In Europe, backpackers go back to basics at organic farms - by Jeannie Nuss
Backpackers pining for European adventure have discovered life on the farm, shoveling manure, feeding pigs and making butter as a recession-beating way to sate their wanderlust. Their ticket to an earthy taste of the Old Continent is an innovative website that connects travelers with a network of organic farms stretching from Portugal to Turkey and around the world.
World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, an organization founded in Britain, has been around since 1971 but has lured many more volunteer farmhands in recent years as hard economic times forced people young and not so young to seek a cheap way to take a European vacation. For a few hours of work a day — other chores include milking goats, collecting honey and making compost — volunteers get a place to stay, fresh food to eat and a bargain. Recent graduates and college students like Smith and Mansfield make up a significant portion of WWOOF's volunteers, although farmhands come from walks of life as varied as the chores they do, said Chemi Pena, spokesman for WWOOF in Spain. Julie Bateman, a mother of two and slow food advocate, packed up her 10- and 13-year-old children and left her home in Charleston, S.C., for a volunteer farming stint in Italy this summer. "WWOOFing with the two children is certainly a twist on the normal travel and WWOOFing in general," said Bateman, 42. For many volunteers, WWOOF is creating a class of green-thumbed do-gooders, more conscious of their carbon footprints.
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