Everything You Need to Know About Work Exchanges

Work Exchanges can be a great way to travel the world, where you give your time and skills in exchange for free accommodation and other benefits.  Volunteering abroad using work exchanges meant I could extend my travel plans, save money, and get a unique experience while I was on the road.

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Here you’ll find all my tips and advice about using work exchanges to volunteer abroad in exchange for accommodation.  As well as plenty of articles about work exchanges, I am also excited to share my new eBook “How to Travel for Free Using Work Exchanges“, which is a one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about work exchanges. 

How to Travel for Free Using Work Exchanges - Contents Page mockup
How to Travel for Free Using Work Exchanges - What is a Work Exchange mockup

How to Travel for Free Using Work Exchanges

Ebook by
Claire Sturzaker
Tales of a Backpacker

Teaching you how to use work exchanges to live the life of travel you’ve always dreamed of! 

learn more

If you’re new to the world of work exchanges, let’s start with what a work exchange actually means.  Basically, a work exchange means that you will work for a few hours a day in exchange for accommodation and other benefits like meals, language classes or free tours and activities.

This article gives you more information about how work exchanges work, and if they will be right for you: Work Exchange Programs: Volunteer Abroad for Free.

There are several ways to find work exchange placements and various websites have listings from hosts all over the world who are looking for volunteers to do a work exchange.

Workaway is the biggest work exchange site, and the one most people have heard of, but I now prefer to use Worldpackers to find work exchanges.

I have written detailed reviews of both these work exchange sites here, as well as a comparison of the two:

Worldpackers vs Workaway – Which is Best?

There are lots of different kinds of jobs you could do on a work exchange, from working on a farm to helping at a school, supporting a local business and all sorts of things. 

I often work in a hostel in exchange for accommodation and wrote this article explaining more about that: How to Get Free Accommodation by Working as a Hostel Volunteer.

I have also recently started to use Trusted Housesitters to do pet and house-sitting, which is slightly different but still a kind of exchange where you look after people’s pets and homes in exchange for staying at their house for free.

You can learn more about Trusted Housesitters and other work exchange websites in this article: 6 Workaway Alternatives for Your Next Work Exchange, and browse the articles below for more inspiration.

If you’re interested in a Digital Nomad lifestyle then work exchanges can be a great way to start your digital nomad journey, until you start making enough money to pay for your own accommodation. 

Before I was earning money from my blog, work exchanges gave me the security of having somewhere to stay for free with enough free time that I could spend working on my own blog.  Read more about becoming a digital nomad with no skills here!

work exchange articles