Host doesn't react

There are many reasons why a host does not reply quickly. Not everyone collects their email as regularly as you may do, for example.

You need to contact several hosts, not wait for just one to respond.

Hi, I'd just like to say that it can be very difficult to get e mail regularly and reply regularly. Some of us live in very isolated locations with very irregular and very slow internet connections and that a 'no reply quickly' doesn't mean a 'no'! Be patient and keep in mind that technology in the countryside can be very difficult.
Kind regards
eileen

In the rural area of Ireland it can take a day or two to pick up an e mail sometimes it is difficult to get a connection if the weather is bad. or perhaps the host have taken a well earned break away. Do not expect immediate response, most of us are very busy people who have planned in advance. I am for instance booked until January, and am organising the spring now. We are not hostels with vacant beds, please give us time, and respect our commitments. You should also search more than one host to see if you are compatible and will be comfortable with each other.

Thanks for posting this--I am glad to know it is not discourteous to contact multiple hosts and it is encouraging to know it can take some time for response!

Lorin

hello peter, I can understand that some hosts cannot reply quickly.
BUT I think, not to get answers from wwoofingplaces is generaly a problem for wwoofers. I've been wwoofing in Ireland since September 09 and before I came to this country I inquired a bit more then ten farms. From at least fife places I have never got an answer and that is now six month ago.... It is very difficult to do our schedule in this way.
I would like to continue wwoofing until summer 2010. A month ago I inquired again ten places for springtime and summer. I got some very friendly replies, but I am shure, there will be farms again, who never will answer me.
I would welcome a review from farms and wwoofers like for exampel by ebay.
To give points for several things.
It shouldn't mean to say a bad thing about a farm or a wwoofer. Just for certainty.

Edith - there is a feedback facility in operation - but more WWOOFers need to use it. It can be found at the bottom of every host's page.

Lauren - I don't know what we can do about hosts not replying - it's not satisfactory. We will try to remind hosts again about it. This does not apply to you, but I have put clear information about my available dates on my host page - but WWOOFers continue to ask for places when I have said there are none - that's annoying too!

I joined WWOOF Independents last summer and sent countless e-mails to hosts in a bewildering variety of countries (everywhere from Slovenia to Greece). In the majority of cases I got no reply. In some cases lack of replies meant that the host had a very unreliable internet connection, but in others I interpreted it as meaning that they were full and just too busy to reply to every query. I found places in the end - just lots of persistence required!

Cliona

Unfortunatelly, we have the same problem!
We wrote a lot of emails to hosts, but we only got an answer from two of them...

Kathrin

Another reason for hosts not replying may be that the emails you sent them (or the emails they sent back to you) went directly to spam. This happened to me with at least two replies from hosts - maybe more, since I didn't check my spam folder regularly. You should check your spam folder just to be sure! I solved the problem by creating a filter so that an email containing the worf "WWOOF" is not considered as spam.

Henriikka

This is my first time, but I selected 15 or so hosts that I was interested in and sent them all an email. Most were already booked up, but so far I've received one positive reply. I didn't feel like I had the time to contact hosts one at a time. --Nadine