I spent a month working on a farm in Switzerland, and the volunteering made for the best sustainable vacation

In summer 2022, I had a break before my last semester of college from my full-time classes, internship, and part-time job. I was in need of a change of routine and knew I wanted to take time off to travel, reset, and reconsider my life purpose.

Living in New York, I thought about traveling to the Caribbean, which is where I'm from and where I've visited most often in the past. I also considered Europe, where I'd never been but was eager to see.

My roommate and I also found out that our rent was going to go up by nearly $1,000 a month, so we started discussing ways we could volunteer over the summer and spend time traveling the world rather than paying rent. In our research, we found out about WWOOFing.

We found WWOOF, or World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, online. It's a nonprofit that started in England in 1971 and now acts as an online platform for volunteers to connect with farmers around the world for volunteering or work-exchange on their property.

We saw openings on farms in the US but wanted to go to Switzerland or Spain. We ended up choosing Switzerland because of the hikes we wanted to do there.

My roommate and I bought a joint, one-year WWOOF subscription online for about $25. From there, we were able to create online profiles and see photos, locations, and information about available farms. We messaged farm owners and scheduled video calls to ask questions.

Through the website, we connected with Sandra, the owner of Wirkstatt Auboden, a permaculture, organic farm in a northeastern Swiss village called Brunnardern. We emailed her and set up a Zoom call to ask questions about the farm.

I'd never volunteered full time like this before, so I knew I wanted to fully understand what I was getting myself into before agreeing to stay with any host.

We asked how many hours we'd be working, what our daily tasks would be, and whether there were any other English-speaking workers on the farm. We also asked whether there was WiFi, whether there were laundry services, and whether meals were included (specifically vegan options — I was vegan at the time). Since I run my own YouTube channel about travel and lifestyle, I also wanted to confirm that the host would be OK with filming on the property.

Sandra, the farm owner, answered all of our questions and showed us around the farm via Zoom. My roommate and I felt comfortable after the conversation and felt sure we'd have a great time during our stay.

After confirming the details, we booked our flight to Switzerland and sent Sandra our travel details. Once we arrived in Zurich, we took a train to a station close to the farm, which took about an hour and 15 minutes. Our host picked us up and drove us the rest of the way to the property.

The farm ran a small bed and breakfast and had a wellness center with counseling, classes, and massages. The property had a main building where guests and volunteers stayed, another building with the cafeteria and classrooms, the owner's home, the main garden, an herbal garden, a greenhouse, and an outdoor plaza area.

My weekly tasks included four days of garden or kitchen work, depending on what was needed, and one day of housekeeping. We worked from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a one-hour lunch break and had two days free a week. If it was raining, we would do indoor tasks rather than gardening chores.

Housekeeping duties included cleaning windows, preparing the guestrooms, and cleaning the bathrooms. I didn't enjoy the housekeeping tasks very much but understood it was necessary to keep the farm running.

This trip was my first time seeing how food is grown on a farm. It felt fulfilling to see the farm-to-table process of growing the fruits, veggies, and herbs we ate.

As a vegan at the time, I appreciated knowing exactly where the produce I ate had come from. Almost all of our food came from the garden, while grains and dairy items were bought from local markets.

I also loved working in the kitchen to make vegan dishes and desserts I haven't typically had access to at hotels while on vacation.

I was eager to learn, and within days I had fallen into sync with my tasks and fellow volunteers, and the farm began to feel like exactly where I belonged.

All people at the farm — local employees and WWOOF volunteers alike — were friendly and chipped in based on what they enjoyed doing.

Sam, the main gardener at the property, told us he grew up on farms and taught us how to properly start seedlings and grow plants. Heidi, another gardener and cook, taught us new recipes like how to make beetroot ketchup and baked zucchini flowers.

I loved the feeling of every person being valuable in their own way, with everyone sharing knowledge and learning from one another. It was a genuinely welcoming community in which I felt safe and comfortable reaching out for help with anything I needed.

Most workers and visitors spoke German as their first language, but my roommate and I never felt excluded. Someone who spoke English would always translate any German conversation for us.

We taught other volunteers words in English, and they taught us German words, especially for names of items around the farm. Though I don't remember as many of these words as I once did, I'll always cherish that memory.

During my downtime in the evenings, I enjoyed filming and editing for my YouTube channel, calling my friends and family back in the US, and taking walks in the neighborhood. On nice days, my roommate and I liked to go to a river near the farm and take a swim.

On days when we did a lot of physical work in the garden, we liked to decompress by doing yoga in one of the empty classrooms and then spending time reading or writing.

We also asked our team members at the farm for recommendations on what to do and see in the area, and we followed their tips on the best local hiking, bike routes, and neighboring towns to visit.

On our first free weekend in Switzerland, we decided to hike to the summit of Säntis, a mountain topping out at 8,209 feet. It would be by far the hardest hike I'd done, but my roommate and I still felt confident we could do it.

We first tried to follow a trail map for the hike that we'd picked up from the visitor center, but once we saw other hikers we ditched the map and followed in their footsteps. As we made it farther up the mountain, though, my confidence began to shake. Seeing snow and having to hold on to ropes for safety wasn't something either of us had experienced on a hike before.

The elevation also took us by surprise, especially since I was carrying a 50-pound backpack filled with camera equipment.

The hike up Säntis usually takes about two hours and 44 minutes, according to All Trails, but it took us nearly four hours because we stopped to film content for my channel.

One hiker who passed by let us know that the last tram bringing hikers down the mountain would leave the summit at 6 p.m. — and that if we didn't make it, we'd be left to hike down on our own. That was the inspiration we needed to speed up and continue trekking through the snow and clouds.

Finally reaching the summit was such a rewarding feeling, and I thought the incredible view made the hike more than worth it. Having powered through feelings of discouragement, we knew we could do it again. Adventure mode kicked in.

After hiking Säntis, we spent the next weekend at Seealpsee, a beautiful lake crevassed in between the mountains of the Alpstein region of the Appenzell Alps. Of the trails leading to Seealpsee, we chose the higher-elevation, denser-forest route farthest left of all the routes; after Säntis, we wanted to challenge ourselves and keep up our sense of adventure.

We usually spent one of our days off each week doing adventures and the other relaxing and rejuvenating. Sometimes this meant focusing on our personal creative careers, and sometimes we simply swam in and enjoyed the nearby river.

Before the trip, my roommate and I had planned to create itineraries for our time off, but once we were at the farm we found an ease of going with the flow and taking things a day at a time. Being in the farm's slower-paced environment forced me to slow down and enjoy each moment as it came.

In exchange for six hours of work, five days a week, I got to see the beauty Switzerland had to offer for a little more than the cost of airfare.

Beyond that, this experience was unlike any vacation I'd taken previously. It gave me a more authentic opportunity to connect with others and myself. We had a free place to stay, ate wonderful meals, and felt safe everywhere we went, especially knowing we had friends at the farm to call if anything went wrong.

I also loved the farming aspect of the trip, as it gave me a new outlook on traveling through volunteering. Learning about food and nature while traveling was new for me, but I loved it. It made me want to travel slower, stay at destinations for longer, and immerse myself more into different communities and learn from locals.

Volunteering and service trade programs such as WWOOFing and Worldpackers are easily among the most efficient ways to travel the world budget-friendly, all while making a positive impact on a community and the environment. This trip to Switzerland transformed the way I look at traveling.

I had always searched for a way to travel on a budget and was never able to figure out one that checked all the boxes. This trip did it for me, and I would do it again and again. Any time anyone asks for trip recommendations, I always point them in the direction of WWOOFing.

Being able to spend a month in Switzerland this way was the perfect experience for me, and I'm already planning another WWOOFing trip for 2024.