Wwoofing across the States

In April 2009, my friend Sophie and I were lying on my bed at university, bemoaning her rejection to work at Camp America. Faced with a long summer of no plans, we decided to hatch one. So what Camp America said no to her? We could still go to the US!

We bought a massive map of the country, remembered Route 66 existed, also remembered we couldn't afford to drive across the country and that, actually, we had hardly any money at all.

Needing to keep our expenditure as low as possible, we decided to WWOOF, a.k.a volunteer on organic farms as we went. We joined WWOOF US and got our paper directories through — I hope these days they send them digitally because lugging the directory around was ridiculous — and booked in to our first farm, an organic dairy farm in Missouri.

We arrived in Chicago, IL in late June and began our two month adventure across the Mid West, travelling through eight states and working on three farms. We did very little research, even less planning and somehow still managed to not only survive, but have an absolute blast.

States visited

• Illinois

• Missouri

• Kansas

• Colorado

• Wyoming

• Nevada

• Utah

• California

Wwoof Farms:

R-Farm - Springfield, MO. Organic dairy farm.

Crestone Farm - Longmont, Colorado. Equestrian stables and smallholding.

Mercey Hot Springs - Los Baños, California. Off-grid hot springs resort.