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Host rating
80 %
Last replied
17 Apr 2023
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8
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Details
Description
Hello! We are looking for volunteers (preferably a couple) for 1 or 2 weeks in April! Please get in touch :-)
We are a young (ish! 33 + 38) English couple living in Bulgaria. We've been here almost 9 years. Over this time we have been renovating our old stone house and working on the garden and land. We also work online as English teachers. We live here with our beautiful rescued dog, Lucy, and our lovely cat, Bilko, who are both very friendly and enjoy meeting new people. In the garden we have several chickens.
Before moving to Bulgaria we travelled through Europe in a campervan and were helpers through Helpx in 5 different countries (including Bulgaria.) The places we visited and the people we met on that journey inspired us to move out here and live a more simple way of life. We are excited to now be on the other side and feel we have learnt from our experiences and will make good hosts!
Over the past eight years we have been working on our home to make it livable. It hadn't been used for over ten years when we first arrived! There is still a long way to go in the garden, but inside the house is almost complete. We have 2 bedrooms, a bathroom with hot shower, kitchen and living room. The house is fairly small, however in the spring and summer months we spend most of our time living and cooking in the garden. We also have a compost toilet outside and a solar shower (only in the summer).
We don't have a set plan for the year, but there is plenty to do!
Projects that need starting/continuing/finishing include: concreting a patio, building stone gabions, house renovations. We will also be growing vegetables and maintaining the garden. We both work 10+ hours a week online, so you will need to be able to work both with us and independently. We would prefer a couple who are happy to work by themselves when necessary.
Work will vary with the season/what you feel you can help us with. During the spring months (and cooler weather) we will we doing much more building work outside. Jobs will include heavy lifting (stones), concreting, building, carpentry, painting etc. as well as gardening, planting seeds, weeding, watering, harvesting produce. We also need to look after the farm animals and the pets. We are not looking for any particular skills, just people who are enthusiastic, hard working and fun to hang out and chat with!
We prefer helpers to stay for 1 - 2 weeks.
Accommodation will be a double bed in our spare bedroom. The house is quite small and we will need guests to be fairly quiet during our teaching hours. However this shouldn't be a problem as we can spend most of our time outside! It's also possible to camp with a tent or you can park your camper/caravan in the walnut orchard!
We are not vegetarian but we are happy to cater to veg/vegan diets.
Our village is a very quiet, relaxing place. It has many beautiful walks in the surrounding countryside, but no shop or bar. Please be aware of this if you don't have your own transport. There is a bigger town (Chirpan) 10kms away that has bigger shops, cafes and restaurants and there are also several places nearby to visit as a day trip - one of our favourites being the amazing city of Plovdiv.
There is very limited public transport to our village so having your own vehicle may be useful, however there are many bus and train links to Chirpan from all over Bulgaria, so it is not essential.
If you would like to know more about what we are doing here please feel free to have a look at my blog (find the link in the website area) and message us with any questions!
Types of help and learning opportunities
Help with Eco Projects
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Animal Care
Farmstay help
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
General Maintenance
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
Come and experience a real, rural, Bulgarian village! Our village is a very quiet, relaxing place. It has a small shop and a bar and many beautiful walks in the surrounding countryside. There is a bigger town (Chirpan) 10kms away that has bigger shops, cafes, restaurants and swimming pool and there are also several places nearby to visit as a day trip - one of our favourites being the amazing city of Plovdiv.
Projects involving children
This project could involve children. For more information see our guidelines and tips here.
Help
The plan for this year is to carry on renovations in the garden - including building retaining walls, a summer kitchen, balcony and verandah - so there is some hard work and heavy lifting to do! We will also be growing vegetables and maintaining the garden - there is always plenty of work! We both work 10+ hours a week online, so you will need to be able to work both with us and independently. We would prefer a couple who are happy to work by themselves when necessary.
Work will vary with the season/what you feel you can help us with. During the spring months (and cooler weather) we will we doing much more building work outside. Jobs will include heavy lifting (stones), concreting, building, carpentry, painting etc. as well as gardening, harvesting produce, cooking and almost anything else you can think of. We are not looking for any particular skills, just people who are enthusiastic, hard working and fun to hang out and chat with! We are only looking for helpers for 1 - 2 weeks maximum.
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Accommodation
Accommodation will be in our house, in the spare bedroom. We will provide 3 meals a day in exchange for 5 hours work per day. We are not vegetarian but are more than happy to accommodate vegetarians!
What else ...
There is very limited public transport to our village so having your own vehicle may be useful, however there are many bus and train links to Chirpan from all over Bulgaria, so it is not essential.
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Can host digital nomads
We have a good internet connection and work online ourselves. We'd happily let you work online a couple of hours a day, as long as it can work around your volunteering here!
Space for parking camper vans
We have 2 acres of land where you can park your van! Access can be muddy if the weather is wet, but I'm sure we can manage!
Can possibly accept pets
Please get in touch about pets as we do have animals ourselves.
How many Workawayers can stay?
Two
Hours expected
Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week
Feedback (4)
We had a great time, the house is very confortable and cosy and the summer kitchen nice and fonctional. The huge garden is super too!
It was a perfect place to relax and go for nice walks and jogging.
Our children loved taking care of the animals and Lucy is our favourite dog since we… read more
They stayed with us for 1 week in April 2023 and they helped us with so much during their stay. They were able and willing to try anything we asked of them, including digging earth, moving stones, mixing and laying concrete, gardening work ... and the list goes on! As well as this they also… read more
Both of them are amazing, kind and thoughtful people. We had a great time and many laughs with them. Even their pets Lucy the dog and Bilko the cat are adorable.
The work was super interesting, we made a patio using stones and concrete, as well… read more
Pete & Minty are incredibly friendly and made us feel instantly at home when we arrived. We stayed in their lovely and cosy house and had our own bedroom. As they also have travelled and… read more
They were fantastic volunteers who were willing and able to help us with everything we asked of them. This included a wide variety of tasks, such as planting seeds, potatoes and trees, helping with the animals… read more
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We had a great time, the house is very confortable and cosy and the summer kitchen nice and fonctional. The huge garden is super too!
It was a perfect place to relax and go for nice walks and jogging.
Our children loved taking care of the animals and Lucy is our favourite dog since we… read more
They stayed with us for 1 week in April 2023 and they helped us with so much during their stay. They were able and willing to try anything we asked of them, including digging earth, moving stones, mixing and laying concrete, gardening work ... and the list goes on! As well as this they also… read more
Both of them are amazing, kind and thoughtful people. We had a great time and many laughs with them. Even their pets Lucy the dog and Bilko the cat are adorable.
The work was super interesting, we made a patio using stones and concrete, as well… read more
Pete & Minty are incredibly friendly and made us feel instantly at home when we arrived. We stayed in their lovely and cosy house and had our own bedroom. As they also have travelled and… read more
They were fantastic volunteers who were willing and able to help us with everything we asked of them. This included a wide variety of tasks, such as planting seeds, potatoes and trees, helping with the animals… read more
It was a last minute arrangement as their previous host fell through, however this was no problem as their communication was excellent.
They were relative novices to our style of living (rustic & farmy!) but they threw themselves into every task with eagerness! We did a variety of different jobs together… read more
Minty & Pete's home is a bohemian wonderland and you will feel very comfortable in the room here or in many of their hangout spots. Pete & Minty have a… read more
