[Closed] Jacking it all in and moving to the Alps

Nope but have been thinking the same.
Just do it

We have several clients that have done it (ski chalets etc) and have never looked back.

whats your business, m_f?

We are a creative agency and just do their websites so no help for you! ( unless you are thinking of setting up a business of course) 🙂

i lived on the edge of the alps in southern bavaria for one year. i originally moved there to learn german (GF is german) as i had no work in the UK (carpenter/financial crisis). after my two month language course i decided to stay in the area and get a job.

whilst i had the time it was awesome. a great group of people to ride with, Lake Constance in summer absolutely rocks (lots of fit birds bathing on the lake's edge), but once i started work i had less and less time for riding due to the bastard way the germans work. work for germans isn't something you do, it's something you live for. thursday evening rides became almost non-existant for me as jobs couldn't be left for the morning as they would in the UK.

i then trained as an English teacher (TEFL type thing), but there wasn't enough work where i was to cover the cost of accomodation/living. i now live with the GF in northern Bavaria where, despite there being hills, doesn't compare to the south.

i've got a job this summer as a mountain bike guide; guiding groups over the alps for 8 days at a time.

my goal is to move south once again after the GF has finished her diploma, but not to work alongside germans and there germanic work ethic. i've a plan on how to do this, but it'll take time and a little investment in land and building materials......

so, the moral of my story is.... if you are going to work within the german speaking regions of the alps, be prepared to work a darn sight harder than you would in the same role in the UK.

a phrase you may here often and said in earnest:
zuerst kommt der arbeit, danach die vergnüngen - first comes work, then pleasure.

good luck!

I didn't really "jack it all in", it was more like I got offered a good job here and didn't really have anything to keep me in the UK so figured I may aswell give it a go. In Austria they are a bit more relaxed than Germans (I think) and I'm in Innsbruck which is very outdoor-sport dominated so it's maybe not totally representative. But here it seems that people work hard, but also play hard. I will often work 8-6, then head out riding for a few hours straight from the office - that's a pretty normal thing to do here.

The culture here is a bit different (I don't hang out with the expat crowd which I think is obviously more like in the UK/USA) but they are a lot more family orientated and I have very few single friends. I rarely see other females riding alone, they seem to always be couples, and it's unusual here to have platonic male-female relationships so it took a while until I found people to ride with. But if you have nothing to lose you may aswell go for it! Although if you do any riding other than full-on downhill make sure you get some lycra to fit in.

[i]if you are going to work within the german speaking regions of the alps, be prepared to work a darn sight harder than you would in the same role in the UK.[/i]

Worked for many, many years with germans, in German businesses and even lived there for a while. Don't believe that they work any harder at all, and in most professions certainly shorter hours, [b]but[/b], quality is king and you have to get it right first time.

And they get far more holidays than we do.

Well I have lived in Vancouver (not really the mountains per se, but edge of a Mountain on the Northshore!), Morzine, Vald'isere. Just do it....

Agree with b r. In my experience of Germans and Swiss Germans they have a very healthy work-play balance. People typically start work early and leave early so that they can be outdoors. Very few people take their work home with them.

The problem is that the type of work that you can get in mountain regions is not normal 9-5 (or 7-4). Tourism and service industry jobs are very demanding. I know people who moved to the mountains and ride less now then they did when the lived in the Flachland.

Ive worked a number of winter seasons in the French Alps, and anything related to tourism is full on for the whole season, 7 days per week. Although you learn ways to shortcut things so you can get out and ride as much as possible, at the end of a season you are a wreck 😀
Although waking up in the morning seeing the sun on the peaks and walking to the bakery for fresh REAL Croissant does make it worthwhile 😀

I read a magazine articel, may even have been a singltrack edition a couple of years back, about a guy who ditched his work, split with the missus, bought a camper van and headed off. It was really inspirational

Yes, did it 3 years ago. Managed to do it on a half-sensible financial basis. The mrs and I both got a voluntary redundancy payout. We went out and worked a winter season, then set up our own business in the spring.

Very hard work and you don't get the break you might think between seasons. Plenty of money worries and stress too. But definitely worth it when it starts to come together.

Yeah. That was me. I'm in Lausanne, Switzerland doing what I did way back in the UK but I ride my bike and ski in the mountains on weekends.

Great times, poor times, drunken times, So much time on my hands times...Loved it BUT love it even more now (but I have a different perspective now)

Get oot there and see it. A LIFETIME of exploring in europe. It makes me excited just thinking about it.

rhsman.wordpress.com

What type of business did you set up stevomcd? How much cash do you realisically need?

What type of business did you set up stevomcd? How much cash do you realisically need?

[url= http://www.whiteroomchalet.com ]Ski chalet/mountain bike holidays.[/url] How long is a piece of string, really? 😉

Obviously what you really want is to own your own chalet, but that's a non-starter for most people (unless you have a spare £1M plus lying around...). So if that's not an option, then you're looking at renting one so you'll need enough capital to pay your first chunk (or probably year) of rent up-front. Then you might need a vehicle or whatever on top of that. Chalet rents vary pretty significantly depending on resort, but somewhere in the region of €2k-€4k per bed for a winter season is in the ballpark. Depends very much on the quality of the chalet as well obviously. We've also spent a small fortune getting ourselves through our bike guiding qualifications and such-like.

RHS - what dragged you back into an office?

Try and go out with a vague plan for timeline/employment/funding. Even if its just to bum all summer and ride your bike then look for work in the interseason, at least you will budget accordingly. Work-life balance is still a big factor out there, it is tricky to get decent money and still have free time to enjoy the mountains. Most people either stick in low paid jobs, put up with long hours working for somebody else, or go out on their own and work like crazy people for a couple of years before things settle down.

thursday evening rides became almost non-existant for me as jobs couldn't be left for the morning as they would in the UK.

What bit of the UK are you working in, none that I've witnessed!

RHS has done it the way I would have liked too, except for the initial reason for going out there. He went out spent a few good years living the party life and then settled down but still does the party thing when he gets time.

No chance of me doing it the Mrs is a home bird and won't move far from he home town.

Agree with Alpin here - the hours are much longer here than the UK so you really only get the weekends to do the Alps. But i ride home across some of the foothills each day so it makes up for some of it.
Unless you get a job as a guide.

FreerideNick: A woman and a requirement (from myself) to not be a bum for the rest of my life. I had my fun but still have more than enough fun for one man. I now own a little studio (mortgaged) in the place of my dreams which couldn't have happened without 'selling out'.

I am possibly the luckiest man alive BUT I made that luck.

Ski/Bike Resorts are 'Time Blackholes'. Be aware!

[i]Unless you get a job as a guide. [/i]

Its a good life but not about the riding but the people you get to meet.

Yep the bum dream can't last forever . 😯

Dirty

Steveomcd - any time you are in the market for a new site (creative design, front end, booking systems, online payment etc) please consider us - we have done several ski chalet sites around Morzine and beyond and about to launch a new site/back end admin system for Ski Morzine too.

😉

Steveomcd - any time you are in the market for a new site (creative design, front end, booking systems, online payment etc) please consider us - we have done several ski chalet sites around Morzine and beyond and about to launch a new site/back end admin system for Ski Morzine too.

Will do - I've done it all myself up until now (so don't take the p*ss!) because cost has always been an issue, but we have recently been thinking about how someone who actually knows what they're doing might be able to improve things!

We moved to Morzine 5 years ago - started out thinking that I'd 'jack it all in' - but now spend the winters Skiing and computer programming, and the summers mountain biking, running [url= http://flowmtb.com ]flowmtb[/url] and now this summer running a [url= http://toricomorzine.com ]bike shop[/url].

Time will tell whether the shop works out or not. But 4 years of flow, with year 5 coming up can't be bad.

Never going to make our millions, but it funds a nice life: Yesterday I went skiing all morning. because I could. On Saturday I went downhilling with a nice cable car taking us back up because I could. Today I worked, tomorrow, who knows!

not to mention trade price bike parts... 😉

coffeeking - Member

>>thursday evening rides became almost non-existant for me as jobs couldn't be left for the morning as they would in the UK.

What bit of the UK are you working in, none that I've witnessed!

was working in essex and east london as a carpenter. seeing as i was self-employed i got to decide when i went home and what could wait till morning. in germany you've very little chance of being a self-employed one/two man show; you can be a self-employed chippy in germany, but you're limited to what work you can take on as you need a "Meister" qualification for lots of structural work. you can only become a "Meister" after forking out around 30-40K€ and studying for another three years on top of your current qualification. once you've a "Meister" you can then start your own firm and employ people. if you don't have a Meister you can't even take on an apprentice, so those that do complete their "Meister" generally go on to start their own firm or take one on.
since you are but a serf to the boss, and the bosses here are mostly concerned about "Leistung", or performance, it doesn't matter that on thursdays you want to go riding at 6:30pm. if the job isn't finished at five, that is (was) your problem and it had to be done.

in my experience, people invest alot more of themselves into their jobs here than in the UK. it is also unusual - and sometimes frowned upon - to change career. seeing as you need a certificate for almost any job here, people believe that you will stick with it since you've "trained" for it.

i was always impressed by the aussie's attitude to work when compared to that in the uk; "work to live", as opposed to "live to work", but i now feel the UK has it sussed in comparison to germany.

Intresting thread...
I did a few seasons in les arcs an loved it...
often dream of going back.
Been talking to a few folks about buying land out there and splitting it up,
building trails and getting out of the uk.
anyone out there interested in some kind of mtb community/village type thing?

alpin, my view of Germany is very different to your, working in IT I found that 60 hour weeks had become the norm in the uk, plus laptops and blackberrys meant that I was often connecting into the office to check things and replying to emails all the time. Work had very often taken over from life.
I have been in germany for 2 years now and find that its quite rigid in seperating the working day from the rest of my life, I work my hours and no more is expected of me. Which seems the norm, and supported quite strongly by employment legislation.
The building trade may be different, are you employed full time, or just move between short term contracts?

And dare I say the "master" qualifications protect skilled workers from cheaper less qualified imported workforces. In my experience employment in germany is much more based on getting the best person for the job, and getting the best out of them, rather than the person who can do the job the cheapest until they are burnt out, then replacing them with another cheap commodity, which has become the norm in the UK.

Is it possible to live in the French Alps and hold down a UK job? I'm looking at the possibility of making that lifestyle choice with a mix of working from home (is the BB good enough?) and some 3 day trips over the UK a couple of times a month (Geneva to London City £100 return). Main problem I can see is all the international phone calls being prohibitively expensive.

BB in the French Alps is pretty variable. Up at the high end of the Tarentaise here, we only get 1Mb (still good enough for Skype, etc. though). Not just because we're in a small resort either, same applies to Val d'Isere & Tignes.

You can get some pretty good international call packages.

Not really a chuck it all in and go and be a bum story, but might interest someone:

We moved over here (around Lyon/ Grenoble area)in Oct 2008. My wife is french but had been in the UK for about 14 years. We ummed and ahhed for ages, and finally went when my wife was due to go back to work after having our son, rather than going once I had found work (me = weak link due to language)

My wife got a job,(before we moved) with a french company, and I walked into my boss's office and siad we're moving to France, either we find something that will work, or bye by and I'll look after my son.

It was agreed that I do 3 weeks working form home, and one week in the UK office. Travel to Uk office at my own expense and time. I did this as a slary for a while, but realised that in order to be able to get helathcare rights in France, as I was working in France (even from home) would mean I should be paying French social and taxes etc. So now I'm french slef employed, and my client is my old employer. Works fine so far.
Not going to be for ever, I will work here sooner or later, should help that my wife is i the same sector, so we're learning lots about our industry over here (geotechnical engineering)

Phone call wise, with our SFR/orange internet and internet phone, calls to UK landlines are free and unlimited.

Cheers for info that's sounds quite encouraging. I reckon I could pull it off...

Phone call wise, with our SFR/orange internet and internet phone, calls to UK landlines are free and unlimited.

We need to get that sorted out. We're on Orange, but the wireless range on their router is so rubbish, we're having to use our own one, so we can't use the plug-in phone system.

My situation has been a bit different from all of the above so far. I have been splitting my time between the UK, Austria and Colorado for the last few years. I am about to graduate with a Masters in Neuroscience in May, and then everything will change.

I went on holiday a good few years ago with [url= http://www.mountainedge.co.uk ]Mountain Edge[/url] and after enquiring a little bit, I was offered a job as a Mountain bike guide based on
1. Fluent german
2. getting all the qualifications
3. being a good bike rider (race elite XC) and easy to employ

I worked 3 summer seasons from May til October with Mountain Edge, Living in Kitzbuhel, Austria for the summer and then coming back to England to do Uni. It worked really well, and I would suggest doing it part time is the only way you would afford to be a guide,as theres nothing to bring in money in the winter.
Last year I got offered a work placement in Colorado, which I jumped at. So I lived in Boulder Colorado for a year whilst working in a research lab. Now that I'm graduating in May, I will be going back to Colorado to take up a more permanent position as a researcher, thus allowing me to live in the mountains, get paid a real amount of money, and still ride my bike/snowboard every day. I would much prefer to go back to Kitzbuhel and be a bike guide for the rest of my life, but unfortunately its just not a viable trade without the associated holiday business attached to it.

If you ever get the opportunity to move to the mountains, no matter what the circumstances, take it! Just have a plan if you want to make it long term.

check out past posts from dizinaustria

and then wonder why she hasn't posted on here for yonks

BB speed here (Morzine area) is 8meg - perfectly possible to work in the UK and live here.

MSP - Member

The building trade may be different, are you employed full time, or just move between short term contracts?

i was employed by the firm. i wasn't paid the same as the other guys as i didn't have a German qualification. they were earning 14€/hr, me 12.50€/hr. if i had wanted to earn more i'd have had to spend three years doing an Ausbildung. if after that i wanted to earn more than 14€/hr i'd have to spend 30-40K€ of my money and give up 2-3 years of work/life to complete my Meister.

any over time worked wasn't paid as such, but given as holiday when the firm didn't have any work on (you couldn't take the 30 hours overtime from last month and take a week off when it suited you).

i figured it wasn't the life for me.

where in Germany are you?