SUSTAINABILITY

It’s no secret that our world is in crisis ecologically. While sorting your recycling and refusing plastic bags is a good start, if you’re passionate about sustainability, your time can be better spent digging your hands into environmental issues abroad. Working on sustainability projects, in many cases, will be a chance to escape the big cities and learn about the local culture from the ground up. By picking your own dinner on an organic farm or helping to build a school out of upcycled plastic bottles, you’ll be helping sustain the planet for generations of backpackers to come.

ODD JOBS TO FUND YOUR TRAVELS

Freedom isn’t free. Leaving The Man behind may have been the reason for your trip, but he’s still out there—lurking in every corner of the world—demanding that you pay up. With work visas and employment restrictions, you can’t simply slap on a suit and tie and sell your soul for a little dough on the road. But don’t worry. There are plenty of ways to boost that bank account while you’re livin’ the life—and none of them require paperwork or government approval.

Get Crafty

Making cool shit and selling it on the street is the most popular way backpackers keep the cash flow positive. The possibilities are endless, and you don’t need much capital to get started. You can eat for weeks by making necklaces and earrings from shells, discarded wire, and pretty river stones. Stock up on string and hooks in a big city. But be warned: in certain countries or cities it might be illegal or even require a permit to sell products or collect shells, so be sure to do your research first!

Go Green

European festivals are breeding grounds for cold, hard cash. In many countries, like Germany, you can trade in plastic bottles for moolah. Most festival-goers are too stoned to worry about where they leave their recycling; consequently, surrounding campgrounds become treasure troves of plastic bottles waiting to be traded for cash.

Tried and True

Offering your own sweat and blood is the oldest trick in the book, and it works like a charm. Hostels often need an extra pair of hands in the kitchen or bar and will offer you a free bed and/or cheap food in exchange. It’s a prime gig for meeting people—who doesn’t want to cozy up to the bartender?

Get Techy

Turn your sporadically updated travel blog into cold hard cash. Sound like some Silicon Valley daydreaming bullshit? Well, it isn’t. You’ve surely seen stories of people leaving everything behind and taking to the road for years at a time while only making money blogging. How? You have to put creative thought into it, take kick-ass pictures, and build up a social following. Think of it as less of a hobby and more of a part-time job. There is a market for vicarious travel and if you’re providing that service for enough people, advertising and sponsored content will arise.

Kick It and Flip It

If circumventing the globe is in your travel plan, with a little forethought, this gig makes fiscal sense. While chilling in cheaper countries, like India or Thailand, stock up on cool, lightweight hippie shit. When you make it to the other side of the world, sell it at street fairs or festivals.

WWOOF, WWOOF, BABY!

We’re not talking about barking. WWOOFing stands for “World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms”-ing. This network (WWOOF) was developed to link volunteers to organic farms with available volunteer opportunities. You volunteer on an international farm for an agreed amount of hours, and they feed and house your hungry, broke ass. Pretty fair deal. Nothing extravagant here, but given the prices of organic, fresh-from-the-ground food and housing, it’s a good trade-off.

THE PRODUCTION PROBLEM

Unfortunately, the factory farming method of meat production in the United States is spreading its long arm overseas. By now, you have all seen the hidden camera videos of animals on large farms being abused and neglected, and of chickens with breasts so large that their legs break cramped in tiny spaces to maximize production. Our cows are diseased, pigs are electrocuted, and turkeys are strangled, and all in the name of producing the millions of burgers, nuggets, and who-the-fuck-knows-whats we’re all so attached to.

When animals become commodities and farms are replaced by factories, raising and slaughtering animals becomes a quest to turn higher profits with no concern for comfort. In response, some have chosen to become vegetarians, while others have deferred their hard-earned cash to more expensive organic, free-range meat and dairy options. Being a vegetarian, vegan, or organic/free-range meat-eater is a statement; rolling up your sleeves and actually getting down and dirty at a farm is putting your statement into action.

Y’ALL CITY FOLK? NO PROBLEM

No farming experience is necessary to WWOOF with the best of them. Daily duties range from milking cows to plowing, sowing, maintaining animal sheds, and planting seeds. This work will be hard, and you will get that ugly farmer’s tan, but your contribution will be greatly appreciated and rewarded.

By volunteering, you get to live in a foreign country of your choice as a farmer (which is the closest you can get to local culture) and escape the tourist traps by living in the countryside. Plus, you get the freshest food available in the region, daily.

HOW TO START LIVING OFF THE LAND

Whether you’re a vegetarian looking to support small farms or a meat-eater looking for a unique (and damn cheap) way to live and eat abroad, hooking up with a farm through the WWOOF network is a good idea. While your friends back home are eating canned, frozen, and pesticide-covered produce, you’ll be holding a fresh, organic vegetable in one hand and a hoe in the other.

WWOOFing organizations exist almost everywhere in the world where there is a farm. There is no global membership, but you sometimes have to pay a small, country-specific annual fee (used to maintain the organization) to join the WWOOFing network. For instance, the annual fee in Argentina costs $38, but in Guatemala it’s only $4. Go to WWOOF.net, pick a country, pay your fee, and you’ll get a list of farms.

Choose your ideal farm (animal, fruit and vegetable, grain, or a combination) from the list. Keep in mind the type of work will correlate with the kind of farm you choose. So, if squeezing udders makes you shudder, stick to produce production.

Contact the farm to make a volunteer arrangement. Find out about: duration of the volunteer opportunity, hours of work per day, days of work per week, type of accommodations offered (tent, private/shared room), and proximity of surrounding towns.

Get a plane ticket, put on some sun-screen, and get to work.

BOTTLE SCHOOLS

Hug It Forward, a United States–based nonprofit, takes the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” mantra to a new level. In 2009, these guys began constructing “bottle schools” from plastic bottles and other trash in Guatemala. Most of the villages where bottle schools are built are rural and poor, often hours from a paved road. These trashy classrooms are often the first schools the villages have ever had. Since they started playing with trash, Hug It Forward has erected more than seventy schools and counting.

BOTTLE AND MORTAR

The first step to building a bottle school is to collect thousands of plastic bottles and make them into ecobricks by stuffing them full of inorganic trash (to prevent the school from rotting). The frame is built from concrete and iron for strength. Then, the ecobricks are stacked on top of each other and sandwiched between chicken wire. A couple layers of cement are slapped on for good measure, and then the building gets its Central American mojo when it’s painted in festive colors.

These schools aren’t built in a day, or without plenty of lending hands. Serve the World Today, a for-profit company, runs voluntourism trips in coordination with Hug It Forward. By volunteering your time and taking a trip down, you can do some good for Guatemala.

PLASTIC WITH A PURPOSE

A bottle school is an in-yo-face testimonial to the possibility of local building, even in the most remote or impoverished communities. But there’s more than radical ecoconstruction going on here—building a bottle school cleans a community’s bottle-clogged gutters, educates local kids about recycling, and, in the end, gives kids a space within which to learn and play.

PROGRAM PERKS

A bottle school trip includes a coffee farm tour, cultural talks, meals prepared by a private cook, and trips to the trippy Mayan ruins at Mixco Viejo and the city of Antigua, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Most important, because you’ll be working shoulder-to-shoulder with the locals, you’ll have the chance to build relationships with both Guatemalans and other volunteers.

A bottle school trip costs around $1,299, which covers everything but your transportation to Guatemala, booze, and souvenirs. Additionally, every bottle school volunteer is asked to fund-raise $250 for the project predeparture. However you decide to do this is up to you, but Hug It Forward (HugItForward.net) has some fun suggestions, and every cent of the money you raise goes directly to a school project. Just like every small piece of trash that eventually constructs a school, every penny counts.

HOW TO BIKE AROUND EUROPE

Riding a bike through Europe is a unique and interesting way to explore as it allows you to gain access to roads not navigable by larger vehicles. It’s also easy on the pockets, saving you hundreds of dollars in transportation costs, and the environment won’t hate you as a result. So get off your ass (then back on it) and pump your pedals ‘till you puke.

Bike Sharing

You do not need to own a bike to ride in Europe. While the US finally figured out bike sharing and has rolled out programs like NYC’s Citi Bike and Boston’s Hubway, Europe has been tinkering with bike sharing for years, putting in lots of trial and error (i.e., mostly getting people to stop stealing bikes and dishonoring the honor system). Throughout many parts of Europe, most notably the Netherlands and France, bike sharing works quite similarly to a library card. Basically, you create a membership with a company, such as Vélib’ in Paris, and you pick up a bike at their station, use it, then drop it at any other station (they have tons all over the city). Variations of this system can be found in Germany (Call a Bike), Amsterdam (OV-fiets) and many other places in Europe. Bike sharing is cheap, fun, earth-friendly and gives you a reason to wear spandex (because with no reason, spandex is unjustifiable).

European Bike Express

For a different take on biking Europe, catch a ride on the European Bike Express, a coach line offering comfortable transportation for you and your bike. EBE stops in over thirty cities in Europe, opening up the UK, France, Northern Spain, Germany and Switzerland to your two-wheelin’ pursuits. The bus offers entertainment, comfortable reclining chairs, and plenty of like-minded travelers to shoot the cycling shit with. Since your drop-off and pick-up locations don’t have to match, you can experience a variety of cultures and sites in one trip.

Gastrobiking

Biking around Europe will make you hungry. Eating around Europe will require you to exercise. The French combined the two to solve this food and cycling dilemma. It’s called gastrobiking and it offers the best of both worlds with food and cycling tours through Southeastern France. Gastrobiking offers tours full of long climbs, sweeping descents, delicious pastries, fine wines, fantastic meals, quaint cafés, and quiet roads. The tours range from weekend trips to cyclosportives—or long distance, organized cycling events.

STUDY BY SUNLIGHT

Energy doesn’t always have to come from a power line. The almighty sun shoots out its rays free of charge and is strong enough to power the world on its own. Since lighting up classrooms uses tons of electricity, certain colleges are playing a part in building a better environment by looking to the sun for assistance. Green-light your study abroad semester with one of these ecoconscious colleges.

ARCADIA UNIVERSITY: BONN, GERMANY

Arcadia’s program in Bonn is the perfect place to study solar power. Germany is a leader in renewable energy and this five-week summer study course shines a light on the policies and development of renewable energy while offering first-hand trips to see what the university and surrounding cities are doing to utilize solar power. Check out nearby Paris, Amsterdam, and Brussels on your own weekend excursions while crossing off environmental science or language requirements during the week.

UNIVERSITY OF LAUSANNE: SWITZERLAND

Like Germany, Switzerland is one of the world’s pioneers and leaders in sustaining and recycling energy. The University of Lausanne offers plenty of study abroad options spanning shortened semesters to the full academic year. Lausanne (both the city and University) is a world-renowned innovator in solar energy research and you can lock down a degree in Energy Management and Sustainability while studying in state-of-the-art facilities.

CARDIFF UNIVERSITY: WALES

Cardiff is one of Britain’s leading research institutions. Its study abroad programs prompt you to take two required courses and two electives over the semester and will fit nicely in completing credentials for engineering, mathematics, or science majors. You’ll learn about solar and other forms of renewable energy in your course on recyclable energy research and implementation. Even better, you’ll dive deep into Welsh life by living, breathing, and studying the capital’s literature, language, and culture.

GREEN: ICELAND

The coolest (but not coldest) spot in the northernmost part of the world, Iceland is more than just a giant geothermal tub of sexiness (although, there’s that too). GREEN (Global Renewable Energy Education Network) is an exclusive, educational program that teaches renewable energy and sustainability through adventure excursions and exposure to Nordic culture. Programs in Iceland are short (eight to ten days) and are offered during summer, winter, and spring breaks. Your studies will start out in the classroom but will quickly turn into group adventures outdoors. As short and rewarding as it is, GREEN will give you up to 1.5 college credits when you transfer the program back to your university.

ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES

Becoming a park ranger is no easy task. But if your love of the outdoors and keeping it pristine is matched only by your passion for helping others respect the green, start learning your plants and animals and branch out internationally. Rubbing elbows with Smokey the Bear outside the US will take some preparation and hard work, but the payoff can be well worth the effort. Bonus: You get to be a legit lumbersexual without getting shit for it.

BEFORE YOU APPLY

For the extreme outdoor enthusiast, being a park ranger might seem like its all unicorns-and-cupcakes, but in reality, the job can be more about shoveling bear shit and fighting with drunken assholes who insist that burning plastic is hilarious. Keep in mind that if you want to get to a point where you can get paid (very little) to play outside, you will first have to clock in some work hours. Overall, no matter which country you want to park it in, plan on studying something relevant like park management, zoology, or botany before or during your stay. You may also have to volunteer to get your foot in the (out)doors.

PLAYING IN AUSSIE PARKS

Park Victoria is responsible for managing hundreds of killer national, state, and metropolitan parks as well as thousands of conservation reserves in Victoria, Australia. Noncitizens can only become park rangers in the land down under if they have a valid working visa. Plan on hitting the books hard in Natural Resource Management and Recreation/Tourism to be considered. The Summer Ranger Program offers a limited number of short-term ranger jobs for students and is a great “in” to the Aussie park system.

AFRICAN RANGE

If you feel like parks are just crappy slides and picnics, you might want to consider heading to Africa to become a badass safari ranger. Learn how to track wild animals and survive in the bush while dodging the bullets of poachers. Outside of the zoology courses and personal training sessions you will want to complete beforehand, enroll in a Safari Ranger School to get thorough training about ranger life in the African wild. Those afraid of snakes, rhinos, or physical exertion need not apply.

OTP Tip: If you get really serious about ranger-ing (e.g., you’ve invested in pair of too-short khakis), join the Rangers without Borders (IRF) international rangers organization; it’ll be useful when you’ve petted one rabid squirrel too many.

COLOMBIAN PARK CARE

Colombia has an array of parks scattered around the country. Some parks contain glaciers and beaches; others are more like full-on leafy forests. The scenery here should hit that nature g-spot for any aspiring ranger. To apply for the volunteer ranger program you’ll need to present some basic documents like a passport and certification that you’re healthy and not crazy, and get a couple of precautionary vaccines and photos. The program runs a five-day training period, after which you will be assigned to your park of choice and given free lodging and in-park transportation. You’ll have to pay for your meals, but if you study up, perhaps foraging something edible will be in the cards.