In this article we are going to be covering 10 tips on how you can travel the world doing jobs for various horse riding stables or do volunteer work abroad with horses… in pretty much any country!
Author: Hebe Webber
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The Equestrian Adventuresses founder, Krystal Kelly, has had a lot of experience working abroad in the horse industry. So, I’m going to be giving you her first hand information! Krystal has been working with horses for the past 15 years, 10 of which have all been international. Even in the USA she’s worked in three or four different states. Krystal has worked in 20 countries with horses, on 5 different continents. So, she’s been around!
The 10 tips that I’m going to be covering can be found in our How to Work Abroad or Volunteer with Horses guide book. You can download this completely free as an ebook! If you are like me, and you like paperback books, you can find this book on Amazon worldwide. There’s also 70 different job ideas which you can do in order to work with horses as well as actual job listings in countries such as Egypt, the USA and lots of other cool places!
TIP 1
Tip number one is that if you want a job or to do volunteer work with horses abroad… all you have to do is sit at home and binge watch Friends. And hope and pray that someone is going to knock on your door. That they will say “Hey! Do you want to come ride my big superstar horses? Which cost millions of dollars. I’m going to pay you for it…. starting tomorrow! Oh and it’s on the beach in Italy and you get your own mansion!”
That pretty much never happens.
With that in mind, lets go to tip 2.
TIP 2
The second thing that you can do is send blind emails. What I mean by that is, wherever you want to go, if they have the internet they probably have an email address. So your job is to go on Google, find their email address and send them an email.
Say something like: “Hey! I’m thinking about moving to your country or your state. I work with horses, this is what I do and I’m looking for a place to work. Do you have a position available or do you know of someone that does?” and you can attach a CV or a resume.
Krystal herself has sent a lot of blind emails. That’s actually how she ended up going to Bhutan! Krystal went to start the first and only horse riding program in the country. And it was all because of a blind email. I personally went to live and do volunteer work abroad with horses in the south of Chile with Gauchos for 3 months. Because of a blind email! So don’t doubt the emails!
You might end up sending 50 emails and only 5 reply. Of which only three a hiring and only one of them actually wants to pay you some money… so you know it’s a long process, but don’t get discouraged! Eventually someone will reply to your email. They will answer you.
TIP 3
So the third thing that you can do, and I know this is going to be weird. Especially for the millennial generation or whatever it’s called. But there’s this thing. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. So, if you have your smartphone maybe open up and do it as I explain it. Because you’re not going to know that this actually exists, that it’s possible for you to do!
There’s this thing, it looks like a phone and you click it. It’s like the shape of a phone, you might have seen it in an old movie. So you click on that and that’s going to show you some numbers like a keypad and basically you type in their number. Then there’s this other green button you have to push. You push it and then it’s going to ring.
And when it’s ringing, at some point if you’re lucky, someone on the other side of the phone will actually pick up their phone and answer it! And they will say hello and then you talk to them.
It’s called making a phone call
Definitely making phone calls is a great way to network and introduce yourself. It also shows that you’re not just some kind of invisible person on the other end of the computer or phone. You’re actually somebody that they’ve physically spoken to, so you are on their mind.
If they’re international there’s a thing called WhatsApp or Skype and you can schedule to call them via these apps if you’re worried about it costing money for international fees. In that case, it’s possibly better for you to send them an email first. Saying “Hey, I would love to set up a call or a Skype interview or discuss more on WhatsApp. Here is my phone number.”
So that is another option rather than picking up the phone and actually calling somebody.
TIP 4
If you are pressed for time and you feel like I would love to send 50 emails a day but I just don’t have time, what you can do as you can visit Fiverr.com. You can actually pay someone $5 and say here’s my resume go and email 50 people every single day. For $5. There you go. Problem solved.
TIP 5
Another thing which you can do is to book a random flight, to a random country. You can kind of throw a dart at the map (hopefully it doesn’t end up in the Pacific, otherwise I think you’re good). Then you can book your flight to go there.
When you arrive, ask around the local people and see where the horse stables are. In a lot of countries the places with horses is usually where the wealthy people are. They might not just always let you come straight in, maybe you have to book an appointment (I don’t really know, it sort of depends).
Most countries do have horses!
If you don’t believe me, we actually have our Horse Riding In Every Country Catalog. It’s available on Amazon. In this catalog we list about 400 or more stables in almost every country in the world. There’s 180 countries where you can go and ride horses. Ok you have no excuse! There are 193 countries in the world and we have 180 of them. So if they have horses, we found them and we put them in this book.
In the catalog we have Colombia, Moldova, Mauritius, Peru, Chile, Botswana, Brazil, Bangladesh… did you know you can ride in Afghanistan? There is no reason why you can’t book a random flight. Or you can get this book. Again, it’s on Amazon. You can get the email address or the website of the stables from the book. Send them a message and say “Hey, I’m in your country from these days, can you meet with me?”. And chances are they will say yes, they will open the door for you and you can walk right into the gate.
You’ll be able to go and actually talk to them. Krystal has done this before. She actually met people and went to ride horses in Iraq. That’s Literally all she did. She said “Hey! I would love to come and ride at your stables!”. They were SO excited and they were so welcoming to her. It’s much easier to do than you think!
TIP 6
The other thing that I would say for you to do, is to reach out to people in the industry. People who have potentially already had a job there, or done volunteer work abroad with horses in those countries. Or at the particular stables you are interested in. Reach out and just ask them!
Send them a message on Facebook or Instagram, or whatever platform and say “Hey! I saw that you used to work in such and such place. I would love to hear more information about how you got the job and what the work is like. Because I’m curious if it’s a good fit for me or not. And if you know the person I could speak to about working in that stable then I would appreciate any information you can give me”.
And pretty much 99.9% of the time, that person is going to answer you and they’re going to give you all the resources you need!
Krystal has had many people reach out to her asking about jobs that she’s worked. She’s never not answered an email or something like that. As have I. So I can’t imagine anyone else wouldn’t reply. I think that the world is so much more accessible than it seems. Especially with things like Facebook and Instagram.
Just reach out to people, check the hashtag for that particular stables or for horses in that country and just go and talk to the people! Say “Hey! Where did you ride? That looks amazing!”
TIP 7
Another great thing that you can do is join the Equestrian Adventuresses Facebook group. There’s a lot of amazing women in the group and my goodness! These ladies! The things that they have done! You could post something saying “Hey I’m thinking of finding a job or doing volunteer work abroad with horses. Does anyone have any positions or any recommendations” etc etc. You can actually team up with other ladies if they’re doing the same thing or something similar.
There is a lot of resources and information in the Equestrian Adventuresses Facebook group. So if you’re not in it, then definitely joining it is something that you need to do right now.
TIP 8
My next great suggestion is education, such as the Equestrian Adventuresses online courses. I think that being certified or having some kind of training which qualifies you as a professional definitely helps you to get good positions working abroad. Because if it’s just an email or phone call or something, it kind of scares a lot of horsey people.
Because they don’t know your riding ability. Everyone always says they’re really good and actually they’re really not. So by having these type of qualifications and education helps you to stand out in the crowd. I mean you can never go wrong with education. I’ve never regretted educating myself. I just don’t see any reason not to.
You can check out the Equestrian Adventuresses online courses if that’s something you’re interested in. It does teach you a lot about horsemanship and how to just do what needs to be done with horses, how to speak the horse language. How to travel the world confidently as a solo woman, how to set goals and there’s a whole lot of other topics.
So if having that piece of paper or certificate or some kind of training program is important to you, then I think it should definitely be something that you could consider.
TIP 9
You could actually start your own business. I mean, why not? You love Italy and you want to go ride horses in Italy. You don’t just have to go and ride horses for someone else, you could ride your own horse! Do your own thing, start your own riding program! Whatever you want!
I don’t want to keep plugging all of our books, I’m just excited. But in one of our books a girl did that! She actually went to Italy. She was like “I want to be a show jumper”. So, she bought a horse in Italy and she started taking lessons and competing her horse as a showjumper.
So, why not! There’s another story in one of the other books and this lady, she went to India and did essentially the same thing! So you can do that. You can actually go and start your own business and do your own thing. It’s actually much easier than what it seems like. I know when you’re at home it feels like “Oh but I don’t know anyone there… I don’t even know how it’s possible”. But you will always find a way.
TIP 10
I think that’s the best way to sum it all up. Is to say you will always, always find a way if the determination is there.
Use the resources that you have accessible to you. Krystal tells me that she WISHES she had all of these books, groups and ideas available to her when she started working internationally with horses 10 years ago!
Hopefully some of the tips that you found in this article were helpful. Please do us a favor and comment which tips you think we’ve used were your favorites. Other things that you may have tried or used in the past which have worked for you. We would love to hear from you!
EQA Founder Krystal Kelly has spent the last decade travelling the world and working with horses. You can listen to our podcast interview with her to find out more about how she came to live her awesome life!
Author Hebe Webber spent time doing volunteer work abroad with horses in Latin America. Click here to read more about her experiences.
Want to see a list of jobs and stables where you can find a job or volunteer worth with horses abroad? Get a copy of our Job Book Guide for Equestrians! Or if you’re looking to discover new countries on horseback we have the Horse Riding In Every Country Catalog
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Hi how do I let others know that we are hiring in a beautiful resort town in Ontario Canada?