source of information. I found that once you start staying and/or working in these type of hostels, you can easily gather up contacts and information from fellow veg pickers, as to which direction is best to head next.
Most places take people on for anything from two weeks to two months, and sometimes more. This is why working hostels provide the perfect pit-stop for sad looking wallets. They also always offer cheaper rates for guests staying for longer periods of time, even if just a couple of weeks.
I have focused this particular post on a few key hostels in Queensland, Australia. Over the following weeks I will follow up with information on other areas in Australia, and around the world. I will also write specifically about seasonal work itself as knowing where in particular to go, and when to go is the key to finding work in this area – there are hubs around the country and the time of year depicts what is happening and where, and how much you will be paid. In the mean time, there are lot of websites out there with this information on so you can gather a good picture of the details needed to get stuck into seasonal work out there.
Working hostels in Queensland, Australia
Bundaberg
This is a key spot for those looking for seasonal work, and has easy access to the beautiful area surrounding it. It is a popular spot for backpackers stopping to work, so gathering a good group of friends during your stay here is guaranteed. Bundaberg is also known as the ‘gateway to the reef’, with exquisite underwater sites to see, along with vast quantities of fruit and vegetables to pick. This has led to many travellers taking their days off to qualify as an Open Waters Diver from just $299.
Below is just one hostel, loved by all who stay there, but hop on Google for a long list of places to kip and find work in Bundaberg.
The Grand Hostel
Attached to a hotel, this hostel is efficiently run and offers great support for working travellers and a cosy place to stay for as short or as long as you need.
http://web.me.com/msconnor/GrandHotel/Welcome.html
Bowen
This place is a gem in the crown of the Whitsundays, which are an essential spot to explore during your travels in Australia. Bowen offers untouched beaches, with endless amounts of snorkelling and diving to be done. It does not have quite the amount of work other areas do, but is well worth researching and timing it right to spend some time in this beautiful place.
Barnacles Backpackers
This peaceful hostel is perfectly located 500m from the beach and provides transport, links and support to find work in the area.
www.barnaclesbackpackers.com
Ayr
The little town of Ayr has a great spirit and almost always has work during the season due to its abundance of water, escaping any drought issues any other spot might face.
Delta Hostel
This well-established hostel provides you with all manor of fruit and vegetable picking in the area, along with a renowned family vibe. Backpackers often pay more than one visit to this place, with Delta having many regulars up their sleeves.
http://www.deltabackpackers.com/delta/
Ayr Backpackers
Another very welcoming hostel, with connections to almost all the farms in the area. With a treat of a swimming pool in the back yard, you can soak your tired muscles and soak up the rays holding a ice cold stubby once your day is done.
www.ayrbackpackers.com.au
Atherton
Tucked away in the beautiful rainforest, this spot is a haven of natural beauty and often thought of as Australia’s best kept secret. With Cairns just an hour south, you can explore the outdoors and then grab your dose of city life if need be too.
Atherton Travellers Lodge
A home away from home – soak up a few weeks of life as a proper local thanks to this small and cosy hostel.
Address: 37 Alice Street, Atherton, Queensland
Telephone: +61 (7) 4091-3552
Tags: australia hostels, hostels, work abroad, Youth Hostels
Working abroad – what a wonder it is. In this blog I hope to bring you ideas and general tips to help the process, along with nuggets of knowledge, experiences and tales from individuals around the world who have found jobs out there or are offering jobs themselves. These are the best sources of information and inspiration. I am looking for people to interview so please let me know if you are happy to take a bit of time to share your stories and I will send some questions your way. You can get in touch via the blog or my Twitter account. Thanks folks.
Twitter – @AmaniOmejer
About me.
Looking back, travelling has always been in my bones but the joy of setting up camp somewhere by working, with fun little adventures flowing from here, are in my eyes, the best. This love for combining work and travel came when I was 18: fresh out of school, in the Autumn of 2005, I headed for the beautiful and intriguing New Zealand. Planning was at a minimum, partly as that is the way I seem to do things, but also due to the fact that the 3 months prior to flying, were filled with 3 jobs, leaving spare seconds in short supply. I left with £600 in my bank and in my mind, many ideas but no set plans.
The following 12 months in New Zealand and Australia were filled with an assortment of jobs and many wonderful adventures in between. In NZ I found myself: pruning apple trees at the foothills of the Abel Tasman mountains; working in a bustling little bar by the Marlborough Sands; working at a couple of events on the beautiful Waiheke Island; pruning more apple trees in the hills of Hawkes Bay; and calling Queenstown home for 5 months, helping to run a cafe, waitress in a local restaurant and help out at a couple of outdoor adventure festivals there. Australia brought me an amazing month of working and living on a boat in the breathtaking Whitsunday Islands and a few weeks making coffees and baking cakes in return for a bed in the trendy town of Byron Bay.
None of the jobs above were organised before hand, some I had experience in, but some I didn’t. Examples like this can hopefully show you how if your ears, eyes and mind are open to new adventures and opportunities, you will learn to believe in yourself and your skills, landing on your feet anywhere you choose to go.
Taking a gap year before university was one of the best things I have done and I would recommend it to anyone. This is for a few main reasons, one being that you soak up truck loads of invaluable advice from all those you meet, helping you make the most of whatever is to come next in life. Many people head off post-university and so the piece of advice I picked up on the most was to make the most of your summers whilst studying (in the UK we seem to spend more time on holiday than in lectures, and so this is simply asking for adventures).
So, considering I had caught the travel bug, the following Spring of 2007 I decided my next venture would be to a place I had always longed to go – Kenya. Through a company this end, I got a place teaching in a school and orphanage there that summer, and fundraised for the trip (which is an adventure in itself). It was incredible and I learnt more skills and grew in confidence in that few weeks, more than ever before in such a short space of time. Upon finishing my post there, I also helped in a school I found along my travels. I will talk about this in more detail but there are many ways in which you can organise wonderful opportunities in developing countries, to work and be involved in, without paying a small fortune to a Western based company.
Before returning back for a second year of university, and after working back home for a month, I flew over to Copenhagen to volunteer at The Homeless World Cup (http://www.homelessworldcup.org/). It is an incredible event, which in those days was smaller and you received food and a bed in return for working with the team. I would recommend volunteering at events such as this to anyone, be it big or small and involving charities or not, as you will return home inspired to the brim. You do not need bundles of money or contacts, it is simply a case of finding the right kind of thing on offer. I saw the organisation advertised in The Big Issue one day, and got in touch to scout out about volunteering. We are blessed with cheap travel these days, and so by utilising this, whilst preferably being aware environmentally, will enable you to get involved in various exciting things around the world.
Kenya Adventure!
Upon arriving home after Kenya and Copenhagen, I realised I had fallen in love with the Sunshine Continent of Africa. The next two years at university, I was incredibly lucky to have three opportunities to go and work in East Africa, expenses paid. One of these was representing the university at the African Athletic Championships in Ethiopia, with my main task being to interview the medal holders post-race. The other two trips were taking young people from the UK to Kenya and Uganda for 2 weeks of travelling in a bus, working on small projects there. It is a trip very close to my heart, and something I am still involved in from an organisational perspective. You can see more about it and watch a snippet of the documentary made one year, here – http://www.robwalkertv.com/index.php/youth-work.
These three opportunities I have mentioned above simply came from showing enthusiasm and following my heart, which at that point was with Africa, talking to people and offering to help out. So, next time you hear someone interesting speak, see a cool project, or watch an interesting documentary: get in touch or wander up to the front for a chat. Almost always, people love to be spoken to about their work and will offer opportunities or contacts if they can. Whether you are at university, working in the bustling city, or living in the hills, there is a wealth of potential and inspiring things going on everywhere, it is just a case of finding them. That is something I hope to help with, be it by posting links to documentaries and blog posts online, or by sharing sites or inspiration on how to find things in person wherever you are. If all an experience does is inspire you, and not initially lead to anything directly as such, that is priceless in itself.
In my final summer of university (2008) I lived in the crazy and full of character town of Lagos, Portugal, with a couple of friends from home. I was cooking in a cafe and the community there is one of a kind – folks from all over, working hard and soaking up the beach life for the summer. I came home bronzed, smiling, and inspired for my final year of library bound days.
The world literally is your oyster when you are looking to work abroad, and anywhere in fact. There is no one else out there with your bag of skills and unique qualities, so trust in them as they are the best thing to take with you. I took to just walking into places and asking for jobs whilst away but some friends did the same from home beforehand through the wonder of the worldwide web. So, whichever works for you, that is the best way to do it and do not worry. A bit of fear is natural and exciting, but the best advice I could ever give is to simply give it a go.
From then you will realise how easy it is and that any ‘worst-case scenario’ is not really that bad. There are always back-up plans you can have up your sleeve to reassure a worrying mind. Plus, home is only a flight away. In terms of worrying about finding work, take a rather hilarious example from my gap year: in Hawkes Bay, NZ, I was fired after one day of picking peas (may I add, this was due to a couple of team mates that took a liking to the pub more than the fields, so our group count of peas was down by rather a lot). But, never fear, the following day the team had one of the best jobs in the orchards, filling our wallets with a lot of cents and soaking up the Kiwi sunshine whilst we went.
I hope this blog will be something you can refer to when planning adventures abroad, and somewhere you can gather valuable information and inspiration. If there are any places, job types or other topics of particular interest please give me a shout too as I will do my best to get information on these for you folk.
Tags: volunteer abroad, working abroad
I generally try not to spend too much talking about working in Chile because I lived there and don’t want to play favorites, but as I was coming the Internet for an organization for this week’s spotlight, I was really taken with the simplicity and earnestness of Adelante Abroad and wanted to review their website and find out more about the program they offer.
Even though it was Chile that caught my eye, I was happy to find out that Adelante operates Internship programs across the world, in Spain, China, Costa Rica, Mexico, Scotland and Uruguay (as an aside, Uruguay is an often overlooked destination in South America that is both beautiful and inexpensive!).
What I really love about Adelante Abroad’s Intern Chile program is the fact that the internships are located outside of Santiago in the scenic, ocean side cities of Valparaiso and Vina de Mar. These sister cities are located just 1 hour west of Santiago on the Pacific Ocean….and they are breathtaking. They offer all of the culture of Chile without the somewhat stifling urban hustle and bustle of Chile’s capital. Vina del Mar is very much a resort/beach town, which gets much more crowded in the summer (Jan – March) and is a bit lazier in the winter. Valparaiso is a more year-round city, and is full of street vendors and colorful homes…kind of like a South American San Francisco!
But I suppose that while getting to love your surroundings in importantly, the internship experience itself is equally important. Here are some of the things you might do with an Adelante Abroad Internship in Chile:
- You will get three weeks of intensive Spanish training, followed by an internship lasting anywhere from 1 month to 6 months – it’s your choice.
- The program will place you in an internship for 4 days per week – anything from government work to private technology companies to nonprofit organizations. Chile has a rapidly growing economy, so it is a great place to get real work experience.
- The internship is intended to be 50% work and 50% cultural immersion, so Adelante plans excursions and activities to fill your off-hours.
- You will stay with either with a Chilean family or in an apartment with other interns. You have a choice in this, but my recommendation is if you are looking to really get a grasp of the language and culture, the best way is through a home stay with a local family.
Applications to the program are accepted on a rolling basis, and should be submitted 60 days before your requested arrival date. Work placements begin on the first Monday of every month. As you may have inferred, there is a cost involved with Adelante Abroad internships. The fee starts at $2,500 for one month and up to $5,500. . .so you really get much more bang for your buck if you stay for a longer period of time. The fee includes room and board, orientation, intensive language instruction and support from the Chile Program Director. Airfare and insurance are not included. Adelante also makes it very easy for you to obtain academic credit for your international internship.
So if you’re interested in a serious internship in some beautiful coastal cities, consider the Adelante Abroad Internship Program in Chile. If Chile isn’t for you, make sure to check out some of the other programs that they have available.
Tags: adelante abroad, internships, volunteer abroad, volunteer in chile, work abroad