Our Best Volunteering Experiences — The Broke Backpacker Gives Back

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Volunteering will greatly enhance your travelling experience. It’s as simple as that.

It’s different for everyone, but when we travel often, we tend to reach a point where we normalise the idea of adventuring — so much so that we find ourselves asking what is the meaning behind all of it.

And we often find that meaning in volunteering experiences. We understand our power and privilege as travellers. We understand the idea of impacting a community, no matter how small.

Now, this obviously depends on which projects you get involved with. Teaching in schools, working on marine conservation projects or helping in organic farms has a different level of responsibility as, say, helping out behind a hostel desk.

But that’s not to say you can’t find the right program for you, your budget or your interests.

What Does Volunteering Involve?

The standard protocol for volunteering projects catering to travellers usually involves 4-5 hours of work a day with 2 days off.

Most of them will also provide food and board in exchange for your help, which is what leads a lot of budget backpackers to get in on it in the first place.

Some characters on the road can last years on extremely tight budgets simply by jumping from one volunteering project to the other…

The work itself varies depending on the project you apply for, but if you’re keen and have an open-minded spirit, there is something out there waiting for you 😉

We always suggest searching platforms like Worldpackers first, as they make everything that much easier — and safer, too.

Worldpackers: connecting travellers with meaningful travel experiences.

The Broke Backpacker team is filled with mad folk who have done pretty much anything you can imagine on the road.

And if we leave some of the nasty stuff aside (you know who you are!), we have quite the accomplished list to be proud of! And a lot of our most rewarding experiences whilst travelling have come from exchanging a few hours of our time to make a difference.

Aiden – Teaching English in Colombia

When I first hit the road properly back in 2014, I headed off on a one-way ticket to Colombia with a redundancy payment burning a hole in my long-johns. Now, ‘knowing thyself’ as truly as I do, I knew that unless I enforced some form of routine and purpose on myself, I would quickly burn a hole through my septum out in Colombia and that by the time I came home, the little hole through which I pee would also burn every time I used it!

So I took my proverbial toolkit (in this case my above-average grasp of the English language) and got to work teaching English in a deprived school in one of Cartagena’s ‘barrios’. No, I had never taught before but I had hastily completed a 3-day TEFL course in Manchester, so felt properly ready to teach the whole world how to speak with a thick Yorkshire accent!

Because I was a jumped-up chancer, I was nervous as hell before my first class but as soon as I stood up next to the whiteboard, I could instantly feel the reverence and respect that the class was prepared to lend to me. I was determined to not disappoint them and worked hard in the evenings preparing and even rehearsing my lessons.

During my month, I taught adults at a community college and kids in a breeze block school. I quickly earned the nickname “Best Teacher” (catchy right?) even though it did some work getting the learners used to my Northern English accent.

The world has changed a bit in the 10 years since I did this but there is still lots of demand for native English speakers who are willing to share their craft across the world.

Aiden: Gear Manager & Senior Editor

My time working as a volunteer teacher in Colombia was a highlight of quite an awesome trip and I can totally recommend it. In many ways, I learnt just as much in Colombia as those kids did.

Dani – Hostel Hoppin’ in Portugal

My volunteering experience kicked off as it often does for many backpackers… as I was running out of money! While I was galavanting around Europe on my first solo backpacking trip, my bank account started dwindling and I had to get crafty as to how I was going to keep travelling.

Then, like a match made in heaven, I discovered Worldpackers <3

What started off with downloading an App and sending off a few requests ended up being one of the best decisions of my life. Worldpackers took me all around Portugal… for free! I volunteered in hostels across Porto, Lisbon and Lagos over the space of a few months.

The idea of volunteering for me initially started off as a money-saving technique (it sure is one hell of a way to minimise your costs) but on top of that – it truly offered me some of the best travel experiences I’ve ever had.

Not only did volunteering provide me with a free bed, food, surf lessons, surfboard hire and yoga classes (I mean, that was all pretty damn cool too) but it opened up my world! Meeting the other volunteers – who were often a mix of locals and fellow travellers – was amazing. You end up creating mini-families within each experience.

In fact, Worldpackers was kinda like my version of Tinder as it’s how I met my boyfriend! We both ended up volunteering at the same place and fallin’ in luuuurve.

But although I could rave about volunteering for hours – I did have one experience that was not ideal. I started an experience that was run by a guy who was kinda just a dick. I had to put my big girl pants on, confront the dude, pack my bags and get outta there asap Rocky.

But the best part of this was how Worldpackers supported me – they were AMAZING. They got back to me super fast, helped me to secure another hostel for a few nights (paid for by them), supported me in finding another volunteer gig in town and removed the guy’s hostel from the platform. Absolute legends.

Dani: Editor & Oceanic Explorer

From working on a computer that was ONLY in Portuguese (not a language I can speak!) to organising social events for big groups in Lagos, I learned a new set of skills that have been transferable to both my travelling and work life.

Will – Volunteering in the Middle East

A decade ago, I travelled to Israel and then onwards to Palestine and finally Jordan where I marvelled at the sheer incredulous beauty of Petra and hitchhiked around before spending a week Couchsurfing with a Rastafarian Bedouin in the desert outside some of the more far-flung rock-cut ruins of Petra. It remains one of my most treasured adventures.

I did this three-month trip on an extreme budget and to help make that happen I volunteered at two different organic farms in Israel, neither of which I can find online now. I learnt to build Permaculture beds, took care of goats and dug out irrigation canals.

I was warmly welcomed by the host family and learnt some useful skills which I have re-utilised at other times in my life. It was overall a great time in my life and my first real volunteering experience that wasn’t serving drinks at hostel bars (let’s be real, that should be a paid gig)!

Writing about Israel, especially now, feels somewhat odd as Israel is right now pretty busy committing war crimes and insisting that they are victims so I definitely do not recommend you consider travelling to Israel as it’ll put money into government hands and the government is basically evil.

Israel itself is a complicated country with some of both the friendliest and also the most unreasonable people I have ever met. Whilst hitchhiking around, I met soldiers and rabbis, university students, and professionals from all walks of life.

I also met many Palestinians and heard both sides of the story… It’s a complicated story. But I am still glad I went volunteering in Israel as it was an enlightening experience, to say the least.

Volunteering is an incredible way to embed yourself in a local community to truly hear these stories, and to make your own decisions and conclusions, rather than knowing nothing about a place other than what you may see in the news.

Will: Founder & Chief Adventurer

I highly recommend volunteering as a tool to keep costs down whilst travelling but also as a way in which to dive deeper into local culture, to truly embed yourself and to learn the lessons that come.

Tomás – Growing in the Valley

“There are so many things to learn in this life!”

This is what I wrote in my journal on the first day of my first volunteering experience on the road, after learning how to take care of the vegetables, picking some and having the most delicious breakfast in the sun… then starting the process of rebuilding the kitchen.

It was the first time I helped out at a farm, after hearing so much about it because of projects like WWOOF. I wasn’t sure I was gonna enjoy it at first, but it was a really special time in my life.

I met great people, made lifelong friends — the kind that still travel halfway through the globe to come and crash at your place — and I learned a LOT.

And I’m not gonna lie, for a cash-strapped backpacker, it is a great way to get around travelling in expensive countries too.

The work itself was rather simple, and it usually started with a coffee meeting pretty early in the morning to delegate the tasks for the day. There was only one other volunteer, but there were always friends of friends around.

Every night we sat around the fire, drinking tea, chatting, and moving to the beat of the drums. Some nights truly felt like a movie.

If you can, do yourself a favour and just do it. Join a platform like Worldpackers and go for it. You won’t regret it.

Tomas: Brand Manager and Part-Time Dirtbag

There is something really special about being able to dedicate yourself entirely to a project that you identify yourself with. No expectations, no worries, no problems. Only reward.

Nic – Beach Clean Up In Turkey

I’ve spent a lot of time in Turkey, in fact, my father-in-law and his wife live there and we’ve made frequent trips to visit them over the years. When we found ourselves back in this wonderful county in the middle of our backpacking trip around Eastern Europe we must admit we now felt suddenly out of place on the South Coast of Turkey we knew so well.

You see, this area is kinda like a British enclave. Don’t get me wrong, I begrudgingly admit that after several months on the road, it was nice to have a decent fry-up! But after hitchhiking around Albania and kickin’ it with locals in Kosovo, we needed something else that made us feel more connected to the place.

So we began researching volunteering opportunities through Worldpackers and came across a nearby project aiming to clean up the local beaches where turtles come to lay their eggs each year. Being animal lovers this was the perfect fit for us.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks we met up each day with a group of dedicated local volunteers and enthusiastic travellers hoping to make the world a cleaner place, one plastic bottle at a time.

Sure, it was hard work and has somewhat changed my perspective on whether a beach is in fact the perfect office, but it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.

Turning up at the start of the fortnight to a beach strewn with rubbish, cigarette butts and a whole host of other unmentionables was disheartening, to say the least. But being able to watch a few weeks later when the turtles came into shore to lay eggs in a safe and clean environment was the ultimate payoff.

Nic: Senior Editor & Roaming Renegade

The teamwork, camaraderie and above all seeing what you as an individual can achieve when you come together, taught me a great deal and restored at least some of my faith in humanity.

 

Harv – Oat Milk Flat Whites CAN Be Rewarding

It was my first time backpacking SEA and myself and Dani had just arrived on a stunning Island in the south of Thailand called Koh Lanta. Little did we know that this magical place would be our home for the next 6 months after we stumbled across a life-changing volunteering opportunity with a local Thai family.

We were staying at a beautiful, family-run homestay. I remember the moment as clear as day. I was sat under a towering palm tree having a ‘holy shit is this real?’ moment. On the property, one of the family members had started a cafe. Over the course of 30 minutes, I watched several tourists approach the cafe and walk out empty-handed.

This puzzled me. I knew their coffee was f*cking good as I had several cups myself. I asked the owner ‘What happened, why did they not buy anything?’

It was then I realised how we could help.

The owner was incredibly talented at making coffee but knew very little English. In fact, his menu was fully in Thai and couldn’t even be translated through our trusty Google Translate.

Seeing as I’m semi-literate in my native language, I offered to help. I would translate his menu to help people order. He agreed and over a delicious coffee, we started to translate his entire menu and mocked up a new design for it.

But it didn’t stop there.

We taught the owners the power of Google reviews (they now have over 200+ 5-star reviews!), designed signs, created social media content, took semi-professional food photos and helped him develop recipes for smoothie bowls & other Western-style food. We also encouraged them to start offering oat and coconut milk options, which as you can imagine… absolutely popped off.

It was so rewarding seeing his cafe and business thrive. They went from people walking out empty-handed to daily queues of customers and a bustling cafe.

In exchange for this work, the family welcomed us in. We stayed with them, they taught us Thai and we helped teach them English. They took us to local events and allowed us to experience local life alongside them. We would eat food with them every day – delicious authentic Thai dishes cooked by their mother and shared by the whole family, which we were now a part of.

Harvey: Editor & Double Protein Champion

Volunteering experiences are truly rewarding for everyone involved. I learned so much about local culture by staying with this family and it was an amazing way to experience authentic life which many tourists don’t get to see.

Clair – Booked 3 Nights, Stayed 3 Years!

I happened upon this place together with a friend in mid-2015. I was on a cross-country driving venture aiming to visit Scotland whilst backpacking in the UK.

After randomly crossing paths with an old travel friend in Manchester things unfolded quite unexpectedly. She mentioned she was visiting Liverpool next, she had found a SUPER cheap hostel, and did I want to come?

Being a budget traveller who’s stayed in more hostels than I could ever count, my interest was immediately piqued. We booked for 3 nights.

Arriving at Everton Hostel we found a raucous, fun, friendly, and chaotic atmosphere, housing the most wildly eclectic group of staff and guests I’d ever met before or since. Guests and staff were made up of locals, backpackers, workers, students, musicians, long-time wanders and the occasional family.

By the third day, I knew I wanted to volunteer and stay.

The deal was four shifts of 4 hours each week, in exchange for accommodation in either the very small office sleeping area or a much bigger staff dorm room, and breakfast.

Many hostels only allow volunteers to do cleaning shifts but the owner of this hostel was keen for, particularly, younger volunteers, to gain and develop actual practical skills in money handling, customer service, communication, organisation and language.

While this did sometimes lead to various degrees of discombobulation, miscommunication and general hilarity, think something along the lines of a hostel version of Fawlty Towers, I genuinely believe this approach did benefit most volunteers there.

In some sense, in Everton Hostel the world came to you.

Spanish sing-along at 2 am, an impromptu Brazilian cook-up, art and exercise in the garden, all manner of national celebrations, intense discussions of all flavours brought by people with unique and amazing life stories and skills carried on at all times of the day or night.

Clair: Superstar PA

Although the hostel ceased some years ago, the big blue door on Everton Road remains as do the memories of the peculiar life that played out within those four floors.

A lifestyle? A cult? A family of circumstance? I’m not exactly sure but so much more than just a volunteering experience – my time there remains unforgettable and unique to any other experience I’ve had before.

There’s a lot to be said about organising your volunteering trip in a proper and organised fashion. Sure, opportunities can come up here and there. But sometimes it can be hard to know what is legit and what is an exploitative scam. If you really wanna get out there and make a difference, then using a provider like Worldpackers assures you you’ll be in safe hands.

Here are some of the things to look out for:

• Reputation & Reviews – Check testimonials, online reviews, and ratings from past volunteers.
• Transparency – Clear information on fees, program details, and impact on local communities.
• Ethical Practices – Look for responsible volunteering programs that do not exploit communities.
• Safety & Support – Confirm they have safety measures, emergency protocols, and on-ground support in place.
• Program Alignment – Choose an opportunity that matches your skills, interests, and goals.
• Cost & Inclusions – Compare program fees and check what’s covered (accommodation, meals, insurance).
• Flexibility & Duration – Be sure the opportunity length, commitment requirements, and flexibility suit your plans.

Volunteering abroad isn’t just about travelling cheaper or stretching your trip a tad bit longer — it’s about diving headfirst into experiences that’ll leave you with some of the best (and weirdest) stories of your life.

Whether you end up teaching kids in a remote village in Cambodia or scrubbing toilets in a Colombian party hostel, every exchange has its own chaotic charm.

Sometimes it’ll be wholesome, and sometimes it’ll be messy. Hell, sometimes you’ll find yourself questioning your life choices. But it’s in those moments that you grow.

So get out there, do some good, and collect those stories. Maybe one day you’ll inspire the next broke backpacker to take the plunge too.

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You can now buy The Broke Backpacker a coffee. If you like and use our content to plan your trips, it’s a much appreciated way to show appreciation 🙂