Travelling in Tune: Bonding on the Road through Music
Workawayeyeyeyey, wanna travel the world and not have to pay, go to new places and try new things, you never know what each host will bring …WORKAWAYEYEYEYEY…🎶🎶
This tune made by Workawayers,
Delanie and Tori from the US, has been stuck in our heads since we first saw their fun video! The unique and
catchy sing-song video began as a 30-day challenge and turned into a fun and creative way of bonding with other Workawayers and staying in contact with friends and family back home.
We spoke to Delanie and Tori to find out more about their travels with Workaway and their inspiration behind their entertaining videos.
Wanderlust Unleashed: A Leap into the Unknown
Delanie and Tori initially crossed paths while attending college in their home country in the US. Bonding over their wanderlust, they eventually bought one-way plane tickets to Berlin, Germany, setting out on an adventurous journey together that would span over a year. Their intention was to originally settle down in Berlin, but they soon discovered a strong desire to travel to various countries and immerse themselves in different cultures. This led them to make the spontaneous decision to do Workaway projects abroad and travel. With a
tight budget to travel with and a thirst to engross themselves in local cultures,
Workaway was the perfect plan B!
“Before I had an account, I would go to Workaway and just search random countries and be like (gasps) OMG! This is a possibility, or this is a possibility and so it has always been my plan to do Workaway after I graduated, but then we graduated into a pandemic… a couple years after we graduated we were finally able to do Workaway!”
A Budget Traveller's Best Kept Secrets
If you are
travelling on a budget and trying to
save money on the road, then you are at the right place! Workaway is a site that enables you to
travel sustainably, connect with locals and stay with host families for free, all while exploring their beautiful corner of the world in exchange for your time and skills.
“Workaway is definitely our main goal when we go to places. We find a Workaway and then go there..and THEN we decide what we want to see in the country…Travelling on a small budget, Workaway has made it really simple for us to be able to go somewhere and not have to waste time on figuring out where to go next cause we learnt from local people where’s the best places to go, or how to get around or how to feel safe in a certain place.”
Embracing Local Life Beyond the Tourist Traps
Travelling through Workaway allowed Delanie and Tori to
master the art of slow travel. Doing so led to
a more enriching trip as both girls felt at home in their host families' accommodation, allowing them to form strong bonds with locals and develop a sense of community.
“Most of the time, we enjoy being able to have a home base and not living out of a suitcase all of the time and being able to create a community. And so that's why Workaway has been our number one thing… We always try to stay for at least a month with a host.”
While travelling, establishing a
sense of belonging can be challenging. Delanie, however, believes that doing a Workaway project for a minimum of six weeks is the perfect time to immerse yourself in the community, assimilate and
travel like a local.
“We like to be able to have a homebase and from there really get to know the locals, get to know people who understand the country in a deeper way than we do, and then travel out of that.”
Self Growth and Learning through New Experiences
Delanie and Tori each had their own favourite Workaway projects and hosts for different reasons.
One of Delanie’s favourite projects was
living in rural Albania, volunteering at an eco village/guest house where they built
mud houses alongside 5 other Workawayers. Delanie described the experience as an insightful one as she learned a lot about herself and even found her purpose.
“We were able to learn soooo much, I learnt a lot about myself, my relationship with my mind, my body and the world around me, just because of the people that were there and the environment. Also while you’re building a mud house… all you do is put mud on a wall and you’re sat on the other side of the wall with other people that you talk to for hours and hours and hours - it breaks down a lot of barriers, and a lot of internal processes were redefined during that time.”
On the other hand, Tori’s favourite Workaway project was at an
organic lavender farm in Turkey as she found a new way of life and learned how to appreciate
off-grid living.
“I think that was really amazing in a different way. We stayed with a family, and their living room was all made of glass and we could see the mountains and the lavender fields, and they had a wood burning stove and we would farm all day. It was definitely the most peaceful I could say that I’ve felt in my life…Every morning we would get up and do yoga, make breakfast, read a book… It was simple living but it was sooo good and I learnt a lot about appreciating quiet. We had a lot of really good times with them and they were really nice and it was a really cool way to understand Turkish culture. And it's been so long since we've lived with our parents, we called them our mum and dad!”
With more than 50,000 Workaway opportunities catering to a range of interests from farming and off-grid living to hostels and house sitting, finding the perfect project for us can appear overwhelming. However, as long as we invest time in research and ensure we ask the right questions to our host before committing, we'll be sure to discover incredible experiences that we would never have any other way.
Bridging Cultures and Building Skills through Volunteering
There are so many valuable
new skills and
life lessons that can be learned while volunteering with hosts and
Workawayers from all around the world.
“Some of the most valuable skills and observations are setting boundaries and building skills. We have witnessed really cool ways and impactful ways of setting yourself out for success, like addressing conflicts as it arises, how to make people feel comfortable in their own skin, and then building community with each other.”
After their enriching Workaway experiences, the girls have aspirations of creating their own communal living space in the US, with a focus on fostering community living and sustainable farming. While they continue their extensive travels, their primary goal is to
acquire valuable knowledge and skills in
permaculture that they can later apply when they transition to an off-grid lifestyle.
The TikTok 30-Day Challenge: Bonding Through Creativity
We can’t, of course, overlook Delanie and Tori’s creative sing-song videos! The fun and quirky videos began as a 30-day challenge that Delanie and Tori often enjoy setting themselves to conquer. Their goal was to push their music skills and creative boundaries through creating and sharing a new song every day on TikTok. This served as both an outlet and an enjoyable means of documenting their adventures.
“We had so much time! When you have so much time, they say ‘boredom breeds creativity’ so we just had a time that we made a song about metal, takkis, puppies.”
The fun challenge then turned into a fun bonding moment that all volunteers also got involved with! “Then everyone that was there was getting involved and doing the song!...It was a really fun community building.”
The girls continued their challenge, even after their target of 30 days was achieved as they travelled from Albania to Turkey for their next Workaway adventure. The call to action became more than just a fun challenge, but also a way to stay in contact and connect with friends and family back at home.
“I do feel like people from home felt more connected to us because they were able to see what we're doing everyday; they’re seeing us building mud houses, making new friends, so we tried to keep doing song videos. We kind of fell out of it and did random travel videos, but it was a fun way to keep engaging our friends from home with our 30 day challenge. I feel like when you put challenge on it, it becomes a whole thing!”
Taking on the music challenge during their Workaway journey really showed us the power of creativity as a unifying force. The creative bonding not only fostered a sense of community but also enriched the overall Workaway experience. Beyond the practical aspects of their Workaway projects, creating music together with other volunteers and hosts made for a fun and engaging way to connect and collaborate as it helped Delanie and Tori to overcome distance, language barriers and cultural differences! See more of Tori and Delanie's creative videos
on their TikTok account here.
About Stephanie De Jesus
Stephanie was born on an island and raised with a British/Portuguese multicultural background. From a young age, she learned how to embrace different languages, traditions, and cultures. After quitting her job in finance, Stephanie embarked on her first backpacking journey through Southeast Asia.
With an infectious zest for life and an unwavering spirit of adventure, she continues to step outside her comfort zone, living in Amsterdam, hosting canal cruise tours, completing an exchange semester in Chile, doing a ski season in Austria, volunteering at a surf hostel in Portugal and contributing to communities in developing countries like Kenya to make a positive impact.
When she is not exploring the world, Stephanie can be found practising new hobbies, such as rock climbing, roller skating, and skiing.
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