Volunteering

The most important aspect of voluntourism is of course the volunteering! I wanted to have a positive impact whilst travelling around Thailand, so I decided to do some volunteering. 

A friend of mine recommended Workaway – an app that lets you search for voluntourism opportunities all around the world – to me, so I started looking on there. There were many different types of volunteering work on offer, but in the end I decided on teaching in Thailand as volunteer English teacher, as I love learning languages and wanted to help others learn as well. And so I reached out to various schools/NGOs on Workaway that were looking for volunteers, and managed to secure volunteering opportunities for the majority of my time there in several different places.

I’m going to write about what it was like teaching in Thailand specifically in the next post, but the overall experience of being a volunteer was incredible! It felt really rewarding to actually become a part of the community while I was travelling, staying in places for longer and making friends with locals, rather than just passing through. This also let me observe several customs and quirks of the culture that I would never have noticed on a faster-paced trip. Thai people are generally extremely friendly and welcoming, so I never really felt that out of place, even while I was immersed in such a different culture. Additionally, in exchange for teaching I got accommodation which meant I was able to stay in Thailand for much longer than I otherwise could have afforded. And so I got to see even more of this beautiful country.

If you're thinking about doing voluntourism when you go travelling, I highly recommend it! You get to help others while at the same time the experience has a positive impact on you.