This honeymoon couple quit their office jobs to live their dream of living off the land

It’s a long list! Our itinerary spanned 11 months, 24 countries and 10 Workaway projects!

We mostly focused on permaculture projects. We love how “sustainable agriculture” follows principles whereby you manage a farm or vegetable garden as a whole ecosystem rather than just working on separate pieces. It’s all about the fun of factoring in all the pros and cons of each element in it; ducks are great at eating slugs without touching your salads, chickens eat bugs while scratching and fertilizing the soil but will get into veggies if given half an opportunity, and so on.​​​​​​​

We also did a few other types of projects based on our other interest: a

When we told our family and friends we were quitting our office jobs, leaving New York, and travelling around the world for a year as our honeymoon trip while volunteering on farms before becoming farmers, most of them thought we were brave or insane – or a combination of both! 

Before the trip we generally got along quite well, although we weren’t sure what it would be like to spend pretty much 24/7 together for the better part of a year. Now that we have travelled around the world, we have ZERO regrets! We are still very much in love with each other (hurray!) and have learnt that being grumpy or picking a fight is something we can take in stride, even during when we were working side by side in the garden or on some DIY projects.

To us every volunteer project was an opportunity to compare notes on our thoughts of the setup, of how things were done, and what we would do similarly or differently. And we are often on the same wavelength during this process– which is a relief, because we have read horror stories of couples embarking on huge life changes only to realize too late that they both have significantly different visions of the future!

The best part, however, is discovering facets of each other we hadn’t quite experienced before. Talents or hidden skills (like how much Shahnaz enjoys weeding!), preferences (Francois mostly enjoys hiking but hates walking on some days), reactions to others (Shahnaz tends to be slightly more patient and diplomatic than Francois – it must be when her Swiss side takes over), and of course the fact that we both can get grumpy when we are hungry.

We are grateful for all these because the venture we are planning next will require a lot of hard work, teamwork, and intense time spent together. Hopefully this ‘trial by fire’ has prepared us for what comes next.

There are so many to pick from!
The obvious choices are visiting mountain gorillas in Uganda, playing with rescued elephants in Thailand, getting a bamboo blowgun at sunset on the beach in Bali, swimming with sea turtles in Australia, zorbing in New Zealand, hiking a glacier in Patagonia, paragliding in Colombia, and sleeping in a treehouse in Costa Rica.

But we also absolutely loved all the hidden places we never would have discovered if it wasn’t for Workaway: meeting hosts as strangers and leaving them as family, the epic and delicious meals we shared, the pride we felt when seeds we sowed sprouted, learning to make bread and yoghurt from scratch… finding out that we really only needed the basics to be happy, discovering a place through locals’ eyes and soaking up their secrets and tips on homesteading and permaculture – and the network of friends we now have all over the world! These are all intangible, priceless, and not something we ever could have found without Workaway. It’s what made this trip so incredible.

Shahnaz & Francois:

We are now in Portugal, which is where we plan on relocating to officially and starting our farmstay and eco-tourism project. We have set up a couple more Workaway projects here to make sure we have a home during our search for our future home.

​​​​​​​We encourage everyone we can to travel and volunteer, and we look forward to joining Workaway as a host as soon as we have our own place. Maybe even to welcome some fellow workawayers we met along the way, and hosts who have promised to come visit as soon as we are all set! In a nutshell: Workaway is the best thing since sliced bread.