Amy Blyth

How to choose ethical volunteer work in Thailand Before you start any kind of volunteer work, it’s important to make sure the organisation you work with is ethical. Set up in the 90s by Lek, who has dedicated her life to rescuing elephants, the park offers an ethical way for tourists to volunteer with and learn about Thailand’s most iconic animal. When the 2011 Bangkok floods hit, Lek and her partner Darrick also rescued over 2,000 street dogs and brought them back to the park, launching the Dog Rescue Project. During our volunteer placement at the Dog Rescue Project I remember waking up to misty mountain views and the roar of elephants, then enjoying long days caring for the animals with volunteers from all over the world.

Add that to the $1,500 quarantine hotel in Hanoi and extra Covid PCR costs and we were seriously doubting we’d make any money back with the Vietnamese school year ending in The reality of it hit home, literally, as my Dad and my brother’s family (who are teachers and in a childcare support bubble with my parents) tested positive for Covid. We’d finally be able to afford our own apartment again, we’d both have stable jobs and be living in almost a pre-Covid culture given that Vietnam has all but eliminated the virus. By the time we had quarantined, work wouldn’t start till January and we’d have just a few months of the school year left to earn back what we’d spent.

All this experience means we’ve gotten pretty good at choosing the perfect apartment rental abroad, starting with where to look. Except for using a company called Latin Hosts when we were in South America, we exclusively use Airbnb when booking apartments abroad. Location – if we’re staying somewhere for just a few days, we’ll usually pay a bit extra for a central location so we don’t waste time getting to key attractions. As we’re currently working with a company to build our UK Tiny House, we’ve been looking into new kitchen costs and installation a lot lately, it’s one of the most important aspects of our lifestyle.

We’ve also heard about a group in Bristol that’s currently going through the planning process to create a Tiny Home community, which could be a game-changer if it gets approved. Lately I’ve been consumed with travel memories, of reading old journals and blog entries, scrolling through our travel photos, watching travel documentaries and lamenting the trips we had to cancel this year. We’re also scared that Covid cases will surge again causing another lockdown which means we’ll end up in the same position we were back in March, with no housing and worried about infecting anyone we stay with. We were planning to head to Croatia for a few weeks until the UK government took it off the list of countries it deems safe to travel to (how the UK can hold these judgments when Boris and Co. have done such a spectacularly bad job of dealing with Covid is beyond me).