This month’s featured volunteer program is Askari Wilderness Conservation, one we had the opportunity to visit while in South Africa. From a first-hand view, we recommend the staff, accommodations, and projects all to be of the highest quality. The Askari Facebook Page gives an entertaining inside glimpse of life on the reserve. Getting close to the animals for research and doing valuable work within a working reserve is what this program believes in. Here you’ll be a part of a true African bush experience!
Joining this program means you can make a genuine and valuable, hands-on contribution to conservation. Assist the [ ... ]
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This month’s featured volunteer program is Askari Wilderness Conservation, one we had the opportunity to visit while in South Africa. From a first-hand view, we recommend the staff, accommodations, and projects all to be of the highest quality. The Askari Facebook Page gives an entertaining inside glimpse of life on the reserve. Getting close to the animals for research and doing valuable work within a working reserve is what this program believes in. Here you’ll be a part of a true African bush experience!
Joining this program means you can make a genuine and valuable, hands-on contribution to conservation. Assist the [ ... ]
Category: Feature Program
Tags: animal conservation, feature program, S. Africa, volunteer
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Poor, poor Paddy! As you can see by her rolling around on her back that she’s quickly learned to get as much sympathy as possible from us with her injury. We’re not sure exactly what happened as she’s an outside Fijian doggie, but one afternoon she came up limping with a torn dew claw and a very pitiful look on her face.
Back home this would mean a trip to the vet, a few stitches, some medicine and all would be well. Especially because it is easier to book appointments as the vets have equine veterinary practice management software. Here in [ ... ]
This post is Part 5 of the Livin’ in Fiji – A House Sitter’s Story
Indian Curry Cooking Class
As I’m eating the leftovers from our Indian Curry Cooking Class at the Sea View Restaurant in Savusavu, I’m still amazed that we actually cooked this! The brilliant hues of fresh vegetables, golden pieces of perfectly seasoned walu fish and I can’t forget the chewy, but fluffy roti with the perfectly charred bubbles. It’s tastes as wonderful for breakfast as it did last night when we made it!
A hands-on, in-the-kitchen Indian cooking class for $15 Fiji dollars, plus we get to eat everything [ ... ]
As we drove around Fiji we often saw these copra kilns. For many people, and especially in the Fijian villages, the production of Copra is a primary source of income. With the coconut trees so prevalent across the island you can see why it is a popular activity.
Making copra is not an easy task. Coconuts are gathered and then cut open and halved. The coconut meat is then dried – most often using a kiln shown above. Many locals who use the kiln will bring the dried product to the copra mill for final production. When the copra production [ ... ]
Category: Current Work
Tags: budget travel, Copra, copra mill, copra shed, Fiji, savusavu, travel
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This post is part 4 of the series Livin’ in Fiji – A House Sitters Story
We find we’re spending quite a bit of time writing and working from the porch here in Fiji where we’re house sitting. The owners have named their home Sunset Cottage and from the views when the sun drops behind the mountains, it’s easy to see why.
The view is mesmerizing. Hazy mountains across Savusavu Bay decorate the vast expanse of water that starts at the end of the driveway. The sound of waves on the rocky shore puts us to sleep at night. During the day, [ ... ]
Work Exchange Programs for Travelers
A New Zealand dairy farm, hand feeding alpacas, working in a vineyard and picking macadamia nuts…all of these are coming up in October and November for us at Will Work 4 Travel! In exchange for a few hours of work each day (varies by host) we’ll receive meals and a comfortable place to stay. We’ll join in with life on the farm and become a part of the host family for periods of a few days to two weeks at a time. Our travel costs are drastically reduced and we get to have some pretty awesome [ ... ]
Category: Books & Resources, Volunteer Resource
Tags: budget travel, volunteer, work exchange
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We had heard about the Scottevest Travel Vest, and it seemed like a pretty good idea but it was hard to believe that you could use those 17 pockets and not get a bulky, odd looking form when wearing it. While heading to Fiji we got the chance to put it to the test! Somewhat over our baggage limit, we had to re-pack our bags at the airport. Thankfully we had recently left TBEX12 where Scottevest provided us all with one of their Travel Vests. Out came the vests and here is what we loaded into one of them:
iPad, iPhone, [ ... ]
Category: Books & Resources, Travel Budgets, Travel Packing
Tags: air travel, budget travel, gear, scottevest, travel, travel gear, travel packing
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This is the third post of the series Livin’ in Fiji – A House Sitters Story.
It was time. We’d just about exhausted how far we could travel only with the power of our two legs. Of course there were taxi’s, but where’s the adventure in that? It was time to rent a car!
As we’re mentioned once of twice before, Savusavu Town on the island of Vanua Levu is not a huge place. At the far end of town there’s a fenced-in field and within that field sits the Budget Rent-A-Car trailer. By the way, they rent boat motors (no boats) [ ... ]
This is the second post in the series Livin’ in Fiji – A House Sitters Story
In today’s post we want to tell you a little about our “adopted” Fiji town of Savusavu. It’s a 3-kilometer walk from our housesit into town. The walk stays cool along the shaded beach until we get to the wharf (where garbage is dropped off) and within a few more minutes we’re by Savusavu Bay, lined with sailboats and catamarans of all shapes and sizes.
People drive on the left here, so we dodge speeding taxis coming at us from the “wrong” side of the road. [ ... ]
Category: Current Work
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This is the first in the series of posts from Livin’ in Fiji – A House Sitters Story.
MEETING PADDY…
Our first responsibility at our Fiji house-sit is to take care of Paddy, described as a Fijian mutt, but clearly there’s a little German Shepard in the mix as well. Grey hairs in her muzzle tell us she’s not quite a puppy anymore. She’s an outside dog who comes in every night to sleep on the porch and during the day she prefers to sun in the yard surveying the driveway from her spot at the top. After seeing pictures and her [ ... ]
