 So yesterday, I got back from a work exchange program in the Highlands of Scotland and I'm gonna tell you all about it. So this is something that I've never really talked about on my channel, but before I was coming to plan like my study abroad year, I knew that I really wanted to try like a work exchange program when I came abroad. I had seen other YouTubers talk about these work exchange programs and I thought that it was just a really cool way to travel, meet new people, meet locals, and have just a really kind of interesting experience rather than just, you know, going on like a normal weekend trip, which those are really fun too. However, I just thought that it would be like a really cool experience. So basically in these programs, you exchange some of your time in a select location, basically just like for a place to stay for like accommodation. I do want to say that I did partner with World Packers work exchange company to make this video and do this experience. I thought this would be like a really cool thing to share with you guys because I know that my audience has a lot of people who are looking to study abroad or students and I think that this company offers just a great experience for anybody who is looking to number one, build your resume, to see the world and three, travel for pretty cheap. Before I heard about this from YouTube, I would have been super scared to do something like this just because it's sort of like an unknown. Like I don't really know many people in America who do these kinds of things, but the more that I looked into it and researched it and then now I actually have done an experience, I really like at the bottom of my heart, like I recommend that you try and pursue this if you go abroad. All right, so I'm gonna like talk about my experience now, but if this is something that like sounds interesting to you, I do have a discount code for $10 off if you want to join World Packers, but I'll talk about that more later. So I went on this trip with my good friend Liv from school. Give us a smile, Liv. You are. And she's from Finland, so this was her first time into the Highlands and this was like my first sort of long extended stay in the Highlands. I've been a couple times, but it was like for little day trips, like a weekend trip. I think we were there for about 10 days. I took the bus from Glencoe, which if you are a Harry Potter fan, you will know that this is one of the filming locations for the movies and we were actually dumb idiots and we missed the bus that runs. There's like one bus because it's a small town, right? So we instead had dinner in this cute little pub and we just sort of like ran around it till the late bus came a few hours later. On day two, we got settled into our accommodation. We were staying at a guest house in the Highlands for hikers that are doing the West Highland way. And one of the stops on this way is this little town of Kinloch, Leven. We had a full kitchen to use and a private room just for ourselves in a shared flat. So the first day we just sort of like bought some student groceries and Liv wanted to make beans on toast, which I have never eaten before. I don't, I feel like I'm just going to know what this tastes like. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's so sucky. Mm-hmm. It just tastes like, it just tastes like baked beans on a piece of toast. We arrived on Thursday night, but we didn't actually start work until Monday. So we had full three days to do whatever we wanted. The first day we went to one of the filming locations for Harry Potter. You can see here. It's actually where like Hagrid's hut is supposed to be in the movies. It used to be there like on the hill, but they took it down after filming, which is so sad. And then on Saturday, our fellow traveler, Megan, who was such a lovely person, drove us out to a hike near Ben Nevis, where we saw this really cool waterfall. The views were really spectacular. And we did this like rope bridge thing, which in the video, it doesn't look that scary, but it was like 10 to 15 feet like above water. It was very cold that day. So I was, I was feeling spicy. I was feeling like an adventurous queen. So yeah, thanks again, Megan, for taking us. We started work on Monday for our host, Lewis, who was super nice. And we only worked about 16 hours a week at the guesthouse. So we had a lot of time to just like hang out, read, do schoolwork. Exams are coming up for us. So we did have enough time to like do some work, explore. And our work consisted of cleaning the rooms and also running check-in one day. And here I am on Monday exploring Kinloch Leven by myself. I hiked up to Graymere's waterfall and then sort of further up the hill. And I got this just incredible view of the water and the lock. And then one night, our host, Lewis, made us this awesome dinner and lunch one day too. He was a super chill boss. And we had a really fun time getting to know him as well as Megan. And on our last night, we went to the pub for a drink which had this incredible view again of the lock. It was such like an odd and funny week of my life. And honestly, I would do it, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I think that after COVID, this was such a cool way to get to connect with people. Like we really got to know Megan. We like went out with her a couple of times and we ate dinner together. Got to learn about like her life and her future plans. And the week before, she had met like another traveler who came and we sort of like replaced that traveler. So if this sounds like something that you would want to do, let me just tell you a little bit about World Packers and how they sort of like helped me through this awesome experience. So World Packers is a platform for travelers and hosts to connect for work exchanges. So some of the things that I really liked about World Packers is that they have a verification system. So basically they verify all of the hosts before they even get put on the platform. And then after that, travelers who have been there get to like rate and review each host area. On the site, it's really, really helpful. You can see like where exactly you're going to be staying. You know, whether that be like a hostel, a shared flat, like we were doing a private room, anything in between. It'll tell you if you get meals included, ours did not include any meals, but Lewis did end up making us dinner and lunch a couple of times, which was really, really nice. They'll tell you like how many hours you're going to work a week and then you can read other reviews from travelers. Lewis's place was really highly recommended. So it was super helpful to know that like we were going somewhere that was like safe and people had a good time. So that was like the reviews really, you know, lined up. And I also found it really reassuring that 60% of the World Packers community is made up of female travelers and many of them are solo travelers and they also offer a support team that can assist you with anything you need before, after or during your stay. So like I felt very safe the whole entire time. Like there was never this sort of like, oh, are we going to get there and this is going to fall through or you know, it was just very seamless. It all worked out. So a World Packers membership is about 49 US dollars for an entire year access to volunteer experiences. So yes, membership is paid once and is valid for one whole year, meaning that you can apply for as many volunteer opportunities as you wish anywhere in the world. So if you are interested in doing one of these experiences, you can use the code Kati Blake, all in caps for 10% off when you're going to get your membership. And I know a lot of you guys like also sort of found my channel through gap year stuff. And if you see like other gap year channel, you know, these work exchanges are a very common thing for people to do on a gap year. And now that I have done it, I did it only for 10 days. I can imagine that going somewhere for like a month or two months or like really settling in somewhere can be a really life-changing experience to just like truly immerse yourself in like a local culture or somewhere else and honestly just to have fun. Like we were just laughing the whole week, you know, we got into nature. Anyway, I hope this video was helpful and comment down below if you've ever done one of these experiences or you know, if you have any questions for me. Yeah, I post new videos every Friday so make sure you're subscribed if you aren't already and thank you so much for watching.