Live and work at a small scale rural glamping in the mountains of North Portugal
At Quinta Rural, a great life changing job opportunity has arisen for a highly motivated and qualified couple (or family, or several individuals). We have worked very hard over the past 7 years to build up our small scale Farm Camping & Mountain Glamping in North Portugal, and are now ready ánd in need of some extra sets of hands. Which leads us to the following job offer: summertime camping warden (3 months). However, if you are a bit like us, don´t mind a little hard work, and enjoy life in the outdoors, you might never ever want to leave again. Which is great, as we are willing to ´share´ our beautiful place with the right kind of people.
Although we prefer to welcome a Portuguese couple or individual to come and join us, we chose to write this text in English as good working knowledge of English is a must in tourism.
1. Summertime camping job offer:
a Jack of all trades
Everything from maintaining and cleaning our guest accommodations, to cooking, hosting and ensuring guest satisfaction is part of the job. As a campsite couple, you’ll have to be as polyvalent as possible, have a good working pace, excel in multitasking ánd remain friendly and serviceable towards our guest at all times. Together we will work as a team to make sure all our guests enjoy the carefree nature retreat holiday they’ve been looking forward to. This carefree holiday starts with clean, well-maintained and complete accommodations. In addition, a warm welcome to the campsite and the guarantee that you are always available during reception hours, the guest rounds and other times, to help them with questions and/or comments. All with your special “Personal Touch”!
As a Quinta Rural Couple you are;
together with your partner, 6 days a week, responsible for:
- ensuring that every accommodation is ready for the start of the summer season during the set-up (montage) period
- cleaning all checked out accommodations daily and ensuring all inventory is complete
- laundry
- cleaning and restocking all common areas
- checking in and checking out our guests (a warm welcome and a warm ´thank you. Safe travels and hope to see you again´)
- serving breakfast
- help out with evening dinners
- answering questions and handling complaints
- preparing each Quinta Rural accommodation for the winter during the disassembly period
In addition to the above;
there are lots of other chores and activities to be done. Building, maintaining and running a small scale rural glamping means you have to be ´a Jack of all trades´.
You have;
- experience in the hospitality industry
- good (!) knowledge of Portuguese and English
You can;
- communicate well
- act in a guest-oriented way
- pay attention to details
- be flexible
- listen well
- work well together
- demonstrate responsibility
You love
- working in the outdoors
- making guests happy
- proper cleaning
- being surrounded by nature
- all kinds of weather – hot and cold, wind, rain or sun
- to do fysical work (up and down these slopes by foot, carrying cleaning products and bed linnen, setting up tents, moving furniture, do some rough patch gardening)
- being surrounded by nature
- to explore the surroundings on your time off. Fun for you, and essential to be able to inform the guests about the local what, where, hows?
Want to know more? Please see the Portuguese job offer page.
2. Want to join us on a long term basis?
We are open to any serious proposal for long-term teaming up. Be it as an employee, be it as a business partner. Or a mix of both.
Imagine you have been wanting our lifestyle for a while now. A complete change of life. But never quite got there. Maybe not enough investment money. Maybe not able to take too big of a risk financially. Or maybe you were just aware of how hard setting up a new life in rural Portugal can be. Maybe you do have the skills, but are just not an entrepreneur. By joining / buying into an existing glamp site, you are ruling out most of the risks, the superbig investments, the ´all work no play´period. Furthermore, if it is the right match, we can have some seriously rewarding synergy going on. 1+1=3
Even at the very beginning, when I (Natascha) come across this long time abandoned farm, I could see all the possibilities it had to offer. The more Quinta Rural is established, the more opportunities there are. Way too much going on for just the two of us, way too many opportunities. With time, we began to think “wouldn´t it be great if we could share magnificent place, job and life with other, like-minded, motivated, practical people?! ” And so we did: we have had all sorts of people coming here, sharing our life and our work for a little while. Be it as friends, volunteers or employees. We´ve had great ones and bad ones, amazing ones and rotten ones. We hated to see some go, and were happy to say goodbye to others.
We have now come to a point that we are ready to share on a long term. Which, we know, will not be easy. There are soooo many selection criteria, all quite good predictions for the succes rate of certain collaborations. After all, it is not just ´the job contents´ that needs to inspire you, it is also the place, the area, the nature, the roughness, the lifestyle and us. For this to be a win win win situation (for us, for you, for the guests), it has to be a match on so many levels. However, if the match does exist, we will have something awesome going on!
Do you have what it takes ?
Of course, we hope you are as diversified and practical as we are. So we thought we would just sum up all the different types of work we perform on a regular basis. Let us know what your ´extra talents´ are, even if they are not on this list. So, besides all tasks already mentioned, we also….
- renovate (main farm building, the horse barn conversion)
- design and build (straw bale cabin, mountain log cabins, sanitary block, horse stable)
- do the tiling, the electricity, the plumbing, the painting etc. etc.
- make our own furniture
- hike with the guests and take them on excursions
- set out new hiking trails and map them for guests
- take care of our horses and donkeys and other animals
- cook for our guests
- make our own website (wordpress)
- write our own texts (copywriting and SEO)
- do (most of) our own translations
- do our own marketing
- organize hiking events, permaculture workshops, special holiday programs
- try to work the land, add organic matter, make swales and ditches, plant trees
- cut our trees and chop them up to firewood for our guests
And a lot, lot more…
Being a small scale rural establishment, it is vital that we, and you as well, can perform most of the tasks ourselves. So we don´t need to call the plumber every time there is something wrong, so we don´t throw away time and money by asking an outsider to do it for us. For us, this diversity in jobs is one of the main perks ´of the job´. We love the freedom, the being outside, the contact with guest, the creating, making things better even, having nature and animals around us, living with the seasons and the weather, having quite some autonomy in your work activities, the liberty of coming up with new ideas, study them well, think them over and over again and then… well..just give it a try.
How would that work, joining us?
We are still deliberating and figuring out the best way to go about it. Of course, a lot depends on who will be joining us. What talents will you bring? What are your desires and ideas. Maybe you ´just´ want to work for us. Maybe you want to work with us. Maybe you want to join us, invest and start your very own business here, a suitable side activity, for which, if even remotely (rural) tourism, rental, building, marketing, workshop and events, or (biological or permaculture) agriculture related, we can already provide loads of ´clients´, have some knowhow, guidelines, can offer online exposure, help with the marketing, have the contacts on how to get some ´outside´ clients as well. Or maybe your ideal world would be a mixture of all.
Whatever the case, we will first need to get to know each other, make sure this will work, and work out all the details, making sure it is a fair trade for all.
We will then start with a trial period, in which we will temporarily provide a furnished tent or a straw bale cabin (depending on the season). After that, we offer you a plot to set up or bring or build your own living area. Think tiny house, yurt, think straw bale cabin, wooden cabin.
Still interested?
Please take the time to explore our website and the area first. Let it sink in. Imagine yourself working and living here (take off the pink glasses). Realize it is a wonderful, diverse, interesting, motivating but also hard, rough and at times confronting life style. Realize all you would have to give up (relocating, friends, family, clubs and hobbies). And all you would be able to do and set up here. And realize how much you would benefit from joining us instead of having to start somewhere else from scratch.
Then, and only then, please do take (a lot of) time to send us an e-mail. There is no such thing as being too elaborate. Write about you, your knowledge and experience, your reason of interest, the whos, whats and whys, your expectations, your needs, your talents and your lackings, your grumpy and obnoxious sides, what will you be doing and what will you be bringing? what will you be needing from us? any questions you have (where is the nearest school e.g. ) what are your hobbies, your likes and dislikes? any thought on the housing part? (after the trial period, what will your housing be and how will you accomplish that). Add some pictures, or include the link of your facebook page.
Time is precious, so we choose not to loose time replying to applicants who clearly were not willing to take the time themselves. Thus, we will ignore:
- Applications with little to no information
- Applications with questions only
- Applications written in a language different than English or Portuguese Please ensure your mail is written partly Portuguese and partly English so we can easily access your level of both. (No worries, our English and Portuguese isn´t perfect either. Working knowledge works fine for us. )
Done all the above? Still got that happy tingly feeling?
Please do write us
Must reads
- our Quinta Rural facebook page (keep on scrolling and don´t forget to give us a like or a share)
- about us (sorry, still only in Dutch)
- about the rural area
- historical cities of the north
- hiking
- nature
- outdoor activities
- our summer facilities
- the mountain log cabins
- the straw bale cabin
- the furnished farmers tents
- events (Dutch only)
- example of a permaculture workshop
