Posts Tagged ‘Volunteering’

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!

Free travel

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.

cheap travel tips

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.

travel for less

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.

Wanderlust 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.

Visit Sri Lanka for free

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!

free travel

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.

cheap travel experience

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!

Voluntourism in Sri Lanka

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.

travel for free

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.

cheap luxury travel

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!

Free accomodation

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 3rd class.

Budget travel tips

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.

make a difference

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.

budget travel options

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!

Free accomodation in Asia

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.

Helping in Ha Long Bay

Posted on: May 31st, 2016 by Andrej and Karen

Ha Long Bay was top of our ‘must do’ list when we visited Vietnam. The pictures we’d seen looked stunning and different from other places we’d visited, so we decided that we should experience what Ha Long Bay had to offer.

Swap Work for Travel in Vietnam

Ha Long Bay

 

Our initial research showed that most people visited Ha Long in an overnight trip on a ‘Junk’ boat. This sounded pretty cool, and then on further investigation we found that we could stay in Ha Long Bay for an extended time, at Cat Ba Island. Cat Ba is the largest of the 367 islands spanning 260 km² that comprise the Cat Ba Archipelago, which makes up the southeastern edge of Ha Long Bay in Northern Vietnam.

 

Junk Boat in Ha Long Bay Swap Work for Travel

On our way to Cat Ba Island

 

On arriving at Cat Ba, we were shown our room – we couldn’t believe our luck! We had the entire top floor with extensive views over the bay.  We were to stay here for about 3 weeks, immerse ourselves in local culture, experience local delicacies and go to places that weren’t on the usual tourist trail.

Our Room with Swap Work for Travel

View from our room

 

During our time there (when we weren’t swooning over our view) we were extremely fortunate. Here’s some of the things we did:

 

Swapping in Ha Long Bay

Watched the sunset while kayaking among the huge limestone karsts in Ha Long Bay

 

Swimming at Cat Ba Island in Ha Long Bay

Swim at all 3 of the nearby white sand beaches

 

 

Exploring Cat Ba Island with Swap Work for Travel

Explore the national park overlooking the many islands – at that time, this particular national park wasn’t mentioned in any websites or guidebooks, so we only found this via local knowledge

 

SwapHosts providing food for us in Ha Long Bay

Enjoy some delicious home cooked meals

 

Making friends is easy with Swap Work for Travel

Made some new friends

 

Swapping is a great way to have an adventure in Vietnam

Fit in a little work

 

Swapping on Andrej's birthday

Andrej even got some flowers from our hosts on his birthday!

 

Cat Ba Island's floating restaurant while Swapping

Eat at these funky floating restaurants with a view

 

Swap Work for Travel in Vietnam

Experience local life and activities

 

Cat Ba Island Vietnam

Relax and have lots of time out

 

Our 3 weeks on Cat Ba Island were a great way to really get involved with the local goings on. Most of the tourists we met spent one night or maybe two on Cat Ba and Ha Long Bay.

We felt incredibly privileged to have had a more in depth experience and share in some local activities that other tourists didn’t have access to.

Swapping in Cat Ba Island

Enjoying Cat Ba Island

 

Our time in Ha Long Bay staying on Cat Ba Island was so much more special for having stayed with locals and gotten a lot of ‘inside information’ about the island. The experience we had was so much more than we hoped for. We thoroughly recommend giving an adventure like this a try!

We’re excited to share this kind of opportunity with you! If you would like to find out more about how you can create lasting memories of your own in destinations around the world virtually for free, then we would love to show you how you can do this.

To create your own meaningful memories with Swap Work for Travel, click here.