Volunteers in Iceland from the age of 14. I tried an affordable way to save on travel and now I’m not going to stop
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Most of us have come to terms with the idea that traveling around the world is, of course, cool, but very expensive. However, there are people who decide to break the system, and then such unforgettable trips as Dasha Nedashkovskaya. Fortunately, the girl did not make a secret of her informal trip to Iceland, but willingly shared her experience with Internet users.
Editorial website is seriously considering taking the advice of this brave adventurer.
How I became a volunteer
It turned out that many organizations are ready to give you the opportunity to travel around the world, saving on food, accommodation, and sometimes even tickets, in exchange for completing various works: from agricultural harvests and care in nursing homes to participation in street art projects or rock concerts. Financial investments depend on the specific program, the chosen country and your personal preferences in matters of comfort and entertainment - there is a choice for a wide variety of budgets.
So I was able to find a “dream destination” for myself - a volunteer program in my beloved Iceland. My entire budget was approximately 60,000 rubles:
- € 150 — arrangement fee(accommodation, meals, excursions);
- tickets;
- visa;
- souvenirs and personal expenses.
If you have ever calculated the cost of a trip to Iceland, you understand that this price is simply a fairy tale. By the way, I happened to meet people who paid 20,000 rubles.
So, I registered. What then?
Then you need to be careful and not fall for everything. For example, I soon began to be annoyed by calls from a Moscow company: they say that in order to fully register, I need to pay this company 20,000 rubles for mediation. Fortunately, I once again carefully checked the website of the Icelandic volunteer organization and found a real official intermediary in Russia. The company was located not in Moscow at all, but in Cheboksary. Yes, we actually had to pay extra for registration, but only 3,000 rubles.
Soon after this they announced to me that everything was in order and that in a month they were expecting me in Iceland. All that was left was to apply for a visa, buy tickets, pack your things and wait. It's a lot to wait.
How it all went
I had to spend 3 weeks in Iceland, enjoying its beauties, which I fell hopelessly in love with before even reaching the volunteer gathering place. The only thing that darkened my trip was my level of English. I had little idea how I would communicate with other participants and organizers. But, as it turned out later, this was only a problem at the very beginning; By the end of the trip, even my terrible English stopped bothering me.
Some things didn’t work out as planned: for example, it turned out that October is low season (unlike the summer months) and there are very few volunteers. Since all the participants signed up for different projects (journalism, garbage collection, etc.), we were asked to unite.
Then our ragtag group was delivered to the house where we were to live during the project, a little ahead of schedule, so that we even had to be nervous, not finding anyone inside except a cat. Moreover, being originally from different directions, we couldn’t even understand which city they brought us to! But soon our camp leader appeared: she calmed everyone down and clarified everything.
Volunteer: Kirill Kozhanov, graduate student at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Drive: In 2010, for 2 weeks, entertained children in a gypsy settlement in Uzhgorod in Ukraine
Budget: tickets - 3000 rubles, other expenses - 1500 rubles.
Quote:“At the university I was very interested in the Roma language and Roma culture, and therefore I decided to go to volunteer summer camp. He was located in Uzhgorod, in a gypsy settlement - there is the Radvanka district, this is a kind of ghetto. That's where we lived - in the premises of a neo-Protestant church. In general, poor people live there, and the area itself is complex; for example, garbage is almost never collected there—the residents are unable to come to an agreement with the local administration. There are very poor houses where there is no electricity, and water is collected from the river. By the way, we also didn’t have water - we slept right on the benches in the prayer house, collected water from a pump on the street, and went to the train station to wash. The pastor's wife helped us with everything, in particular, she collected the children in the morning and brought them to us, and we needed to organize their leisure time. So that there is an educational component and outdoor games. In addition, we bought food and cooked not only for ourselves, but also for the children; we had separate funding for this. There were no particular problems with communication - I spoke a little Gypsy, the American spoke Ukrainian with the children, and in general they understood each other; Czech girl She communicated with children only in Czech - and she succeeded too. We planned activities the day before: for example, we divided into groups, and the children drew a forest on a large piece of paper, and then they had to figure out what animals, birds, insects, etc. English We sang songs with them, sculpted from plasticine, played football, badminton, or just walked around the neighborhood. The children quickly got involved, more and more of them came every day, so that 30-40 people managed to visit us per day. All are under 10 years old, all active, mobile - sometimes it was even difficult to contain them all.”
Save nature
Volunteer: Alena Pecheritsa, project coordinator at the non-profit society “Eco-Center”
Drive: in 2010, for 10 days in the Kaliningrad region to help create a museum-reserve
Budget: ticket - 4000 rubles, other expenses - 1000 rubles.
Quote:“In the Kaliningrad region there is national park“Curonian Spit”, and it didn’t turn out very well good situation, some of the employees had to quit, and they came up with this: they came to their native village Krasnolesye and began to restore the local territory, as well as the old German school, in order to make it an ecological local history museum. And we went there to help them. They settled us in the building of this old school; there is beauty, devastation, tiled stoves - and we got to work. They helped the forestry department and cleared away trash. This is a border zone, and this is where alcohol, for example, is transported across the border, and a lot of containers are lying on the side of the roads. Everything was very littered - it took us three days to just clear out this garbage, sort it and send it for recycling. On the shore of the lake there is very Beautiful places for picnics - so there was tourist garbage from ten years ago. In three days we raked out 3-4 huge trucks. Next was work around the village - there is an old apple orchard that no one has touched for 200 years. We dug up apple trees and sawed down branches. At first, the locals looked incredulously, saying, why are you touching the garden, it has stood for 200 years and will stand for the same amount of time. Better come and help us dig up the garden! But then they warmed up and even treated us to homemade canned pickles.”
Work on the farm
Volunteer: Tatyana Suprun, bank employee
Drive: In 2012, I went to Iceland for 2 weeks to work on a farm.
Budget: Ticket - 22,000 rubles, fee - €200, other expenses - 2,000 rubles.
Quote:“There were 11 of us in total, and we lived right on the farm. True, it was a local farm with a tourist bias, that is, completely different from our ideas about collective farms or something like that. There were small cottages to accommodate guests, a cafe and a small farm. We lived in one of the guest houses on two floors: one floor for boys and one for girls. We had breakfast, lunch and dinner in the owner's cafe - so we had full board. Icelandic tourism consists of trips to natural attractions; tour groups travel around the country by bus and sometimes stop in picturesque places to have lunch, explore the surrounding area, and stretch their legs. Our farm was just such a transit point. Around - Mountain landscape, lakes, ancient church. You can stay overnight in one of the wooden houses or at a campsite.
The owners of the farm - a husband and wife - and their five-year-old daughter live there alone and receive tourists or volunteers. The farm is small: the farm is high-altitude, so the soil there is not so fertile and the climate is not very favorable for crops. There are goats, sheep, geese - a little bit of everything, but we didn't interact with them much. This is what we had to do: we went to the field, cut the turf, which we then covered the roofs of houses with and built decorative green walls. We also collected garbage throughout the territory, painted buildings, dismantled old, unnecessary, rotten fences, and marked paths for tourist walks. It wasn’t particularly difficult, although there were problems with the weather. It was June, but in the Icelandic highlands this means plus 10, maximum 15 degrees during the day, sometimes it was zero at night.”
Restore and build
Volunteer: Artem Garusev, IT specialist
Drive: In 2007, I went to Iceland for 2.5 weeks to restore the whaling buildings
Budget: fee - €200, tickets - €600, other expenses - €300
Quote:“I flew to Reykjavik, spent the night in a cozy hostel, and the next morning we were loaded into a minibus and driven to the fjords, to the northwest. In Iceland there is the so-called Golden Circle, along which tourists travel, but our area was in an isolated part of the country, where tourists rarely go. And, in fact, the purpose of our trip was to restore the building of the old whaling slaughterhouse in order to set up a museum there and finally attract tourists there. We spent another night in a mini-hotel, and in the morning they drove us Arctic Cat all-terrain vehicles, to which boats were attached, and we drove all day to the whaling slaughterhouse. There we were settled in a small country house on the shore of a fjord - fresh ice water flows there by gravity from the mountains, and the next day we went to work. They raked out the earth from the whaling slaughterhouse and everything that had grown inside, knocked out the old, crumbling cement and covered the cracks with new. In the evenings we bought food from the nearest supermarket and took turns preparing our specialties. One Russian guy and I baked pancakes, the Italians prepared tiramisu - who knows what. They also took us out fishing; we caught cod, went to hot springs, picked blueberries with special rakes - we had these blueberries in all our dishes, both in tiramisu and in pasta. In general, we had a great time, but then the weather changed - in Iceland this happens in minutes, storms began, and we stopped work and went back to the first mini-hotel. There we had nothing better to do - we looked into local school, played with the children and got ready to go back home.”
Help at festivals
Volunteer: Alexandra Zakharenko, graphic designer
Drive: In 2009 for 2 weeks at the festival classical music Aldeburgh Festival
Budget: tickets - 10,000 rub.
Quote:“Aldeburgh is a great little town, very calm, right on the seashore. We were all settled in grandmothers, I lived in the very center, in gingerbread house, directly opposite is a Gothic church. I had a real princess room, a bed with a huge feather bed, - my grandmother was like Soviet textbook in English: toast and jam, hello, my lady! The neat granny from the picture. The team was also great, excellent, cheerful, open young guys. Our duties included working as tickets, helping with the organization, accompanying the groups, and at the end we also organized our own concert - we sang and danced. Concerts during the festival took place everywhere - in nearby villages, in churches, in an old cemetery, in an open field - incredible modern works. I later tried to get there a second time, but they wrote to me, saying, I stayed there myself - give it to others, but they didn’t take more. There is still an age limit - only up to 25 years old.”
Learn English
Volunteer: Alexandra Kruchinina, HR specialist
Drive: in 2010, I went to Indonesia for 2 weeks to teach English to schoolchildren
Budget: tickets - 25,000 rubles, entry fee - $60, other expenses - 2,000 rubles.
Quote:“At first I just traveled to the main Indonesian attractions, and then there was a camp where we taught English for a week and built a local temple for another week. It was a village in the center of the island of Java at the foot of the Merapi volcano, last time it erupted just a couple of years ago. Majority local residents occupied by agricultural lands, and there are few wealthy people there, so we were placed with a local rich military man. He had big house, where we were given a couple of rooms and we slept there in sleeping bags. The owner's wife prepared breakfast for us in the mornings, and in the evenings we managed their kitchen ourselves. It was summer, but the children there spend their holidays not like ours, but somehow differently, almost in winter, so the children were all there and came to us to study English. We divided into groups and rotated every day - we worked with different classes. We had textbooks with basic English for the children, and we were also given four Indonesian volunteers to help us, who - if anything - could communicate with the children in the local language. There was also a nasty Czech who followed us everywhere - a guy of about fifty, an employee of some airline. He ran there after his daughter - he was still afraid that something would happen to her, but in the end he got involved and also worked with the children, drawing cards for them. -The children became attached to us and engaged in hunting; however, it was quite the outback - they don’t see white people there very often. Later they begged us for foreign money - for the collection.”
Organize fairs and other events
Volunteer: Dmitry Bagrov, researcher
Drive: in 2009 for 2 weeks in the Czech Republic to help in the ashram
Budget: ticket - $250, fee - $100, other expenses - $140
Quote:“Ashrams are places where yogis come to meditate, practice, and live separately from the rest of the world. Our ashram occupied old castle XIV century with a large garden - it belongs to the local yoga federation, and there are a certain number of people who live in it permanently, but in the warm season all sorts of schools, delegations, participants in master classes, that is, crowds of people, begin to gather there . From 100 to 200 people visited there every day. Volunteers were also accepted - regularly - one local girl worked with us, and she also taught yoga classes for us for those interested. We lived in the same castle, the boys and girls were given a common room, where there were beds and some kind of minimal mattresses. We often worked in the garden, but most of the work was in the kitchen. The cuisine there is strictly vegetarian - no meat, no fish, no milk, but a lot of vegetables and fruits from their own garden. And so we had to wash and peel vegetables for 150-200 people every day! That is, kitchen outfits have always been huge. The rest of the time we cleaned the garden pond of duckweed, collected fallen plums, painted something, and built fences around the flower bed. Two of our curators were responsible for leisure time - usually these were all sorts of positive games from the field of team building like “line up according to height with eyes closed" In addition, every evening was dedicated to a certain country - volunteers told something about the life of their country, shared stories, and showed photographs. And on our days off, we went on excursions to Kromeriz and Brno - we spent the whole day visiting parks and museums.”
Life and customs of volunteers
We live on the ground floor worse than Syrian refugees in Germany: all 17 people in a cool barracks filled with bunk beds. We are currently reconstructing the second floor.
Express information on the country
Iceland is an island state located in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Capital– Reykjavik
Largest cities: Reykjavik, Kopavogur, Hafnarfjordur, Akureyri
Form of government- Parliamentary republic
Territory– 103,125 km 2 (105th in the world)
Population– 317.35 thousand people. (177th in the world)
Official language– Icelandic
Religion– Lutheranism
HDI– 0.899 (16th in the world)
GDP– $17.03 billion (113th in the world)
Currency– Icelandic krona
Every day in a row I ask myself the question: what was that Icelandic Viking thinking who glued the carpet onto the wooden Icelandic floor? Because I need to clean this floor from the tightly stuck yellow carpet muck.
The guys strip paint from hundred-year-old boards and collect non-existent garbage around the city. The rest of the free hands either cook or clean up the house. Working hours: 5 working hours 5 days a week. But due to the fact that our boss Magnus forgot his tools in Reykjavik, most time we simply imitated vigorous activity.
To prevent us from completely dying of boredom, the camp leaders agreed with a local farm to provide free volunteers to help. As a result, it was these four people (different every day) who really worked. The bonus included unlimited photo sessions and hugs with Icelandic horses.
The main work in the camp during the cold season is repairing the school and preparing the camp for the summer. During the warmer months, groups clean up trash in the city, renovate the outside of the school, pluck lupines from the mountains and help the local community.
We feed each other well, wash the dishes according to schedule, and are freezing together.
In the toilet in the volunteer camp there are toilet newspapers and a pencil, on the walls there are sheets of paper with basic phrases in all the languages that were heard in the building. And also stories about careless volunteers who did not wash the dishes after themselves, which is why they died during unknown circumstances. On the chalkboard in the living room is the phrase: “This house is clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy.”
What the school doesn't have is soul. You can wash away the effects of hard work in a geothermal pool by soaking in it. open air with the local population and going to the sauna. All this is free. The only inconvenience is a 40-minute walk on the finest ice.
This is exactly what we did after our arrival. An unforgettable feeling! While you are crawling along the road in trekking boots like a drunken goose, children in rubber boots are overtaking you and, without breaking stride, are shooting at you with snowballs.
The moral pluses in the community of volunteers are friendliness - regardless of place of birth and level of English. The main thing is that you understand when it is your turn to cook and wash the dishes, otherwise you will be eaten for lunch by hungry European children. And to make sure it’s not boring: for 17 people there will be at least a couple of bright extroverts who know how to make porridge, a guitar player, interlocutors for every taste and interest, and crazy colleagues in photo perversions who are ready to stand in the cold for a couple of hours waiting for the northern lights.
Moral Cons: If you need a little privacy each day, you won't get it at camp. Never. Even in the toilet. But you can escape to the mountains or the pool during your free time. I need to be alone with both of them for at least two hours a day, so by the end of the camp I was howling and crawling up the walls.
Eskifjörður or 50 views of Mount Holmatindur
Icelandic words consisting of 10 letters are memorized at least on the second day, and more than 10 on the third.
Eskifjordur is one of the oldest fishing port towns in the eastern part of the country. Stretched long on one side of the fjord, on the other there is a beautiful mountain. So beautiful that no one in their right mind would want to climb it without equipment. Mount Kholmatindur is the main indicator of weather, mood, and is visible from any house. However, 919 almost vertical meters above sea level is difficult not to notice when the town itself is right on the shore.
In Eskifjörður, almost every house has a sign with the year it was built. As a rule, this is a date before 1950, and the beginning of the 20th century is often found. One gas station, one aluminum factory, a port in half the village, a geothermal pool, one bar-cafe-karaoke-party place, a small lighthouse, a pharmacy, a hospital, a museum, paintings on the street, 1043 people and wildly bored young people, who are not particularly here a lot of.
There are ski lifts and ski slopes 10 km away. In addition to well-maintained trails, there are wonderful places for freeride and tons of virgin powder, but it’s better not to go there without local accompaniment. Alcohol is in neighboring village 12 kilometers away, variety of food is there.
The local population seems to have long been accustomed to the constant presence of volunteers. The village is not a popular tourist destination, and the biggest source of loud crowds is the camp.
Bored Icelandic youth periodically came in the evenings to chat. The school's chronicles say that once upon a time a crowd of schoolchildren came to the volunteers, and sometimes adults stopped by. Our shift was unlucky with adults, but in terms of the number of slightly drunk guys aged about 20, we won.
From personal experience and observations
To understand anything about people's lives, it is worth living in their environment and investing in these people with your work.
Four of us were sent to work on horse farm– it was necessary to deepen the floor in the barn. Of all the explanations, we were given only the name of the local mayor, on whose instructions we came to work, shovels, a crowbar and a wheelbarrow. Digging enthusiastically into the rocky Icelandic virgin soil, we did not notice the old man who appeared in the doorway.
Grandfather started asking in Icelandic, since he didn’t know English at all. We knew about 6 phrases and 20 words in Icelandic. During the shamanic dances and drawing of pictograms, it became clear that he was the real owner of the farm. The mayor didn’t tell him anything about us, so grandpa was sincerely perplexed why we were digging the floor in his bloodshed. Having listened carefully to our primitive explanations, he asked not to destroy the walls, and left the marvelous European tourists to dig in the ground, without flinching a single muscle of their face.
This is what the level of trust looks like in Icelandic society.
After some time, wildly tired, stinking of horses and covered in earth, we sat on whatever we could and looked out the doorway - from a dark, damp barn. Horses walked outside the door, the fjord stretched out, the sun clung to the crystal white peaks of the mountains. Sigur Ros was playing quietly on the mobile phone, complementing our silent zen. We were all smiling. Not to each other, but to themselves and the doorway.
This is what happiness looks like to belong to a place that is special to you.
"Hi all! My name is Polina. My friends call me a fairy, but... Lately lean towards the traveler. One does not interfere with the other, but the second also allows you to write for “Around the World. Ukraine".
But seriously, by education I am an artist, by profession I am the founder and designer of a natural jewelry brand
Friends, summer is just around the corner, which means it’s time to plan your vacation or vacation.
In the summer of 2014, I participated in a volunteer project in Iceland and am still incredibly impressed by this fairyland. The camp season in Iceland lasts from June to August, you need to hurry, so for those who have not yet decided, my article will help.
Link to the original article in the magazine - http://issuu.com/friends-magazine/docs/friends-fall/256.
How did you decide to volunteer?
By chance: one day I was traveling by train home from Kyiv to Kharkov, and my traveling companions were two volunteers from Turkey. They were heading to a volunteer camp in Kharkov to plant trees, and since I was the only one in the whole carriage who spoke English, I helped them figure out the places, and in the end we became separated. This is how I learned about volunteering and, I must admit, I was very inspired by this meeting. Upon arrival home, I immediately scoured the entire Internet and when I figured out the issue on my own, I realized that this was exactly what I had long dreamed of: traveling and being useful at the same time.
It’s a pity that we didn’t exchange contacts with these guys, I think they would be pleased to know that after communicating with them, inspired by their example, I also became a volunteer and a year after such fateful meeting, I’m already writing an article about volunteering. :)
What was your priority - volunteering or traveling?
Together. This is exactly the formula that I have been looking for for so long. I love to travel, but I always really wanted not just to travel, but something more - to immerse myself in the atmosphere, to communicate with people, so this combination is ideal for me.
Why did you choose Iceland?
When I chose a country to volunteer, I really wanted it to be a place that you couldn’t just visit - special and unusual.
The fatal event when choosing was viewing feature film « Incredible life Walter Mitty”, which inspired me a lot and after it I clearly understood: Iceland is the most unusual place!
How did you organize the trip?
When I was looking for a base of volunteer camps in Iceland, I chose the one that suited me in terms of dates and topics, and sent a motivation letter. A day later, I received a response that I had been accepted into the camp; a Ukrainian organization, which acts as an intermediary between a volunteer and a foreign volunteer organization, contacted me. They sent me a list of documents to fill out in order to receive an invitation from the host party. A few days later I received a cherished invitation from the Icelandic Volunteer Organization, I bought tickets myself and started collecting Required documents to obtain a visa. When the paperwork was left behind, I could only wait for a response from the embassy, pack my things and prepare for the adventure.
What did you do on the spot, was it some kind of hard work?
The theme of the volunteer camp I went to was environment. The project description stated that volunteers would work with nature and do some reconstruction work on the farm, but in reality it turned out that we worked more on the farm than with nature. There was a lot of physical work: we cleaned, cleaned, painted, prepared the farm for winter, and only once sowed grass and cleared the forest of dead wood. Even though our work didn't quite fit the theme, I really enjoyed it because we had a great team and a wonderful host who hosted us. During the project, we all became very friendly and became family to each other, a kind of “international family.” I am very happy that I got there and met all these wonderful guys.
How much money do you need for such a trip?
The main expense item is flights and fees for participation in the volunteer program.
Most projects in Europe are free; in Iceland, volunteer projects are not funded by the state, so a fee of about 200 euros is charged for participation in the project.
Accommodation and meals are provided by the host. And, of course, it makes sense to take some amount with you for various expenses. In total, a trip of several weeks will cost you about 700 euros. If you compare it with a tour to Iceland, then for that kind of money you won’t even find a trip for even one week.
I would like to continue volunteer activities? Which country this time?
Yes, sure. I want to connect my life with volunteering, because I finally found something with which my heart completely resonates. I would like to try myself in different areas volunteer activities, for example, I really want to work with children and animals. Next time I'm thinking of going to Africa.
What advice would you give to those who decide to become a volunteer?
It is important to understand that volunteering is a voluntary activity. Therefore, I advise you to approach the choice of a volunteer project very carefully. It is important to choose a topic and field of activity that you will like and enjoy. However, you can try yourself different projects and thus determine what you like to do most.
And in conclusion, practical advice for those who are traveling specifically to Iceland.
I would advise them to organize their trip so that they have time not only for work, but also for traveling around the island. Iceland is a must see! The best way to travel is by hitchhiking, Iceland is the best place for this. suitable country, In my opinion.
Iceland leaves no one indifferent, I am sure you will definitely fall in love with this country when you visit there.
Report about my trip to Iceland -
