An Experience That Can Change the Way You Travel
There are some decisions that feel a little daunting before you make them. Travelling alone to another country to take part in a volunteer experience is probably one of them.
It is completely normal to have doubts before taking the step. What if I do not know anyone? What if I find it difficult to adapt? What if I feel lonely? What if everyone else comes with someone? What if the destination feels too different from what I am used to?
Many people who take part in an international volunteer program ask themselves these exact same questions before travelling.
And yet, once they arrive, they often discover something they did not expect: travelling alone does not mean experiencing everything alone.
In fact, it can become one of the most meaningful ways to discover a destination, connect with other people and step outside your usual routine.
At Cooperating Volunteers, every year we welcome many people who arrive at their destination on their own. Some are 18, others are 25, 40 or older. Some are experienced travellers, while for others it is their first big trip away from home.
But they all arrive with one thing in common: they are starting a new experience.
And that makes meeting people much easier than it may initially seem.
Travelling alone does not mean being alone
This is probably one of the most common concerns before signing up for a volunteer experience.
When we think about travelling alone, we often imagine arriving at an unfamiliar airport, getting around without knowing anyone and spending several days trying to find our place.
The reality of a volunteer program is usually quite different.
From the moment you arrive at your destination, you begin sharing the experience with other people: volunteers, coordinators, members of the local team, people from the community and participants from different countries.
You live together, share meals, go to the project, discover the destination and spend your free time with people who, in many cases, have also travelled there alone.
This creates a very particular situation.
Normally, when we arrive somewhere new in our everyday lives, everyone already has their own group of friends, routines and personal environment. During a volunteer experience, almost everyone is starting from zero.
That is why it feels much more natural to approach someone and say:
“Where are you from?”
“How long are you staying?”
“Which program are you doing?”
And suddenly, that first conversation can turn into a friendship that continues long after you return home.
Arriving without knowing anyone can also be special
Travelling with someone has many advantages, but travelling alone offers a different kind of freedom.
When you do not arrive with someone you already know, you are usually more open to meeting new people.
You connect with people you might never have spoken to in your everyday life.
You may end up sharing a room with someone from another country, working on the project with someone ten years older than you or exploring the destination during the weekend with a group of volunteers you only met a few days earlier.
And that is precisely one of the most interesting parts of the experience.
A volunteer program brings together people with different stories, ages, nationalities and motivations.
Some are students.
Others have just finished university.
Some have decided to take a break from work.
Others simply want to travel in a different way and discover a country from a less tourist-focused perspective.
That mix makes the experience difficult to compare with a conventional trip.
The first day is probably the strangest
This also has to be said.
You may feel a little out of place on your first day.
You have arrived in a new country, perhaps after many hours of travelling. Everything is different: the climate, the sounds, the food, the schedules, the language, the accommodation and the people.
And you still do not really know how everything works.
That is completely normal.
The first few hours are usually the ones that require the most adaptation.
Then you start meeting the other volunteers, understand how the accommodation works, attend your first orientation, discover your project and gradually begin building a routine.
Usually, what felt unfamiliar on the first day starts feeling normal surprisingly quickly.
Suddenly, you know where to have breakfast, who organises the transport, what time you leave for the project or where the group usually gathers after dinner.
And the people who were complete strangers two days ago begin to become part of your everyday life.
Meeting people from other countries is part of the journey
One of the most enriching parts of international volunteering is that the experience is not only about discovering the culture of the country you travel to.
You also meet people from many other places.
For a few weeks, you may share accommodation with someone from France, Italy, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada or any other country.
And you start discovering small differences you may never have thought about before.
What life is like in their country.
What they study.
What they usually do during their holidays.
What brought them there.
How they see certain situations.
Or even what they normally have for breakfast at home.
Many conversations that begin casually end up becoming an important part of the trip.
And it is not unusual for volunteers to visit each other in their home countries afterwards or even travel together again in the future.
You will also learn to spend time with yourself
Travelling alone does not mean that you have to be surrounded by people all the time.
And that is also part of the experience.
There may be moments when you want to go for a walk on your own, sit in a café, read, write, go to the beach or simply rest.
When you travel alone, you start making decisions for yourself all the time.
What do I want to do today?
Do I want to join the group or would I rather stay here?
Do I want to try something new?
Do I feel comfortable with this plan?
It may seem like something small, but learning to listen to yourself and make decisions without depending on someone else is also part of the personal growth that a trip like this can bring.
You learn to deal with situations on your own
No matter how well organised a volunteer program is, and even if you have the support of a local team, travelling to another country always involves small situations that you will have to deal with.
Maybe your flight schedule changes.
Perhaps one day you need to explain something in another language.
You might have to organise a weekend excursion or learn how to move around a city you do not know.
These are simple situations, but each one helps increase your sense of independence.
And when you return home, you may find that some things that once seemed difficult now feel very different.
Because after travelling thousands of kilometres, arriving in a new country and building a routine from scratch, many small worries no longer seem quite so big.
You do not need to be extremely sociable
There is a common idea that to travel alone, you need to be especially outgoing.
That is not true.
You do not need to be the person who talks to everyone from the very first minute.
Some people simply need more time to feel comfortable within a group, and that is perfectly fine.
Living together means relationships tend to develop quite naturally.
You share breakfast.
You go to the project.
You meet in the kitchen.
Someone suggests going out for dinner.
Another group wants to organise a weekend excursion.
And before you know it, you start becoming part of the group.
You do not need to force anything.
Volunteering makes meeting people much easier
One of the biggest differences between travelling alone as a tourist and travelling alone as part of a volunteer program is that there is already a shared structure.
You are not arriving somewhere where everyone is doing their own separate trip.
You all share a reason for being there.
The project.
The accommodation.
The activities.
The destination.
That makes connecting with other people much easier.
Working together on a project also creates conversations and experiences that go beyond the usual “Where are you from?” that you might hear in a hostel.
You share real moments.
You learn.
You make mistakes.
You laugh.
You experience situations that you probably would never encounter on a conventional tourist trip.
And those kinds of shared experiences can create strong connections very quickly.
You will have amazing days and more difficult ones
Volunteering is not a perfect holiday.
And travelling alone does not mean being happy 24 hours a day either.
There may be days when you miss home.
Days when you feel tired.
Moments when you do not understand a certain custom.
Or situations when you simply need some space.
That is also part of travelling.
The key is understanding that everything does not need to feel extraordinary all the time for the experience to be valuable.
Sometimes, the most ordinary days are the ones you end up remembering most.
A conversation after dinner.
The journey to the project.
An afternoon playing with children from the community.
A shared meal.
A sunset with other volunteers.
These are moments that may not appear in any travel itinerary, but they often become part of your strongest memories.
Feeling nervous before travelling is normal
Many people wait until they feel completely confident before booking a trip like this.
That moment may never come.
There will probably always be some doubts.
And that does not mean you are not ready.
It simply means you are doing something new.
The fear may appear when you book your flight.
When you pack your suitcase.
When you say goodbye to your family.
When you are sitting on the plane thinking, “At what point did I decide to do this?”
But that feeling can also disappear very quickly once you arrive and realise that there is a team waiting for you, other volunteers in the same situation and a completely new experience ahead.
What if nobody is travelling on the same dates as me?
Another common concern is wondering whether you might arrive and find that there are no other volunteers.
The number of participants can vary depending on the destination, the program and the time of year.
Some periods are busier and have larger groups, while others are quieter.
That is why, if meeting other participants is especially important to you, you can ask our team before organising your trip.
In any case, the experience does not depend only on the number of volunteers.
Your relationship with the local team, the people involved in the project and the community is a fundamental part of volunteering.
In fact, when groups are smaller, the experience can sometimes feel even more personal and connected.
Travelling alone also pushes you outside your comfort zone
When you travel with someone, it is easy to rely on that person all the time.
If you do not understand something, they ask.
If you feel shy about speaking, they speak.
If you do not want to meet new people, you can stay inside your own little bubble.
When you travel alone, that barrier disappears.
You have to communicate.
Ask questions.
Connect with people.
Make decisions.
And although that can feel uncomfortable at first, it is often exactly where some of the most valuable lessons appear.
Stepping outside your comfort zone does not mean doing things you do not want to do.
It means discovering that you are capable of doing things that once seemed much more difficult.
You will come home with memories only you will fully understand
There is something curious about longer trips.
When you return home, you want to explain everything.
People ask how it went.
And you will probably answer:
“Amazing.”
But you know that one word does not really explain what you experienced.
Because there are too many details.
The names of the people.
The jokes inside the accommodation.
The song that played every morning.
The road to the project.
The food you did not like at first but later ended up missing.
That place where everyone used to meet.
The conversations you had at night.
They are small things, but they are exactly what turns a trip into a personal experience.
Is Volunteering alone a good idea?
If you are waiting for a friend to have exactly the same holidays, the same budget, the same desire to travel and the same interest in volunteering, you may end up waiting for a very long time.
Sometimes, you simply have to decide to do it.
Most people who arrive alone at our destinations do not stay feeling that way for very long.
Because international volunteering has something special: it brings together people who probably would never have met otherwise.
People arrive from different places, with different stories and expectations, but for a few days or weeks they end up sharing the same experience.
And perhaps that is exactly what makes travelling alone so special.
You arrive without knowing anyone.
But you will probably return home with plenty of stories to tell and people in different parts of the world who you can now call friends.
Your experience begins long before you get on the plane
Choosing to travel alone is also a way of trusting yourself a little more.
You do not need to have everything under control.
You do not need to know exactly what every day will look like.
And you do not need to find someone to come with you before you can begin.
At Cooperating Volunteers, our team supports you before your trip, and the local team will be there during your stay to help you adapt to the destination and the program.
The rest of the experience is built little by little.
Through the people you meet.
The places you discover.
The project you take part in.
And everything that cannot be planned before you travel.
Because perhaps one of the best things about volunteering alone is precisely this:
arriving without knowing exactly what the experience will be like and coming home wondering why you ever doubted doing it in the first place.
