Summer in Majorca, winter in the Alps: not just tourists but seasonal workers jet between the two every year... and insist there is no shortage of jobs despite the economic crisis in Europe.
In the winter months, the small Austrian resort of Saalbach-Hinterglemm is filled with Britons, Swedes, Dutch and Hungarians running the bars, waiting tables and working security.
In the summer, they spread all over Europe – Majorca, Corfu or London – before meeting again the next winter season in the same resort or someplace new, wherever their fancy takes them and there is a job.
“I was in England. I picked up a ski brochure, opened up a page and it was Saalbach. And I thought: ‘Ah well, I’ll go there’,” says Stuart Brough, 30, from Southampton.
After five years of doing seasonal work, he bought a bar in Saalbach this year and now plans to divide his time between Austria and Sweden.
“There’s not really any planning behind it,” he says with a laugh. Peter Nagy, 26, had a business near Lake Balaton, a popular tourist area in Hungary, but had to close it for lack of customers and is spending his first season abroad. Now he does not want to go back.
“It’s a little uncertain, but... I don’t have a family, I can go anywhere and I have a good job.”
Between December and March, 1.4 million tourists pass through Saalbach-Hinterglemm, a municipality of barely 2,900 people, and the same goes for dozens of other ski resorts in Austria and neighbouring countries, requiring thousands of additional staff.
The Austrian job service AMS has no statistics for seasonal workers but the jump in the number of foreigners in the gastronomy and hotel sectors at the start of the winter is indicative: from 60,000 per month to 85,000 in December and January.
The hours are long and days off are few in the high season, but Nagy already plans to come back to Austria in the summer because the wages are much higher than at home.
Whether they started out searching for a job or for adventure, moving countries every six months becomes a way of life for many, and one these modern nomads are keen to continue for many years still.
“I love my life. It’s made me more open-minded and carefree about the material things in life,” says Paul Karis, 36, from Sydney, Australia, who has been doing seasonal work in Europe for seven years.