European Wilderness Volunteer Diary

The Diary of the European Wilderness Society Volunteers

Wilderness Diary

Arriving in Tamsweg during COVID times

Hi all! My name is Lia, originally from Spain, and I’m one of the new volunteers joining the European Wilderness Society team!  I arrived to Tamsweg the 15th of March, after a long journey that started the day before in Aarhus (Denmark), where I was staying at the moment. As we all know, COVID-19 makes travelling a bit more challenging than normal. So, to....

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Volunteering: an opportunity for more

Why do you volunteer? Maybe because you want to do something good or because you can learn more about the culture of a country? I personally always used it to gain valuable work experience while being able to live and travel in an exciting new place. I wouldn’t have thought that I would end up volunteering in my home country Austria, and even less that the....

Interview with Gintare Tamulyte

For nine months, Gintare volunteered with the European Wilderness Society. As her time comes to an end, she tells us in an interview about how it was for her when she fist arrived to Tamsweg, about her favourite leisure activities and about how she learned to ski like a local in only two months. What stands out in her story is that she experienced many first times....

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My advice: Make plans … and then change them

In January 2019, when I first heard of the European Wilderness Society, I did not plan that I would be in little Tamsweg in the middle of a pandemic in February 2021. Back then, I was in the South African desert during the hottest time of summer researching small rodents. Now I am amongst four different ski resorts in the Alps – the temperature difference between the....

International cuisine dinners at volunteers’ flat

When the start of the strict lockdown in Austria was announced, volunteer mood dropped. We were used to going to gym in the evenings and having a few beers together on Friday nights. How will we spend our weekends now? Especially in the cold months? What activities can we do together in our flat? In the beginning there was curry The answer to these questions was....

The International Wilderness Week

Time flies here really fast. It seems that we just had our adventures in Tyrol and now we are already preparing for Christmas holidays. And I am still living in the mood of the International Wilderness Week that we held in October. Maybe because I am still working on the wrap-up of the event – processing recordings, uploading presentations and cleaning up the website....

Adventures in and around (and through) Tamsweg

Hi! It’s Tim here, the newest volunteer on the team and I’m excited to share with you a few little snippets from the start of my stay here in Tamsweg! I’m originally from the UK but made my way here from Freiburg in Germany after spending a year out there. It’s been about 2 months since I first arrived in Tamsweg from Freiburg. After a....

Chasing adventures in Tyrol

When I imagined my first days at the European Wilderness Society, I imagined a completely different scenario. It involved an office, finding my way around town (or should I say around village?), and slowly getting to know my new colleagues. Reality, however, turned out to be so much better. I am a very spontaneous person. Thus, when my boss-to-be asked if I wanted to....

My first months in European Wilderness Society

At the moment I am volunteering through Interreg Volunteer Youth program. On the official website it says that: “Interreg Volunteer Youth” (IVY) is an action to offer the possibility to young people aged 18-30 to serve as volunteers in cross-border, transnational or interregional programmes and related projects. Being solidarity....

New beginning in Tamsweg

Hello everybody and anybody reading this post! My name is Gintare, I am from Lithuania, and this is how my new adventurous life in Tamsweg starts. 🙂 My relationship with European Wilderness Society has started back in March – I was supposed to start my volunteering from the 1st of April. But, as we all know, Corona and lockdown happened, and I wasn’t able to come to....