Backpacking Europe/Finding work for winter months
 

I am leaving in a week for a two month or so backpacking trip around Europe. I am arriving in Munich to which I will be heading to Lake Constanz (Friedrichshafen) and after than plan to go through the Black Forest region in western Germany. After that, stopping off at the 'Ring before heading west to Belgium and the Netherlands. After that I will be visting relatives in Hamburg and plan to go to Berlin, Krakow and Prauge. After than the trip is still in the air. Any suggestions for cool places to see in the Black Forest region/Rhine Valley and then afterwards in Austria/Switzerland? After Austria/Switz I am thinking of heading down Spain/Portugal area for November.

I am also considering staying through the winter months after the backpacking portion of the trip and attempting to find work at a ski resort in the Bavarian Alps. I have already applied for a working holiday visa. Any suggestions on how to find work for an expat? I would love to find work in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Any tips/tricks for places to visit and then finding work would be helpful.

For Austria, definitely check out Graz. Beautiful city, friendly residents, and excellent food to be had. By far, my favourite European city.

Prauge - try their national cola, Kofola. Tastes like Communism but in cola form. :D But in all seriousness, if you want, I have a Lonely Planet guide for Prague you can have. It's an older guide (2008 I think?) but has lots of good info. PM me if you're interested in grabbing it. It's no good to me anymore.

For work permits, suggestions, tips/advice etc. as an expat abroad, check out the forum on Canuck Abroad. Good luck! :)

For general work I can say that trying to find work in hostels

as well for some odd reason getting a job at the hard rock cafe is easy (mostly becasue they treat you like crap and the turn over is high)...they have them in most MAJOR Euro cities (munich/Barca)

My buddy got a job as a tour guide/bar promoter (in the summer though) so not sure if that is an option

In prauge i recommend seeing a hockey game if possible...it is also really amazing to see that in one Euro country soccer is life and you head over to the next country hockey becomes life....It kind of reminds you of back home how the board between Canada and the USA can be so different.

Thanks BCR but I have a bunch of stuff downloaded onto my ipad. Less paper the better.

As for work, I am only staying if I find a place in a small town. I don't want to live in a big city.

yeah i was gonna mention working in hostels as well. when i went last summer, almost every hostel i stayed in was looking for help.

I'll look into it. Ideally I'd like a job as a groomer or park shaper on the mountain since I've done that before :D. And maximizes my time on snow... :P. I'll basically do whatever gets me just enough to live and buy lift passes.

Sounds like you are going to live my dream.

Oh come on. You can live that dream too. You just don't want it bad enough.

qft

Very wise words.

For working at Sky Resorts, I looked into it last year and the best bet would be to just start with Google and build up a list of ski resorts and start contacting them directly. A lot of places will advertise winter jobs directly and most offer season passes for employees. The downfall though in my search is a lot of them try to do their hiring very early, so you may or may not be able to find something due to the time of the year.