Region: St Croix

I am a forest ecologist and owner of a small environmental consulting firm here in the Virgin Islands. My wife and I have spent the past several years restoring and renovating a run down house that is now a lovely (somewhat completed) home. We have roughly doubled the size of the house and have done most of the work ourselves. We have our hands full with a charming 1yr old baby and a dozen household projects. They range from light carpentry to caring for my fruit trees and outdoor collection of rare plant to general indoor fix-its. We have been in the Virgin Islands for over 12 years and can help you find the best local beaches and help you plan the next leg of your travels. For us, the ideal work-awayer will be a couple interested in staying for around 3 weeks.

Region: Hovsgol, Mongolia

Hi, We are a Franco-Mongolian family living in Hatgal, on Lake Hovsgol in the north of Mongolia. We are a 30-35 years old Franco-Mongolian couple and our little daughter Narantuya born on the 1st of May 2010. We are living in a ger at 2 km from the Hatgal typical village of northern Mongolia, in a beautiful Larch tree forest. Come enjoy a living in your own ger in the beautiful area of Hovsgol lake!

Region: Asturias

Janet and John live in Asturias. We are now at the end of our fifth year of so called retirement here and love it. This is definitely not the Costas! We live in Valdes in Asturias….. a county of rugged coasts with super ( but often stony) beaches. The interior (where we live at 270 meters high in the hills and 30 minutes from the nearest beach) is largely mixed forest of sweet chestnut, oak, ash and beech with plantations of northern pine and eucalyptus. The valley bottoms and tops are mainly green pasture for cattle grazing or silage with flatter fields with maize for cattle. It is beautiful – a lake district without the lakes and without the crowds. Weather – This is green Spain so we have clouds and rain. The temperature is higher than the south of England – a greater noticeable difference in the back part of the year. When we bought our house we wanted a house with some land to grow veggies on. We ended up with two houses (one “the barn” had no floor and was only home to spiders and cobwebs – we called it the barn because it was the oldest and still had the cattle feeding stalls), a traditional Horeo, 5 fincas (fields - one with a small maize mill – not functioning) and two Montes (bits of hillside with lots of trees on.) Thank goodness three of our neighbours keep most of the fields clean by grazing cattle, sheep and growing grass, so I am left with only the finca (6500 m2 )below the house to look after. We have six chickens and two dogs (and a cat that adopted us). During the year we grow most of our own vegetables. John does most of the work on the land while Janet writes and directs two musical shows a year for her group of performers back in England

Region: Idrija

We are 2 adults plus a beautiful Hungarian Puli dog who are easy going fun loving but hard working. Paul is 50 and an artist, writer, IT consultant and loves working with wood. I am 44 year old psychologist. After hectic life in London we moved to Slovenia in hope to live a better life and time to enjoy what we are doing. We bought an old house 3 years ago here in Slovenia and have worked very hard bringing it back to life. We are building a reservoir for collection of rain water and many more wonderful things around the house. The house and grounds will be used for art workshops as well as events and seminars. Help is needed with gardening, maintaining the newly planted orchard as well as the old trees, taking care of the forest, building the wall and reservoir and similar stuff. In return we offer meals, clothes washing facilities, a very comfortable double bed and bathroom but if you’d prefer to stay outdoors in own tent there is also plenty of space available in our 2.5 hectares of land. There are plenty of historic sites and places of outstanding natural beauty in the area including wonderful lakes, rivers and waterfalls. We are happy to receive help from couples or singles, smokers or non-smokers and although we are not vegetarians ourselves we are happy to prepare you vegetarian meals if required.

Region: Bay of Plenty

My husband & I have 3 adult children no longer living at home. We have hosted exchange students for the last 5 years and currently have a boy from Japan. We have a house by the beach and 30 acres of land further up the coast going inland. This piece of land needs weed control and some fencing. It is our lifestyle block and we run some sheep and cattle on it. Our son & his fiance are getting married in March on this land and we could do with a hand to tidy it up.There is a lovely little batch on the land which has no electricity but a wood stove. It also has a flush toilet, shower with hot water, sleeping and cooking facilities. We stay there from time to time but it can be difficult to reach when it has been raining. We live in a an old 4bedroom villa which we are still renovating. My husband buys possum fur but is also a builder/handyman. I am a nurse working at the local health centre. I do shift work and sometimes work night duty which means I sleep in the daytime. The internet can be accessed by wireless broadband. We have 3 dogs and 2 cats. The dogs live outside but the cats like to snuggle up with the humans. We are non smokers and would only want non smokers please.