Having our family experience different cultures is the goal of this trip. The best way to do this is by being embedded in local communities, and experiencing the daily grind. Three tools are helping us to do this: WorkAway.Info, Wwoof.net, and of course friends and family. WorkAway and Wwoofing work the same. You stay with a Host, help them with their goals, get to know them, they feed you, and give you a place to stay.
The main site we are leaning on is WorkAway. It has so far helped us to connect with our first two hosts. WorkAway allows you to search their database without a membership, but you can’t contact hosts until you have a membership. We took month searching for potential host before purchasing a membership. In January 2022 we finally purchased a couples membership for $59 US. There was a deal that added on an extra three months to the yearly membership. So we should be good with our membership until March of 2023. We’re hoping this allows us to contact hosts long enough to plan the trip ahead until June of 2023.
We did pay for a Wwoofing membership in the UK (￡30) but weren’t able to find anything. Wwoofing is divided into countries and you have to pay for a membership and re-enter your info for each country. We will be on the move so it isn’t the best solution for us at this point.
Searching for Hosts
We are very picky about our hosts. We need to be since we’re travelling with three kids. We use the follow search features in WorkAway to narrow down potential hosts.
The search feature for WorkAway is straightforward enough. It will auto-populate a country when you start typing.
The “Search by Keyword” feature has been great for narrowing things down. I’ve used it to search “violins”, “vegetarian”, “olives”. I REALLY want to help with the olive harvest! It has often narrowed things down too far for us, but it is fun to look.
After typing in the country our standard search looks like this:
First we need our hosts to be able to handle all five of us, so we check off “Can host families”. The kids will need internet access for their studies so that is an important box to check. Beside accommodation is Availability where you can dial in the dates you will be there.
I did contact one host who had checked “Can host families” and received a reply saying that they don’t accept families. I guess these tools are only as good as us users filling them out.
Those choices narrow things down quite a bit and allow us to start doing a serious search through the remaining hosts. If it is still too many hits then I use the Map feature to look in specific regions. From there I start reading through the profiles on the main search page. The ones I think might fit I open up in a new browser tab so I can scan them later. I try to eliminate people looking for an Au Pair or profile pictures that aren’t inviting.
The second big step is quickly scanning the host pages. I scroll almost to bottom and check to see if the hosts are smokers. If they are then, BOOM, I close the tab. We can’t do smoke.
Then I scroll back up a little and check the accommodation situation. We don’t need anything fancy. We are traveling with sleeping bags, towels, facecloths and toiletries so that helps. This is where I’m looking to see if there is a possibility they can handle our family of five and provide a safe space.
Curating
Once the deal breakers for smoking and accommodations are dealt with then we take time to ACTUALLY read the host’s descriptions of themselves. This is the best part. You get an introduction to their tiny spot in our big big world. You get to see what their needs are and a slice of their personality. This is where I start to dream about the possibilities.
If their description resonates I scroll back to the top and select “Add to my host list”. If I don’t have a country list created yet then I will make one and add the host to it. I’ll also throw a note on their profile so I can better remember their situation.
Once they are in my favourite list then I’m ready to send them a letter of introduction. But letters are a post for another time.
Thank you for reading. I hope this has been helpful for you.
~Aaron
Ball Family Travel 
One response to “Finding Hosts”
[…] Sharing what makes us unique and getting across our whole story is an important step to snagging the right hosts. We do our best by being thorough in our host searches (read Finding Hosts). […]
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