Working Remotely From The Pyrenees Peaks Of France

An increasing number of companies are announcing that employees can work from home—at least until the year 2021 (as a result of coronavirus pandemic concerns). Such companies include Sony Music, Amazon corporate, Viacom and Google. For others, such as Twitter, Facebook and Zillow, the switch can be permanent.

Working remotely provides obvious advantages such as—potentially—increased flexibility with work hours and less commuting. It can also include disadvantages, such as less personal interaction with co-workers or clients, and lapses in clear communications.

Another potential plus of working remotely is geographical—more workers can now choose where they want to live. Rather than dwelling in a city or suburbs, what about moving to a quiet town surrounded by beautiful mountains?

The Pyrenees mountains separate the countries of France and Spain. Jagged and stunning, these peaks rise to over 11,000 feet (3,400 meters) above sea level. Their slopes include villages that, historically, were remote and isolated enough during winter that not even the hardy Romans tried to occupy them. For centuries, shepherds were the unspoken rulers of this land. In 1675, Madame de Maintenon—future wife of King Louis XIV—visited these peaks and called the remote land ‘dreadful.’ Yet her own renown helped future tourism develop in the region. During the past century this land has transformed into a winter and summer sports playground for those yearning to cycle, hike, ski and paraglide.

These peaks are between 100 and 150 million years in age—older than the Alps, but still young enough to include steep and jagged walls. This is a land of waterfalls, cirques, lush green meadows and steep mountain passes challenging enough to be routinely included in the Tour de France bicycle race. The Pyrenees also include a half dozen major ski resorts—which, along with ample thermal springs and spas, attract close to four million annual visitors.

Local foods include lamb, Tarbais white beans, Bigorre black pork, apple tarts flambeéd in Armagnac and wines such as Tannat-rich Madiran.

Below are stories of five people—including two couples—who moved to the Pyrenees region to enjoy an active mountain life while also working remotely on international projects.

Brendan and Mary (last name withheld). Accounting, Manufacturing.

One year ago, Brendan and Mary (last name withheld, on request) and their five-year old son moved from the bustling South African city of Johannesburg to the town of Barèges in the Pyrenees. Located at an altitude of 3,900 feet (1,200 meters) above sea level, the town includes a population that hovers between 200 and 300 people, though that number swells during visitor seasons. The family had previously visited the Bordeaux region of southern France several times, and even purchased an apartment there which they continue to rent out.

Both had managed their own private businesses in Johannesburg. After the move, they still remotely manage—part time—these companies. Brendan co-owns a financial accounting company, while Mary works with her family’s factory that manufactures candy and confectionary.

In addition, the couple also purchased, renovated and now operate a chambre d’hotes (bed and breakfast) named Les Sorbieres in the town of Barèges. This property includes five guest rooms that can accommodate up to 15 visitors—mostly from France, the U.K., Belgium and Spain. Mary also offers home-cooked dinners. During free days, the couple and their son are avid skiers, hikers and bicyclists.

Brendan explained that before moving, he and Mary visited the region twice.

“Mary chose the Pyrenees. We were looking to establish an income and we figured that being close to a ski resort, and also to a location which caters to summer visitors—hikers and cyclists—would give us two seasons.

“We moved here to provide a return to basics. Out of the big city, and to a more simple life. To get in touch with nature again, to go walking, to do things that one doesn’t get to do in a big city, or which are more difficult to do there.”

Brendan finds that working remotely provides few advantages, but endorses the lifestyle change. He communicates with staff via Zoom or Microsoft Teams.

“For me, there aren’t really advantages to working remotely. It’s better to be face to face, or you lose the personal touch, the personal element of interaction with staff. Sometimes it’s difficult to get your point across, and difficult to know that the person grasps what you are trying to achieve. The advantage is I get to enjoy the lifestyle here, and I can still do a full day of work. One epiphany has been that working remotely has been easier than I thought it would be. We had staff working remotely throughout the covid lockdown—as many had—and it’s pleasing to see that it’s something that can continue afterward. The technology exists now for it to be really super-efficient. It’s improved so much in the last years: most information is cloud based, and video conferencing is of such good quality that you can do these things even over a relatively mediocre [transmission] line.”

The differences between peaks and lulls of managing a seasonal guest house are somewhat evened out by their remote work. Brendan explained.

“It can be difficult when we are busy. Very difficult. But out of season we’re not busy. That’s during April, May, June, October and November—five to six months of the year. During then it’s great having work, which also provides the welcome advantage of an additional revenue stream. However, the plan is to exit those [remote] businesses over a period of two to three years.”

His advice to those wanting to move to the countryside is to ensure having access to good quality 4G internet. Also, to have ready access to basic shopping facilities and a post office, and to be within an hour of an airport with access to major flying hubs. Brendan also advised establishing a source of income before moving.

Does he recommend making the transition? Absolutely.

“If you have been thinking about doing it—you should. Now’s the time.”

Before departing from South Africa, Mary and her family prepared her ability to work remotely. She uses WhatsApp as a platform for video communications with staff and family in Johannesburg.

She described the transition.

“We set up the business to work remotely because I was coming to France. All our ordering systems with the reps are online, our accounting packages are online. Everything was set up before covid. We had gone online a year ago, and everything runs smoothly. It’s fantastic. The reps can do everything remotely while they’re in the stores.”

She then described advantages and disadvantages of the setup.

“The factory is on the premise of my parents. So, there were a lot of distractions and interruptions there. Now, I don’t get so many interruptions. I’m more productive being away from it, rather than being in the thick of it.”

Disadvantages include personal interactions.

“I had a very good relationship with our staff. Today I saw them all on video and everyone was joking and laughing and smiling. For me, missing that camaraderie is a disadvantage. However, because we’re a manufacturing facility, we don’t have a lot of social interaction with clients or suppliers. We never see many of them anyway.”

Juggling a hospitality business while also working remotely provides unique challenges and advantages.

“It eases the pressure of having to make the chambre d’hotes super successful for a very comfortable lifestyle. Obviously, you want to earn money, but you don’t want to feel that extra burden of pressure that if you don’t make enough money over the season, you can’t pay your bills.”

Living in the mountains provides a life she described as less stressful and more basic. She also provided advice, and encouragement, to those wanting to make a similar move.

“The advantages far exceed the disadvantages. For us it was a great change. My advice—take the leap.”

Whereas Mary needs to travel to South Africa only once a year to check on factory operations, Brendan (before the coronavirus pandemic) flew there about every eight weeks. Four airports serve the Pyrenees—located in the cities of Lourdes (one-hour drive from Barèges), Pau (1.5-hour drive), Toulouse (2.5-hour drive) and Bordeaux (3-hour drive).

Nicolas Philippon. Software Development.

Originally from the Bordeaux region of France, Philippon worked as a software developer for 20 years in Paris, Finland and the U.K. before moving to the Bastan Valley within the Pyrenees. His family owns a house at the end of a narrow mountain road, to which he and his wife relocated.

He explained the move.

“We were in the U.K. My wife couldn’t find an interesting job. She is a planner for tourism and cultural events. We decided to leave, and I quit. Immediately, they offered that I keep working for them. So, I didn’t quit and am still with them.”

Before the coronavirus pandemic, he traveled four times a year to the U.K., and twice annually to the U.S.

Advantages of working remotely include the lifestyle.

“Nature of course—it’s fantastic and it’s a good contrast, because my work is very static; I am on the desktop ten hours per day. When I’m traveling, I go to big cities such as Los Angeles. It’s nice to be here, to live a totally new and different business life.”

Air travel has provided challenges.

“When traveling it’s almost a three-hour drive to the airport, and the same when I return. When coming back from Florida I was arriving here at two o’clock in the morning after a very demanding drive, sometimes in the snow.”

Regardless, Philippon describes their overall situation as ‘great’ and says he would recommend such a lifestyle change to anyone else with a similar opportunity.

Nicky Broekhuysen and Faith Bosworth. Art, Publishing/Training.

Born and rasied in Cape Town in South Africa, these two women—now in their 30’s— moved away from that country when young. They first met in Berlin in Germany three years ago. Nicky is an artist. She sells paintings through a New York gallery.

Faith works with a business that produces collaborative books rapidly and she also owns her own business that provides training in meditation and mindfulness.

Nicky told of how, a year ago, they moved from a German city to a French mountain village with fewer than 500 inhabitants; from a city with a population density of about 10,000 persons per square mile (4,000 per square kilometer) to a region with about 50 persons per square mile (20 per square kilometer). They live in a small village in the Val d’Azun, or valley of the sun, at an altitude of 2,300 feet (700 meters) above sea level. She told of their decision.

“It was a bit of an accident. We decided we wanted to move to France and find somewhere a bit more connected to nature than life in Berlin. We had thought about being near the sea—either on the Atlantic coast or on the Mediterranean—and we did a road trip. But we had to get from one water to the next and ended up traversing the Pyrenees and sleeping one night just outside of Argeles—Gazost. We just fell in love with it. We’d never been to the Pyrenees before. I think it was the wildness. We hadn’t realized there was these incredible wild mountains so close to airports. Toulouse is so close you can still live in nature but you are still very much connected with the rest of the world.”

She shared advantages of working remotely.

“I’m an artist. Most of my work is sold through a gallery in Chelsea in New York. I just needed access to Fedex. And Fedex comes up the Val d’Azun. If I need to get to New York there are good connections from Paris.

“I find you are on nature time here, whereas city time is so fast and everything is moving at such a kind of crazy pace that you never really get time to just be, and absorb and feel. Here it’s so amazing—you are very much connected to daylight times and seasons. For me as an artist the colors of nature and how they change over the seasons is super inspiring. There’s a whole new source of inspiration that you can connect with.”

One drawback is a lack of plentiful and ready access to cultural events offered in many cities; this is partially offset by the range of local activities.

“I’m not surrounded by galleries and other art. There are surprisingly large numbers of artists around here, but they are mostly working locally. Disadvantages are that you do definitely limit yourself in terms of other, more cultural connections such as museums or theater. However, there is a lot going on here. One of the positives of the Pyrenees is that people really do things; it has very active energy. They are living life to the full in a sense. But living in a place like this, you definitely have to be pro-active—which can be good—to get out of your comfort zone. In terms of personal challenges in my work and the quality of that work, I really feel that outweighs that loss.”

Their overall cost of living has declined. Their rent is far lower than what they paid in Berlin (and their apartment is significantly larger), and they spend less money dining out. However, groceries cost significantly more.

“In a city there’s more competition, so prices are cheaper, whereas here we’re also eating much higher quality food and it’s being grown locally, so vegetables and cheeses and bread are not traveling from Spain or wherever. They come from the valley.”

Her advice to those considering relocating regards attitude.

“You have to go in with a completely open mind. A lot of things just didn’t turn out the way we had thought they would; many times, they were better than we thought they could be.”

Faith Bosworth described her own experience working remotely.

“We had both decided that we didn’t want to live in Germany anymore. We wanted to choose another European country and settled on France. The decision to actually move into the mountains was like a wild card. Unexpected. We came through and spent the night and went for a walk in the morning. It’s so beautiful. The conversation started—well, maybe we could do this. We have jobs where we don’t have to be in any place, so maybe we should try out a different life.”

“I work for a small company called Book Sprints. The concept of a technology sprint is to get together to solve a problem quickly. We do it with books. A group of experts on a particular topic—whether they are from a company or university or government institution—gather and publish knowledge very quickly. We run collaborative writing workshops. Until confinement I was traveling once a month—often to the U.S. I’d work with a client on a project for a week, then return.

“But also, in the last years I’ve developed quite a passion for meditation and mindfulness—so have been training to teach that. An idea with the Pyrenees was that I could bring people here and run workshops and retreats, because it’s just a beautiful, peaceful setting for self-discovery and self-worth development. During the confinement, we were in contact with many people internationally who were struggling with the uncertainty of the times. I started teaching online, and that’s growing at the moment—a surprise I hadn’t expected.”

She related advantages.

“To be in such a setting really adds to lifestyle. Most people feel a lot better when they have some kind of natural connection in their lives. It calms us, keeps us grounded and balanced. There are physiological benefits of fresh air and sun, as opposed to being in a city where you might not get as much. For people ready to move their work and themselves to the next level, being here provides new perspective and inspiration.”

Schedule flexibility also provides advantages.

“When you live in the city and work for yourself, you tend to do what everyone else does. You work a week, and take the weekend off. But here, because the weather is changing and you want to be out when it’s good, you are often more free and fluid with it. If the sun will be good on Thursday and Friday, we’ll take those days off and then work the weekend. However, we’re in a unique position: we don’t have people who need to contact us anytime during normal working hours.”

She also mentioned disadvantages.

“You lose things that you’re used to having in the city—the ease of meeting people, finding connections. But here, there may be one or two months of the year where it feels very quiet, but the rest of the time there is much going on—tourist traffic in the summer and winter skiing.”

Their appreciation for food and cooking has also changed.

“We cook a lot more ourselves. We really love food and in Berlin were eating all foreign foods. Here—you don’t have many options because it’s mainly French. There’s an Asian supermarket in Pau, so we buy ingredients and make sushi, ramen and things we miss from eating in Berlin. Another advantage for people who are into food is having local produce, and knowing where your food comes from.”

Her advice for others considering a similar move?

“The way you make relationships and the way you meet people is very different to how it is in the city. If you are moving somewhere remote in a different country, you have to learn the language. We’re still learning French. And you always have to say yes to everything. If anyone invites you to do anything—say yes. You have to constantly seek out opportunities to do things, to get around and integrate.”

All five of these individuals highlighted the allure of the land amid the Pyrenees—the attraction of being close to wildness and enjoying the rhythm of seasons. In his 2018 book The Savage Frontier—The Pyrenees in History and the Imagination, Matthew Carr also summarized this.

“I looked back down toward the sea and the blue sky and I felt one of those moments of euphoria that I have often felt in the Pyrenees—a sense of having momentarily stepped out of the turbulent waters of twenty-first-century history and reconnected with a mountain world that was timelessly serene and benignly reassuring.”