The choices you have to save money and enrich your travel experiences!
There are people, they do not know they have the right to be free, but now I tell you with all my heart, it could be hard to get 100% freedom but at least you need to be aware strongly that God gives you a wise mind to choose your own way in life and let the choices be the guide to your freedom.
South of Hualien, Taiwan
Hey, I'm Nguyễn Minh Anh and I am a college student who is dying for setting foot on every single piece of this beautiful planet. However, money can be a big obstacle to make the travelling dream came true, especially for students like me but good news is you can always find ways to make it up!
The question is how many ways have you already known? And...tried?
And is spending less money on travelling necessary to limit your experience?
Well, never, there are thousand ways for you to use less money but still make the most of travelling time.
I just said "thousand ways" right? Yes, but today I will just focus on 3 main solutions/options/favourite ways to enjoy exploring the world and enhancing skills/knowledge.
So as far as I know, there are plenty of organisations that provide win:win opportunities for people around the world to help them travel on budget and no matter where you are, it is so much easy to access to those chances via websites on the internet.
The common rule is that the traveller works for organisations/ host families and get a safe accomodation and food for free or in remarkable cheap price in return.
To me, always, travelling is all about experiences and winning yourself ( in some aspects) so I consider one of the best benefit when travel with other sort of activities going hand in hand is to live the life the locals live and learn things you might never expect to learn ( of course in a good way).
After spending almost one year off school for travelling, volunteering and studying abroad, I suddenly realize that I was one time very stupid and unwise not knowing that the best experience from traveling coming from the living experiences with the local people. Why I said so, because for my belief, everyone is a part of the universe and the more you interact with the universe, the more time you spend to communicate with the universe, the more knowledgable you are. You understand yourself through people around you and isn't it the main goal of travelling?. Exploring the world for me is the same with knowing who you are in this world ?. The universe will always send messages and lessons to you until you truly learn. That how travelling worthwhile and intriguing!
OK, so my objective for writing today is very simple, I want to share what you might know or might not know about chances out there to boost up your passion for traveling and perhaps enhance your travelling options.
Just last night, I was overloaded when I had to deal with a huge load of information when it came to how to save money but still enrich the travel experiences. All came as a mess of stuffs and drove me crazy and I would never want myself or anyone to be in that mess again ( however you still have high possibility to be drawn to that mess again, a very sad truth) but anyhow I just try to help myself and also you, my friends, in some extends to get out of overloading trap information.
👉 Volunteering💪💝
There are plenty types when it comes to volunteer works like: teaching, gardening, baby sitting, pet sitting, decorating, constructing, etc. However the most common volunteer works that pretty prevalent now can come into 3 main majors:
A. Teaching:
Everyone has something to teach others.
Teaching languages.
What do you have?
Or how many languages that you can speak?
How good are they?
How popular these languages are?
Your chances to be a language teacher when you travel could vary depending on how fluent your language skills are.
Visit these websites:
🔺 Diverbo
Countries: Spain, Italy, Germany.
Diverbo is an international organization that provides English teaching jobs for NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS from Australia, USA, England and so on. Accordingly, I think it is pretty hard for Vietnamese pp to ever get a chance there but dont hesitate to apply for a job in Diverbo if you are confident with your English or if you already own a very pretigious English certificate or anything that can prove you are qualified.
What also interesting about Diverbo is that it provides Spanish coures for Spanish learners which is quite worth considering if you are in love with Spanish. I also want to learn Spanish one day so this info is quite outstanding to me.
🔺TEFL
"As one of the longest established and most popular international English Language Teaching job sites, TEFL.com has acted as the conduit between teachers and language employers since 1997. With a registered membership of 200,000+ including 110,000 ELT professionals and 21,000 employers, we provide both the international job-seeker and recruiter with access to the largest ELT member-base in the world. "
Well if I would really want to be a professional english teacher, I wont ever miss this website since it is so pretigious and practical for english teachers ( who also happen to love traveling ;))
I learnt about this website through my searching and also from a friend. She is my classmate in my French class. I remember she said she was gonna taking few months in French for this kind of training course.
Doesnt that sound great? <3
🔺ESL Cafe:
Forbes recommends this website.
Teaching other skills
If you happen to good at outdoor activity skills such as: climbing, hiking/ sailing/ cambing/ skiing/ so on then you would probably have plenty of chances here in🔺 Adventure work
So you might now wonder what if you have none of those skills. Well, there are still many chances there for you to become an assitant- learner. Dont close the door right away!
I personally like this web so much. I have a friend who has just spent one year in England to fulfill a course of teaching children survival skills and she got the First Aid certificate which can be worldwide used. She even had real chance to be a professional teacher and taught for English children there.
So practical, right?
This is her notes during the time she spent volunteering in UK ( in Vietnamese only).
B. Pet Caring
🔺Trustedhousesitters
🔺Housecarers
You love animals? Why not visit these websites for more info.
You can stay in the host's house for free and take care of their pets when they go away for vacation. It sounds pretty amazing for pet lover travellers right?
C. Other volunteer works
WHY?
🔺ICYE
I took an EVS volunteer program in Greece from ICYE and I can tell from my own experience that it was so much more than my expectation.
So because it relates perfectly to my real experience so I am very confident to give more info about ICYE.
" ICYE provides challenging intercultural learning experiences to young people, enhancing their social and personal development through international volunteer programmes. ICYE promotes intercultural understanding, equality of opportunity, justice and peace among people in the world." ( from ICYE website)
ICYE Vietnam started since 2006 and every year sends alot of Vietnamese people all around the world to do volunteer works. There are thousands of projects in many different fields every year.
What's else, ICYE not only brings back thousands of volunteer projects for individual adults but also holds work camp for teenagers under 18 and family volunteering projects
With plenty of choices, you can easily find projects that meet up your expectation of time, money saving, preferable fields and favourite countries.
How great it sounds, right?
I personaly like the staffs there so much for their thoughtfullness, enthusiasm and professional attitude. I still remember how rush I was for applying the visa Schegen to Greece due to limited time but thanks for their help I could get it through easily.
Also, ICYE has a big community of returnees ( who return after taking the programs abroad from ICYE) actively do the sharing things by many means such as making videos, writing blogs, coffee-sharing and so on. They have retreat programs twice a year to share and learn from each other. That just increases the things people can learn about the world, enriches our tips for next travelling and of course somehow creates a huge network of people sharing the same interests and concerns.
ICYE works with sincerity and we are lucky to have ICYE in Vietnam.
Ok, I just realize there is too much for ICYE lol!
Althought I dont know how come AIESEC is quite less known in Europe ( despite the fact that it was originaly founded in Europe), young Asians in general and Vietnameses in particular value this organisation at a very high rate.
This organisation provides plenty of volunteering choices according to your preferences. The Global Volunteer program is one of its best known.
Aiesec is good in general. I have many friends who are now working as volunteers or Aiesecers in Aiesec and already took programs abroad in the name of volunteering or internship. You can find plenty of volunteer works or internship opportunities (to get paid) in Aiesec website. Both ways can not only save your budget for travelling but also enrich your skills and experiences.
Other organisations you can take in consideration are:
OK, for workaway as I look, there are also plenty of things you might want to do as long as you have interest to learn new things, to emmerge yourself in new experience and volunteer helping people.
Workaway provides you hosts around the world who are in need of someone to help them with things like: gardening, building hostel, helping out in English schools, etc. I mean you can find any kind of works there. Good thing is you are not necessarily professional or rich in experiences (but it is still a good point if you are familiar with things you intend to help right?).
Other side of Workaway is about learning languages. Through your staying with people who are speaking the languages you are struggling to learn can surely benefit you more than taking a course at home. Agree?
And you should bear in mind: you can learn for free in the most pratical way and for sure there is no money change hands.
That's how Workaway works. Sounds interesting to you?
🔺OCEAN NEPAL ( my favourite)
If you love Nepal just like I do, dont hesitate to read the beautiful story of this organisation. When I read the story I can also feel the sincerity from the people who founded it.
However, because the places in which we probably do volunteer are mostly poor so we still need to pay fee for living expenses per month. If you find it affordable then why not give a hand to help children there?
Have you ever heard of WWOOF? Yeah, I guess you have. One of the most prestigious name when it comes to volunteer organisations.
Why that?
" WWOOF is a worldwide movement linking volunteers with organic farmers and growers to promote cultural and educational experiences based on trust and non-monetary exchange, thereby helping to build a sustainable, global community." ( from WWOOF website).
Because people enjoy working on the farm. Though it seems like a heavy working experience, no one can deny the fact that it is a very natural way to enjoy everyday life. And WWOOF provides exactly what most of people need: a chance to work on farm, learn about nature, a host you can trust, and wherever you want to go, you have high posibility to find WWOOF.
But just make sure you are really interested in farm things then you can learn a lot of new things from WWOOF projects.
💪Working😎
Au pair can be a very bright choice when it comes to experience the locals lives and learn languages. I said so because it literally that you will live with a family and take care of their houseworks or their children. And you get paid for it and no concern about living expenses during the time you are doing the au pair. Besides, before you do the aupair works, you have many free courses of training skills such as: cooking/ serving wine/ nanny skills/...It might be helpful in the future, right?
I have an American friend who already took an au pair job in a beautiful small town in Italy and she really loved it. She was treated just as equally as the other members in the family host and she received lots of love from them. There are so many beautiful real stories out there from au pair experiences. You might want to have a try to look for its website here.
Au pair in Vietnam is not so ubiquitous but we do have Aupair. So dont overlook Au pair since it is a very good address to look for a job when you go travel.
🔺 Working holiday:
Working holiday is quite simple to understand. You will need a working holiday visa to be enabled to spend limited time in a country for a real paid job ( and of course also for traveling and enjoying new lives or improving languages, whatsoever).
So do you think it is a little bit resemble to Au pair?
But working holiday can be very different when you take it seriously.
We just learn that with Au pair, you get a job and get paid for it but it levels off to houseworks only and you receive support from Au pair organisations and the host family. Working holiday on the contrary supports you nothing but a visa ( in case you are qualified enough). You need to find a job yourself, manage your accomodation, pay all the things.
HOWEVER, isnt it so great that you can live your life indepently? The more challenge you get, the more you gain. No pain, no gain right?
Just make sure you meet up the requirements for applying working holiday visa since it can be tougher than other programs.
=> It seems that Aupair is quite appelling and safe since you can contact to the host and know exactly what you have to do beforehand but I just love thinking of how mature people could be when they choose the working holiday instead.
I have known many Taiwanese friends who get very familiar with the working holiday and some of them already held the WH visas for this summer?
Which one would you prefer? Have you got the answer for yourself?
For Vietnamese pp who are looking for more info of WH, there are two articles that might be helpful for you:
🔺Internship jobs:
You can check out in Aiesec with 2 different programs providing plenty of chances: Global Talent and Global Entrepreneur.
Travel scholarship
Studying abroad, or taking an exchange students program in university can also a good choice to travel.
Just now, I'm a Vietnamese exchange student in Taiwan. I live in a dorm, eat like a local, take advantages as a Taiwanese student, learn their language and explore as much as I can the living style here. I already took more than I paid for this exchange experience.
At the end, wow, just ask a question:
Do you feel overwhelming by those information?
As I confessed, I also felt overwhelming by the huge load of info floating on the internet. I think it is too much!!! And really, more choices dont always benefit you the way you want. It just distracts you. So be open to opportunities but also keep in mind what you are truly looking for.
So I am jotting down, summarizing, already spending alot of time and effort with this blog but I dont expect you to remember all of this, the only thing I hope you can get from my words is that:
When you want something, there is always a way for you there as long as you passionately look for it.
I cant be more strongly agree on this point.
Now, if you are reading all of it till the very end here, that means you are really in high level into traveling just like I am.
So there is one more tip I want to share: dont look so far, everything you need is around you. Ask yourself what kind of traveling is your favourite, what do you want to learn, where to learn it, specific questions and stick to some organisation that you feel like you belong to. Dont let yourself be exhausted with info but be "exhausted" with your dream!
Lastly, all of those things above is just a method. Method doesnt work without bravery!
Good luck!
And
Thank you for reading.
Nguyễn Minh Anh
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