Useful websites for volunteers and slow travellers 👩🏼‍💻

Bet you have not heard of all these websites yet. Some of them look like tiny corners of the internet, others solve problems so specific that you may wonder why nobody told you about them before.

This list of useful websites for volunteers is for people who travel slowly, apply to projects abroad, contact hosts, manage online accounts, create simple content, check information or work remotely while moving from place to place. A few of these tools can save time. Others can help you stay safer online, understand a project better, or simply explore the world from a different angle.

You can use them to recover an old webpage, check if a website is down, see if your email appeared in a data breach, delete old accounts, find alternatives to popular apps, listen to a local radio station from another country, or look through a real window somewhere far away.

This is not a list of tricks to avoid rules, bypass systems or hide from responsibility. It is a practical collection of digital tools for volunteers, hosts, slow travellers and digital nomads who want to use the web with a little more awareness, curiosity and common sense.

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Useful websites for volunteers, hosts and digital nomads

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1. Wayback Machine

The Wayback Machine, created by the Internet Archive, lets you see older versions of many webpages. You enter a web address and, if the page has been archived, you can see how it looked in the past.

This can be very useful when a project website has changed, a page has disappeared, or you want to understand how an organisation presented itself months or years ago. For volunteers, travellers, writers and researchers, it is one of the most helpful tools for checking the memory of the web.

2. Have I Been Pwned

Have I Been Pwned helps you check if your email address has appeared in known data breaches. This matters for anyone who uses the same email address for travel platforms, volunteering applications, newsletters, online communities and personal accounts.

If your email appears in a breach, it does not automatically mean that someone is using your account. It does mean you should change important passwords, avoid reusing the same password on different websites, and activate two-factor authentication, which means using a second verification step in addition to your password.

3. Down For Everyone Or Just Me

Down For Everyone Or Just Me helps you understand if a website is not working for everyone or only for you. It is a small tool, but it can save time and frustration.

Before restarting your router, changing browser, clearing your cache or thinking that your device is the problem, you can check the website quickly. This can be useful when a volunteer platform, email provider, booking website, bank website or project page suddenly stops loading.

4. JustDeleteMe

JustDeleteMe collects direct links and information for deleting accounts from many online services. It also shows how easy or difficult it is to close an account on each platform.

This can be helpful after years of signing up for travel tools, forums, apps, booking websites, newsletters and services you no longer use. Travelling lighter can also mean leaving fewer personal data traces around the web.

5. ICANN Lookup

ICANN Lookup lets you search public information about a domain name. ICANN means Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the organisation that coordinates many parts of the global domain name system.

With this kind of search, you can often see when a domain was created, when it expires, which registrar manages it and which public information is available. Many personal details are now protected for privacy reasons, so you will not always see who owns a website. Still, it can be useful when you want to understand if a website is very new, unclear or connected to a real organisation.

6. Organic Maps

Organic Maps is an offline map app based on OpenStreetMap data. OpenStreetMap is a collaborative map project built by a large international community.

For volunteers and slow travellers, offline maps can be extremely useful in rural areas, mountain villages, farms, eco-projects, small communities and places with weak internet connection. You can download maps before leaving and use them without mobile data. As with any map, local conditions can change, so it is always wise to ask people on the ground too.

7. FutureMe

FutureMe lets you write an email to yourself and choose when it will be delivered: in a month, in a year, in five years, or on a specific date.

It can be a simple but meaningful tool for volunteers and long-term travellers. You can write to your future self before leaving, after finishing a project, or during a moment of change. In a digital world full of instant notifications, receiving a message slowly can feel surprisingly personal.

8. Remove.bg

Remove.bg automatically removes the background from an image. You upload a photo and the website tries to isolate the main subject in a few seconds.

This can be useful for hosts, small projects, volunteers, bloggers or community groups that need simple visuals for a website, poster, presentation or social media post. Be careful with personal or sensitive images: before uploading a photo to any online service, ask yourself if it is really appropriate to share it with an external tool.

9. Radio Garden

Radio Garden lets you listen to local radio stations from around the world by moving across an interactive globe.

It is a beautiful way to get a feeling for a place through everyday sound: local languages, music, adverts, news and conversations. Before visiting a country or joining a project abroad, listening to local radio can make that place feel more real, less abstract and less like a simple destination on a map.

10. WindowSwap

WindowSwap shows short videos recorded from real windows in different parts of the world. A quiet street, a courtyard, a grey sky, a building across the road, a room looking out onto a city you have never visited.

It is not a productivity tool. It is more of a gentle cultural window. For people who love slow travel, it can be a reminder that the world is also made of ordinary views, daily life, small details and places that do not need to be famous to be interesting.

11. Flightradar24

Flightradar24 shows many flights in real time on a map. You can follow the approximate position of an aircraft and see information such as route, altitude, speed and flight details.

It can be useful if you are waiting for someone at the airport, checking a delay or trying to understand air connections in a certain region. Even if you prefer travelling overland, seeing global air traffic can help you understand how connected, and how busy, the modern world is.

12. AlternativeTo

AlternativeTo helps you find alternatives to software, apps and online services. You enter the name of a tool and the website suggests similar options, often with filters for operating system, price, licence and popularity.

This is useful when a service becomes too expensive, changes its conditions, closes, gets worse or no longer fits your needs. It can also help you discover open-source software, which means software with open code, often developed and improved by communities.

13. Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

Terms of Service; Didn’t Read tries to make online terms of service easier to understand. Services are rated according to issues such as privacy, personal data, tracking, account deletion and users’ rights.

Terms of service are often long, technical and difficult to read. This website does not replace careful reading when something important is at stake, but it can help you notice possible concerns before using a platform, especially if you plan to share personal information, photos or sensitive travel details.