While being in a foreign country for the first time, the culture you step into can feel like an entirely different world. It’s sometimes as if you’re reborn as a child, thrust back into naivety and a dependence upon forces outside of yourself. You don’t understand all of the rules to the new game, and so you may often feel like you’re blundering around town while everybody gazes at you in your foolish ineptitude. We’ve all been there, but in reality anybody that’s looking at you does so without a shred of condescendence… for the most part.
The new culture can feel as if its encapsulated in a bubble of sorts, insulated away from those not native to it. It’s quite difficult for a traveler to glimpse the true essence of a culture; it may even feel like a boon that has to be earned. It takes time, patience, and a willingness to surrender the programming of your home to the new matrix you’ve stepped into. Knowing the language is certainly the most effective way to step further into familiarity, but not all of us are so linguistically equipped. However, there’s another way to break through the membrane that distinguishes a traveler from a tourist, a mere passerby from one who can approach a foreign culture in humility: volunteering.
During my 6.5 month sojourn in Japan, I was working as an English teacher in public elementary schools for the majority of it. During the last two months however, I bounced around to multiple different prefectures and did volunteer work at 3 different locations: Earth Hostel in Nikko National Park (日光国立公園), a homestay/farm in Yamanashi prefecture (山梨県), and a budding pottery studio in a vibrant creative community in the mountains of Nara prefecture (奈良県).
Volunteering with Workaway and Worldpackers
Often when I meet people while traveling, I recommend that they consider volunteering somewhere. “It’s a travel cheatcode,” I tell them, explaining my reasoning for doing it, and how radically it can transform one’s experience with a country. I’ve now completed seven different volunteering opportunities, ranging from a short week’s stay to a month, in 5 wildly different countries: Hungary, Slovenia, Turkey, Peru, and Japan.
With the two platforms of Workaway and Worldpackers, you’re granted an opportunity to step into the daily life of the people that you visit. In exchange for 20-25 hours of work a week, you get food (often 3 meals a day) and housing, as well as countless other benefits that are unique to your host and culture you enter. With deep appreciation and open arms, your hosts welcome you into their home and circle of life… granted you’re willing to work with zeal and enthusiasm.
The way it works is that you create a profile and try to make it as detailed as possible; this is the only information prospective hosts have of you while you’re applying, so be sure to be earnest, authentic, and honest in your personal skills/attributes that you’d like to highlight. It costs between $50-$60 for a year’s subscription, but when you consider the amount you save when you’re not paying for food or housing, it’s chump change. Both platforms have innumerable different hosts from all across the world, with some countries having more positions on one of the platforms vs the other. While searching for hosts, you can either filter it by country if you already know where you’re headed, by region (such as the Balkans), or even by keyword/other various filters if you’re searching for a specific type of host.
For instance, I’ve often just typed in “Horses” in the search bar, and maybe added the filters for “community,” “eco-village,” “school,” “farm,” etc. During these cursory searches–which I’d often do during free periods at my elementary school in Japan–I’d love to see what opportunities were out there. While simply looking at the profile and pictures of a certain host that caught my attention, I’d be utterly transported by my imaginative inclinations, enamored by the vision of arising each morning to handle the daily responsibilities tasked of me. I’d be whisked away to a regenerative farm in the Spanish Pyrenee highlands, or to a hostel/equine therapy resort in the Sonoran plains of Mexico. You don’t need to have a paid membership to view hosts, so if any of this tickles your wonder bug at all, I urge you to download either of the apps and start looking at the endless array of globetrotting adventures that await you.
Earth Hostel at Nikko National Park (日光国立公園)
Once I left my teaching job and apartment in Hokkaido, the first place I decided to volunteer at was a hostel in Nikko National Park, which is about a 2 and a half hour train ride from Tokyo. I found Earth Hostel on Worldpackers; it’s ran by an American expat named Scout, who is a genuine dude and new friend. He’s cultivated an atmosphere that harmonizes social vibrancy with the rejuvenation often craved for while being away from home for extended periods of time. The hostel is about a 30 minute drive from the kitschy tourist center, but Scout offers a shuttle service every day to drop guests off in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. Peacefully perched upon a river flowing with force and set amidst rural landscapes that may as well have inspired Miyazaki’s Ghibli films, Earth Hostel is a special place and the most unique hostel I’ve ever been to.
I’d arise each day from my bunk as if I was surfacing from an immeasurably long deep dive descent, a fog cast over my mind but an ever-present gratitude for awaking where I was. After an often fitful night sleep — where every bed spring was acutely present in my perception — I’d throw my bathing suit on, grab my towel, and immediately head outside before giving my mind time to accompany my movements. I’d go outside and say hi to the guests having breakfast out on the riverside patio; depending on who it was, I might stay and chat for a bit, but usually I’d give a quick salute or nod, and beeline down the rocks toward the river. I’d dive into the river, submerge myself in the icy flow, and allow the ever-moving presence to wash over me.
Dating back to quarantine when I first read Siddhartha, I’ve felt an unwaveringly profound connection to flowing streams. They’re my perfect teacher and embodiment for the energy I wish to exhibit in life: graceful yet strong, always in motion yet never forcing, simply allowing the natural Will to to be as it is. I’d arise out of the water and simply stand firm and grounded, with feet in the rocks and gaze cast out towards the river’s continuation and the forested banks embracing its sides.
Due to the incessant socializing of a life spent living in a hostel, this morning swim was essential for me. Not only did it arouse me from the cavernous depthful slumber — usually unsatisfying due to the long nights spent drinking, singing karaoke, and connecting with guests — but these river submersions were my ritual and touchstone that grounded my inner world. It offered me stability and rootedness, and granted me the energy needed to constantly bridge relationship between new guests, only to see them crumble when they left, and demand a new bridge to be erected with the next guests checking in.
The work was really straightforward and easy. I’d only work ~16 hours a week in exchange for a bunk bed; each day, I’d either drive his car in the morning/afternoon to pick and drop guests off, or do general cleaning work/ other random tasks he needed done. For 3 days I power washed the whole patio and all the rocks that sloped down from the hostel to the river. It was quite the perilous walk before I worked on it, slippery enough to knock me on my ass once or twice when I walked down the rocks with my journal and coffee.
On days off, I’d explore and do some of the hikes in the main area of the park. Scout even took me on some adventures when there weren’t any guests staying at the hostel. Nikko has been home to sacred worship sites dating back to the 8th century, and pilgrims have long been venturing there from all across Japan to pay homage to the spirits in resident. Tokugawa Ieyasu — the first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, which ruled from 1603-1868 — chose Nikko to be his place of burial. If you’ve seen the show Shogun, he’s the main ruler who Blackthorne fights for. There’s a lot more interesting stuff about Nikko, but it’s written extensively else where, so if you want to learn more you should check out Scout’s blog: https://earthhostel.com/
Guesthouse Tamamiya (たまみヤ）
After Earth Hostel, I didn’t give myself any time in between before delving right into my next volunteering experience. After a 7 hour travel day that included 4 different train rides and a short ramen break in Tokyo, my final train wound its meandering way through the rolling peaks of Yamanashi prefecture, and arrived at the town of Yamanashi. Miyuki San and Katsu San, my gracious and radiantly warm hosts, picked me up at the train station. From the initial conversation in the car — where I discovered their limited English abilities, and was happy to have the chance to practice my Japanese — as well as the overwhelming praise they received from previous volunteers’ reviews on Worldpackers, I quickly discovered their genuine nature. Miyuki, Katsu, and Ba Ba (Miyuki’s mom) immediately welcomed me as part of their family. They provided me my own room and desk — which was an absolute blessing after living in an 8 bed dorm for a month — that also had a deck overlooking their city. On a clear day, behind two or three layers of mountains to the south, I could glimpse Mount Fuji regally rising in eminence.
Unlike my month spent in Nikko with Scout, I was only at Tamamiya for a week, but that didn’t stop me from efficiently wandering my way into their hearts 😉 With the afternoon sun menacingly overbearing, my workdays at Tamamiya began at 6:30 0r 7. The tasks were really varied, but for the most part I accompanied Katsu San on his daily responsibilities, which included maintaining his rice/fruit fields and helping people in his community. Some highlights were building a walkway for an elderly neighbor (where Katsu san taught me how to drive. a bulldozer), setting ablaze wasted wood and other materials in a massive bonfire, and trimming his grape vines.
Although I had some prior knowledge about fruit cultivation in Japan, it was here where I truly learned the painstaking detail and care farmers took in growing fruit. Due to the humidity and bugs of Japan’s climate, fruit demands a precision and devotion from farmers unlike any I’d ever experienced, resulting in a fruit culture that is utterly unique from the rest of the world. For starters, fruit in Japan is wildly expensive, and so I would only eat bananas and kiwis. I once asked Katsu San about the price of fruit, and he remarked that it wasn’t expensive enough to offset the grueling and oft infuriating diligence required of farmers. Fruit is a gift in Japan bestowed upon others; the act of eating fruit is a celebration of life and the inherent sweetness of time spent with loved ones, so it was opening to view it from a different cultural lens.
Miyuki San and her family also host guests on Air BnB as well, if you want to experience rural life in Japan for a few days without waking up at 6 AM to work. I only met guests on my last night, and they were two Chinese dudes turned Japanese salary men, but they provided some interesting conversation about what they were selling… nano chips maybe? I forget.
Nara
After I left Miyuki San and her family in Tamamiya, I had a quick two day trip to Kyoto before going to my last volunteering in Nara. In most of the time I spent in Japanese cities, I was generally irritated by the sheer number of tourists roaming the streets. I know I know, I’m a tourist as well, but some of these people were just so obnoxious and completely unaware of how their presence was felt by those around them. It really took a lot away from the experience for me; that being said, I’ve never been much of a city person anyway, so it wasn’t surprising I felt more at home in the Japanese countryside than in the big metropolises. However, on my second day in Kyoto, I visited Mount Kurama (a sacred mountain a short train ride north of the city), and felt a palpable energetic presence that was distinctly charged and extremely unique.
I arrived in a small village in Nara after 4 different trains, 1 bus, and 1 community van. During my trip, I linked up with Edo and Mefi, who were a Chilean couple who I was to be volunteering with. The three of us got off the last community bus and walked up the driveway of our home for the next ten days, where Francis met us. Originally born in New Mexico and having spent a good portion of his years in California as a ceramics instructor, he met his wife Yufu and has since been living in Japan for ~9 years. Their plan is to create an art residency program, where they can host people from all across the world at their rugged, rural, and serene riverside home. They live in a creative village with many other artists of all kinds; it’s part of an initiative by the Japanese government to inject more tourists and vitality back into the countryside. A five minute walk from their house is a brewery, where they even make 8 or 9 different types of delicious brews.
Yufu and Francis have big plans for their house, and so they require as much help as they can get. They just recently started hosting Workaway volunteers, but they were very organized and logistical about the work and their expectations. In the time I was there, I did a lot of weeding and yard work, helping Francis in the woodshop, cleaning and organizing the woodyard, and moving these hugeee boulders with mechanized cart down the most precarious path I’d ever treaded. I was successful and without incident after my first day doing that task, but on the second day during the second trip with the biggest boulders I had moved so far, the cart got too close to the edge and lost traction, and tumbled end over end down the forested cliff side leading down to the river. The image of that machine flying over the edge, somersaulting twice, and landing with a roaringly crunching thud will live rent free in my mind for time immemorial. We spent the rest of the working day getting it out of the ditch, thanks to Francis’s genius mechanical mind and his creative use of levers, pulleys, and our collective back breaking fits of labor. I did recently get a bill from them to fix it, but it could’ve ended a lot worse.
I was really lazy during my time off while staying with Francis and Yufu; I was at the end of my trip and just generally worn out. I mostly read, wrote, studied my Japanese kanji, and walked around the village and surrounding hills. There was a shrine about 2 miles away that I felt a deep connection to, and I ocassionally went when I needed help getting outside of myself and my own head.
Francis and Yufu were so kind, generous, AMAZING CHEFS, and purely amiable people to be around. Like with most Workaways, they as hosts were genuinely interested in our lives and getting to know our hearts and who we are as people. They were infinitely grateful for our work and time being there, but they demanded respect and a willingness to work diligently.
Where to next?
After my three volunteering experiences in Japan, I’ve now completed a total of seven different work trips: hostel in Budapest, horse ranch in Slovenia, English teaching in Istanbul, indigenous school/farm in Peru, and the three Japanese sojourns elucidated above. The more I travel, the more I long to experience. It’s difficult at times to constantly feel my heart pulled towards places other than where I’m at in the present, but it seems to be an intrinsic aspect of my soul. As of now, the American southwest is calling my name; the desert and red rocks of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico are longing to be explored, but I try to not think too much of what’s down the line. Instead, I’m back at home in Doylestown with my family and aiming to do some substitute teaching. I am striving to be as whole heartedly present here as I can be, to rechannel the energy I cast out in my distant dreamy visualizations and to bring it forth in love for my home and the people I am with right now.
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