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Posts Tagged ‘Free accommodation’

How to spend 60 bucks for 3 months accommodation

Posted on: September 5th, 2016 by sw4tadmin

We just spent a fabulous 3 months in Thailand, and we spent a grand total of $60 on accommodation…

…So how did we do it?

No, we didn’t figure out a way to hack AirBNB, sleep on the streets, or stay in the cheapest dingiest hovels imaginable…

We Swapped Work For Travel!

Karen relaxing after a hard day of sight-seeing in Chiang Mai

Where did we stay?

We stayed in 2 of Thailands biggest cities Bangkok and Chiang Mai, this was to be slow travel at it’s finest and give us a chance to really explore and get to know everything these amazing 2 destinations have got to offer.

We stayed in a huge, fully furnished nice apartment in Bangkok for 6 weeks, that had the following:

a pool
a gym
cable TV with 700 channels
Xbox 360
a housekeeper
super-fast WiFi
a bathroom each
Was located on Sukhumvit, Soi 20 within easy walking distance to 7000 restaurants, 2 malls, a park, 3 supermarkets and the BTS skytrain.

Karen trying to figure out which movie to go to from the 12 cinemas in walking distance from our Bangkok apartment

Me at the apartment’s gym in Bangkok

Then for 5 weeks we stayed in a massive 2 story house in Chiang Mai that had these features:

divinely furnished with amazing oriental furniture and art,
a huge flowery garden and lawn
Cable TV, loads of DVD’s and super-fast WiFi
a balcony overlooking Doi Suthep mountain
a housekeeper who did EVERYTHING
and a total of 6 different vehicles for us to drive and ride around on: 2 new mountain bikes, a scooter, a scooter with Thai sidecar, 650 Kawasaki sports bike (my favorite!) and a Toyota Hilux!
Situated in a quiet leafy suburb 10 minute drive away from a big mall and 10 minutes walk to a supermarket complex.

We took the dogs to the park in the scooter/side car in Chiang Mai. It was hilarious!

What did we have to do to score these places?

Our first Swap-Host in Bangkok needed us to take care of their lovely old Dachshund called “Kia”, who we had to feed and take outside a few times per day, while they were busy with family.

Meet Chloe, the cutest of our host’s fur-babies in Chiang Mai

Our time in Chiang Mai we consulted with our Swap-Hosts to make social media profiles and a website for a new venture they were starting. We also helped to look after 4 well-behaved and adorable dogs named Tiger, Chloe, Rex and Lola, we had to feed these dogs once per day and walk them once and the house-keeper did all the rest. I also mowed the lawn once.

Both opportunities had housekeepers, so we had to do minimal housework ourselves which was really nice. The housekeeper in Chiang Mai actually made up our room daily, washed and ironed our clothes and did our dishes because the owners asked her too!

Karen with Tiger, Lola and Rex the coolest dogs ever!

How did we spend our time?

We went out a lot to loads of amazing restaurants especially in Bangkok, because the apartment is in the main tourist area with loads of great places to eat.

We went to parks, visited malls, rode up mountains, went for runs, swam, cooked some comfort food from home, went to the gym and spend some time working for ourselves online.

We watched a lot of movies and caught up on all our favorite TV shows too.

We had a lot of time to ourselves. Both Swap Work For Travel opportunities required less than 1 hours “work” per day, so it was more like a vacation!

Out and about in Chiang Mai

So, where did we spend our $60?

We rented a nice hotel room the first day we were in Thailand on the way to Bangkok. Then after our Bangkok gig finished we had 3 nights to fill in before we could move into our Chiang Mai digs so we stayed at a funky little back-packers that was recommended to us.

Our Chiang Mai house came with 2 scooters, 2 mountain bikes a Kawasaki 650 and a Toyota Hilux!

How can you do something like this too?

We had a really great time this last 3 months in Thailand. This time last year we were in Sri Lanka helping an expat couple with their social media and Thailand was definitely more chilled out, just what we needed!

Needless to say we spent a lot of time on our balcony in Chiang Mai

If you would love to do something like this, stay somewhere special for free and eat for free while helping people out…

Sign up to become one of our platinum or gold members and pay a small yearly fee to have access to our entire data-base of amazing opportunities from 5 star hotels and dive resorts to small eco-tourism companies.

You can travel with a difference like we do for as long as you like.

Our Free Trip To Sri Lanka

Posted on: August 24th, 2016 by Andrej and Karen

We have always wanted to go to Sri Lanka, and thanks to Swap Work For Travel we got our awesome accommodation and food free of charge…

We also got to help with 2 amazing projects, 1 by the beach and one high in the tea plantations of the interior, needless to say we had a ball!

Sri Lanka really is the paradise island, it’s just got so much to see and do

Sunshine, beaches, nature, amazing food, interesting culture…

These are my top 5 travel criteria when choosing a new destination to go to. And Sri Lanka ticked all off these boxes in spectacular fashion!

So many people rave about India; I want to go there too. But there is that one island 30km to the south of India I couldn’t get passed when traveling to this part of the world…

Sri Lanka is supposed to be cleaner, more pristine and less chaotic than India, plus I’d already met a handful of lovely people who come from there, so Sri Lanka became our logical choice for a one month trip.

Like some tea with your view? Sri Lanka’s tea plantations are some of the worlds oldest

A bit of work and a lot of play…

We found a great opportunity to do some work online. For an expat couple we set-up, managed and advertised a Facebook page (me) and gave advice on website improvements and how to implement them (Karen). It was a challenging and fun project.

This was out house for a month, we loved staying here and being part of the tiny village

We stayed at the lovely cottage on the lake, which was in a small village 1km from the tourist beach of Koggala beach on Sri Lanka’s popular south coast. This was the ideal office looking onto the water and base from which to explore Sri Lanka.

This is our view of the sunrise over lake Koggala from our cottage, nice huh?

Our lakeside cottage in a charming village

Our 1 bedroom cottage was built in modern Sri Lankan style with beams of wood and plastered mud brick walls. It had a huge, covered terrace overlooking the lake, with a day bed, huge outdoor table and even a cute water feature.

We liked the view from our part time office…a lot!

The kitchen was fully equipped too but the coolest thing was that we managed to organize a lovely local woman called Sri-Ani to come and cook meals for us.

We would tell her what type of ingredients we would like to eat and she transformed our instructions into a sumptuous Sri Lankan banquet!

We would sit at our huge timber slab table after opening some delicious King drinking coconuts watch the fishermen go fishing punctuated by the occasional Eagle swoop past and wild peacock calling in the distance. It was heaven!

Eating Sri-Ani’s classic local dishes was heavenly…

The local wildlife and us

To say there was a lot of wildlife around in Sri Lanka is an understatement….

Most mornings we got woken up by purple-faced leaf monkeys jumping on our roof or by native squirrels (which looked like chipmunks with long tails) playing and calling to each other around the house.

We got visited by monkeys a lot, but they were very well behaved and shy

We also got visited by many monitor lizards (from 2 foot up to 5 and a half foot long), giant crabs and even the occasional snake!

We saw cobra-eating mongooses, exotic birds, parrots and loads more Monkeys on our morning runs. One day I even saw a monitor lizard that was at least 6 foot in length OMG!

The big lizards were very chilled out, whenever we saw them

The food

For those who don’t know Sri Lankan food is similar to Indian but with a lot less heat to it from chili. It is very fragment using cinnamon, cloves, Tumeric, coconut, loads of fresh vegetables from the mountains and fresh-caught seafood! It was wonderful and a great change from our usual fare of western and Thai foods.

Karen was very partial to the drinking coconuts growing everywhere, they we 10c each to buy, but we had loads in our garden

Our highlights of Sri Lanka:

The people: everyone was very kind and happy to meet us, because Sri Lanka was once a British colony English is quite widely spoken except in small villages. We met some awesome people who welcomed us to their country which was very cool.

even the ceremonial drummers at the temple of the tooth had a smile for us

The mountains: After exploring the South coast and chilling and working in our lovely cottage for a few weeks we really wanted to get amongst it and head into the mountainous and cool interior packed with charming villages, ancient tea plantations and stunning expansive vistas.

We traveled to Kandy, Ella and Haputale before returning back to the beach. If we had longer we would have explored way more of this magical place, but that is for our next trip!

Our view from our suite in Ella let us see 200km into the distance according to the owner

The train: Sri Lanka’s train system was put in place by the British to link the high country tea estates to the ports.

Traveling by train was relaxing and scenic; the perfect way to get around, especially because the roads are rather chaotic!

We found the train system efficient and very cheap, traveling first class is most comfortable but second class allows you to take better photos of the scenery because you can open the windows.

Getting reserved seating by ordering a few days in advance will guarantee you a great seat and not have to get caught up in the crush of bodies in 3^rd class.

We took the train everywhere, we came to famous Gaule a few times because it was so trendy and colonial styled

The scenery: From the old colonial walled city of Gaule, to the expansive coconut fringe beaches on the south coast and the tea covered mountain tops in the center of the country; Sri Lanka really does have it all.

Deserted beaches anyone?

And it is all relatively close together. We went to some amazing temples such as the famous temple of the tooth (which supposedly houses Buddha’s tooth), wandered around colorful markets, saw extensive wildlife, trotted through cultured tea plantations and explored old cities.

It was a great experience and we definitely will go back to see the rest of this awesome country.

The ancient city of Gaule has got it all, architecture, temples, shopping, restaurants and monkeys!

Sri Lanka was a great experience and we really enjoyed our time there doing a little work and having an amazing cultural and culinary experience the rest of the time!

No visit to Sri Lanka can be complete without visiting the famous tea plantations, which also happen to produce the world’s best tea

If you want to find your own “paradise island” like this somewhere in the world, check out what opportunities we have on Swap Work For Travel.

If Swapping at a destination like this, and traveling the world virtually for free sounds like something you’d like to try, Click Here get our free guide that teaches you exactly how we do it.

Swapping In The Most Beautiful Country In The World

Posted on: June 17th, 2016 by Andrej and Karen

Let me ask you a question: what is the most beautiful country in the world?

Obviously everyone’s answer is going to be slightly different, but New Zealand consistently ranks in the top 3 all over the internet and this is where we went Swapping!

New Zealand is ridiculously beautiful

Karen and I got a really sweet Swapping gig in a stunning piece of the country called the Matakana coast in the north east coast of the north island.

We stayed in an amazing huge house right at the foot of a mountain covered with native forest that had a popular hiking trail to the summit. We were minutes away from some of the north islands most desirable beaches, national parks, farmers markets and wineries.

Our Swap-Hosts house was amazing

Best of all was the complete lack of any visible neighbors and traffic noise. We would wake up every morning to native bird song, then go for a hike up into the forest or a jog on the quiet and scenic roads huffing on fresh New Zealand air.

Jogging down the road with the local cows cheering me on

Matakana is only 1 hour drive from Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city so we were actually really close to all the action if we wanted to get amongst it.

Karen looking across the bay towards Omaha beach and then Auckland

In return for free food and accommodation we created a Facebook page and set up Facebook ads for our Swap-Hosts, and taught them how to deal with the ongoing management of the page. It was actually really fun as our Swap-Hosts, a really nice local couple were so laid back and keen for us having a good time while we were there. They even had a spare car for us to drive around in.

The work itself was really fun, especially with a sunny outdoor private office with an amazing view of a mountain!

Enjoying a long espresso and the view from my office i.e. the patio

The high points of this Swapping adventure were:

Going out to Tawharanui regional park; one of Auckland’s most beautiful national parks with newly released endangered native birds like the Takahe and the Saddleback making a comeback in this pristine and predator-safe environment. There was also a white sand surf beach here and some stunning little bays to swim and picnic at. We found out that this is now one of Auckland’s trendy summer destinations!

Watching the Takahe, a native bird once thought to be extinct.

Going for swims and hikes at local beaches and walking tracks a perfect activity for the sunny kiwi summer. There are some seriously cool outdoor activities around here.

Swap Work for Travel to have exclusive travel experiences virtually for free

We were minutes drive from so many stunning local beaches!

Drinking some amazing Matakana coast wine and craft beer; this region is famous for it’s wines and you could buy most of them on discount at the local liquor store. Our favourite was the Ti Point white Merlot, for less than NZ$16 (about 8 USD) per bottle yum!

The craft beer range at the local supermarket blew me away!

Buying fresh produce at the Matakana farmers market having a full kitchen at our disposal was great, so we made some awesome dishes using in-season local vegetables, fruit and seafood. New Zealand definitely has turned into a total foodie destination and we made the most of it!

The Matakana wineries were pretty cool.

So in return for working on Facebook for a few hours a day, which our Swap-Hosts were very grateful for as they are not what you would call “social media savvy” we got to experience one of the trendiest and most beautiful parts of New Zealand and live like a local for part of the kiwi summer!

Travel virtually for free with Swap Work for Travel

The view from the house was equally as amazing as the Swapping experience in Matakana

If Swapping at a destination like this, and traveling the world virtually for free sounds like something you’d like to try, Click Here get our free guide that teaches you exactly how we do it.

How We Swapped Work For Travel In The Beautiful Philippines

Posted on: June 9th, 2016 by Andrej and Karen

Why not Swap Work For Travel on one of the planets hottest beaches?

Last April my wife Karen and I decided we were in need of some R&R at some stunning beach destination for a month…

Our local beach on Panglao island

But we wanted to have a holiday with a difference;

Yes we wanted time to chill, sight-see and relax but we also wanted to do something inspiring and meaningful!

We wanted to travel cheaply but not skimp on any wonderful experiences and we ended up landing one of the coolest gigs ever…

Karen hanging out with some of the local Filipino kids

After a bit of research on stunning beach destinations that also boasted great food, plenty of things to do and interesting culture we decided we would go check out the Philippines archipelago.

Now we just had to choose which of the 7000 islands to go to…not a bad problem to have right?

We settled on Panglao island located in the central Visayas region because it had the following cool stuff:

Stunning beaches
Awesome restaurants
Picturesque little local villages
Easy to get around on rented scooters
Close proximity to some seriously cool must-see attractions such as the Tarsier (the world’s smallest primate) sanctuary, the Chocolate Hills and the WWF approved Whale shark visiting grounds.

Our nearest beach while Swapping in Panglao Island

Playing with the cute local kids was a definite highlight

We also got really lucky, we found a great Swap Work For Travel opportunity minutes away from the best beach and best restaurants on the island…sweet!

This meant free accommodation for 2 weeks in return for a few hours work per day, still plenty of time to chill, swim and explore…but the bonus of an extra fortnight of holiday for free 🙂

Lunch on the beach in Panglao island…local flower salad was awesome!

A pretty cool office…

Eva had just opened a homestay, which was a brand new block of 4 huge fully furnished apartments with a sweet pool.

We turned up and immediately got changed into our togs (that’s Kiwi for Swimsuit / bathers) for a swim in the pool then lazed around the lawn while we chatted with Eva, who told us all about Panglao island and the Philippines.

She needed a simple 1 page website to tell the world how cool her accommodation was, we agreed it was pretty special and wanted to do a great job for her because she was so nice.

A great deal - Swapping in Panglao Island Philippines

The pool at Eva’s apartments was amazing

Our accommodation was the biggest apartment with 2 WiFi connections (in case one went down!), air conditioning, a huge flat screen with cable, super-comfy sofas and brand new fully stocked kitchen. We were stoked to say the least.

Our brand new apartment with WiFi, cable TV and a full kitchen

From this base we spent a few hours per day with Karen making Eva’s website and me taking photos and helping with the text to go on the website.

We were surrounded by coconut palms and birds, and on the second day we realized we could watch the sun set into the ocean from the rooftop viewing/yoga platform. In all honesty we probably could have stayed here happily forever!

The view from the roof of our apartment which doubled as a yoga platform and an observation deck!

All up we worked only about 10 hours to get Eva’s website all done. So this Swapping gig was pretty cruisey for us. Typically Swappers exchange 5 hours work per day, 5 days per week for free food and accommodation, but it can be less depending on the needs and generosity of your Swap-Host.

Swap Work for Travel made our travels awesome

Karen and Eva our lovely Swap Host

When we weren’t working, other than chilling out in our pad, we rode around the island on our motorbike and explored. We snorkeled and swam a lot. We worked our way through TripAdvisors top 10 restaurants and drank delicious and dirt cheap San Miguel beer.

We did a heap of day trips too, here is our top 3:

We went and checked out the Tarsier sanctuary, which was amazing. These tiny animals are the world smallest primates and used to be common in this part of the Philippines. We wandered around the forest of the sanctuary and spotted 4 Tarsiers, they are very cute.

Bohol Tarsier Sanctuary, near our Swap in Philippines

A Tarsier – The world’s smallest primate

We rode across the bridge onto Bohol island and had a very scenic drive to the Chocolate Hills which are 100’s of naturally occurring, perfectly rounded hills as far as the eye can see which look like chocolate drops in dry season.

Andrej motorbiking to the Chocolate Hills one of the worlds top natural wonders

We ticked an item off my bucket list by swimming with the Whale Sharks. These gentle giants are only found this close to shore in a few parts of the world. This was an amazing experience!

Snorkeling with whale sharks was epic! One of the coolest things I have ever done

Karen and I totally loved our time in the Philippines and on Panglao island. We definitely will be back there and encourage anyone to give Swapping a try, it’s an awesome experience!

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Posts Tagged ‘Free accommodation’

How to spend 60 bucks for 3 months accommodation

Swapping In The Most Beautiful Country In The World

If Swapping at a destination like this, and traveling the world virtually for free sounds like something you’d like to try, Click Here get our free guide that teaches you exactly how we do it.

How We Swapped Work For Travel In The Beautiful Philippines

Why not Swap Work For Travel on one of the planets hottest beaches?