Farm to Travel
on May 27, 2015 at 5:37 pm
Local food, local people and getting to know a place from the ground up.
by Alexandra Baumhardt
photo taken in Colombia of fellow farmers Alejandro and Maira by Alexandra Baumhardt
There were worse days in Colombia than the one I spent collecting horse manure. I ran around an equestrian military base in the southwest of Colombia, wearing striped pants gifted to me by a clown, with a Chilean guy, an Argentinian guy and some local farmers. We picked up dry, grassy clumps of dung to put into our deliciously rotting compost.
“Alejandra, over here!” Juan, the Argentinian, shouted, “It’s fresh!”
When people talk about how they’d love to do some traveling but it’s financially prohibitive, I think about all of the poo I’ve been willing to collect for the sake of seeing more of the world. When a friend is looking to get out of the grind, have an adventure, or take a real vacation, I can’t help but recommend that they start in the dirt of their dream destination.
Through farming with programs like World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) and Work Away, clever research and just showing up in a new place and asking about farms that take volunteers, you can inexpensively get around just about anywhere. French vineyards, Patagonian sheep ranches, Indian tea estates can all be accessible to you and working at each will be an extraordinary education in foreign policy, economics, nutrition, sustainability and basic survival.
If you’ve never farmed before, you can. If you don’t think you have enough time, you can dabble in volunteer farm work for 10 days to 10 months. Consider that your greatest expenses will be the plane ticket and the opportunity cost of not working a conventional job 40 hours a week. From Alaska to Argentina to the American Midwest, I’ve been able to explore unconventional places and cultures by using farm-to-travel sites and taking a few liberties. Along the way, I discovered an untapped pride in sowing seeds to see the world.
To keep reading the rest of this story, head on over to The Riveter Magazine.
