Working on Ios
I had heard a lot of stories about people visiting the Greek Islands and just deciding to stay. I was there at the beginning of the summer of 1999.

I left my temporary base in Edinburgh with little more than a few hundred pounds. The grand plan was a three month adventure around Turkey, into Egypt and Jordan before heading to Greece to work away the summertime.

Turkey was great and ten days travelling the length and bredth of the country was probably not long enough. However, as with most long term backpackers I've come across, budgeting wasn't (and still isn't) one of my strongest points. Viewing the miserable state of my wallet, where ATM vouchers outnumbered the folding stuff of value, I made the decision to cut out the Egypt/Jordan leg and head straight for Greece.

The 20 hour bus ride from Istanbul to Athens is not much fun, fortunately though, it is cheap and you are dropped off fairly centrally. When you arrive anywhere, look around first off for someone else with a backpack and, preferably with their consent, follow them to where they are planning to stay.

I met an Australian girl and a Japanese guy and together we made our way to a centrally located and very clean and comfortable hostel in the Placa area of Athens. You often find, that hostels are a great source of information on almost any subject relating to your stay. Take time to read the notice boards and to talk to the other guests at the hostel about working oppourtunities.

I met another Australian guy and an Englishman, who were both staying in my dorm room. The English guy was, as it happens, looking for work. They were both leaving for the Islands in 2 days time and I was invited to join them.

We managed to get hold of a cheap, multi-stop ferry pass for the Islands and headed off early the following morning to get on the boat. Again, it was simply a matter of following the backpacks. The ferry ride out to the Islands takes quite a long time. Our first stop was on Paros.

We met a guy on the boat who happened to own a guest house not far from the docks on Paros. My haggling skills, recently refined at The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, were utilised to full effect in negotiating a price for our room. As a result, the three of us were accommodated in a clean room with a view of the sea for little more than £5 per night each.

I had the idea in my head that I'd love to work on Ios and was planning my full on assault on the jobs market for that eventuation. However, I've found that it is best to take opportunities as they arise and was not adverse to the idea of working on any of the Islands. We asked around at a few places where we went to eat and drink, but did not find too much interest. It was still early in May and the 'season' had not yet really begun.

So we were all happy tourists on Paros for a couple of days, as we were on Naxos for a few days after that.

We arrived on Ios, with me even poorer than I was before. My English friend determined to follow a lead he had received on Crete. My plan was to join him if Ios proved to be fruitless.

Having arrived, we found accommodation at Francesco's in the village. It is worth staying there for the spectacular views (which did not necessarily include the Swedish girls in their bikinis). I was talking with the owner and their resident English speaking Australian, who were able to give me a few leads for finding work.

There is was pub on Ios, aptly named 'The Fun Pub', which seemed to be owned and staffed purely with English speakers. The greatest thing you can have whilst job searching in the Greek Islands is a fluency in English. The owner of 'The Fun Pub' is an English guy, who runs an informal, employment agency. If you land on Ios looking for work, go and see him.

Within 24 hours of arriving on Ios, I had secured a job. Whilst not grandly paid (about £70 per week) it provided me with accommodation and 2 meals a day. It was a perfect subsistence occupation, which would prove ideal for the summer months.

On all of the Greek Islands, they have a band of renegade hagglers, who are employed by the hotels on the Island to go and meet the boats as they come in and transfer any guests they pick up to the hotel for whom they work. The job is basically to provide the services of a driver, however, you also need good negotiation skills, and good personal skills. You will more than likely be required to provide some form of English language service for the proprietors of the hotel as well as act as a type of guest liaison/tour guide for your guests.

You are supposed to have a drivers licence as well as a European passport. While my license was checked by the local police, no one, including my employers ever asked me to show my passport. As Australia is not a part of Europe, this was probably a good thing.

Actual work time was only about 3 or 4 hours a day, but this was spaced over a full 24 hour period. You will need to meet boats as late as 1am and as early as 8am. You do get a break during the day between around 10am and 3pm. I used this for an hour at the beach as well as a few hours sleep. As most of your company will be there on holidays, you should expect a lot of late nights. I tried to limit nights out to every other day, but often it seemed as though I'd go for weeks with only a couple of hours sleep a day.

There are worse ways and certainly worse places in which to spend a summer. If you're looking for a few months work in the Mediterranean, why not try Greece, there are literally hundreds of islands like Ios and several different types of jobs to do. From what I understand, some of the coastal resorts in Turkey also have similar opportunities.

By: John Peacock
Summer 1999