I was privileged to host international travellers wishing to work in exchange for lodgings but tighter entry rules have made it impossible
Photograph: Cultura Creative /AlamyPhotograph: Cultura Creative /Alamyhen I first heard about Workaway it sounded too good to be true, and perhaps in some ways it was: a website on which travellers could exchange their skills for free accommodation sounded like something that only happened in dreams. Perhaps that’s what appealed to me about it – the triumph of community over cash.
My Workaway guests, sleeping in my caravan and spare room, came from across the globe and the social spectrum, ranging in ages from their teens to their 50s. A healer from Kenya painted my bathroom pink; an engineer from Argentina put up my thrifted chandeliers; a graffiti artist from Seattle fixed my caravan and an Irish teenager tried to put up pictures on my bedroom wall and instead hammered the plaster clean off.
Most of the Workaways I met were travellers but some were British people opting out of the system or young digital nomads looking for alternative ways of living. One writer from Boston, Lincolnshire, helped plaster my ceiling in between writing video games in my caravan; a builder from Manchester helped me install a garden gate while trading cryptocurrency on the side.
One Brazilian man who had travelled to with me was turned away at the airport and put on the next flight home“With changes in regulations for EU visitors because of Brexit, it’s no longer feasible to us to continue listing exchanges in the UK, as it takes up too many of our resources. This has been an internal decision.
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