European Snowbirds?

We are currently in Costa Rica in an Airbnb in a condo development that is filled with North Americans. Some are only here for a week or so but most are staying the whole winter. We have seen this many times now… it is usually 25-75 units surrounding a pool which becomes the meeting place for the community. Sometimes the long term folks welcome us and invite us to their pool aerobics, happy hours and food potlucks. We have been in several different places (Hawaii, Mexico, Belize, Palm Springs and now Costa Rica) and it is really appealing to have friends in a tropical location that you only see for 3-6 months per year. Many of us nomads show up at these places and think “I could live here”. Of course, we aren’t ready for that type of slow traveling…. but we might be into it someday.

Most of these people are the definition of “snowbirds”. We meet a lot of Canadians from Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg as well as Americans from Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin. It makes a lot of sense for retired people to get out of those really cold places for the winter and spend it somewhere where you can live in sandals and shorts. But we also meet a lot of people from rainy winter places like Vancouver, Portland and Seattle who are tired of our dreary gray days in the Pacific Northwest. Many of my retired work friends from Seattle are spending their winters in Arizona and Palm Springs. It isn’t just a few people…. it is a huge movement. Prices go up in the winter in most of these snowbird locations. The high season down south, is the cold and wet season up North. It have heard it also happens on the East Coast of North America with many people spending their winters in Florida, or the Caribbean.

But I haven’t seen the “snowbird” phenomenon in Europe and I am struggling to understand why. We visited the Algarve region of Portugal a few years ago and heard about the many Brits that are spending the winter down there. But the numbers don’t really back that up – prices are much lower in the winter and many places don’t fill up. Portugal is trying to market their country as a year around destination but right now it is still much more popular in the summer.

Last year we traveled through several beach towns in Croatia during October. The weather was still nice, but it wasn’t always warm enough to swim in the Mediterranean. We did not have a hard time finding Airbnb’s and were usually paying off-season prices. Many tourist restaurants end up closing down at the end of October for a few months because there isn’t enough business. We then spent November in Southern Italy and Sicily. I was still wearing shorts and sandals most days but it wasn’t really beach weather. We enjoyed the lack of tourists but didn’t understand why we didn’t see bigger crowds. This year we were in Southern Spain for the beginning of November. We didn’t see many foreigners at all. Most people we saw were Spaniards. This is prime tourist grounds for Northern Europeans in the summer. We are looking at Corsica, Sardinia and many Greek islands for visiting next fall. Hotels are calling October and November off-season and we are not going to have a problem booking even if we waited until the last minute.

So based on perceived anecdotal evidence and the reduced prices and demand in Southern Europe in the fall and winter, I believe that the snowbird culture in Europe is not at the same level as it is in North America. Assuming, I am correct…. Why aren’t there more European snowbirds? There are some possible theories….

1. Northern Europe doesn’t get as cold as Winnipeg.
2. Southern Europe doesn’t get as warm as Cancun.
3. Many Europeans can’t afford to keep a house up North and rent a place in Southern Europe in the winter. I don’t believe this at all. Many cold weather countries have economies doing just fine (Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany) and there are many places in Southern Europe that are very affordable. There are more than enough people that can afford to be snowbirds if they wanted to.
4. People aren’t used to traveling in the winter. Many European countries set aside summer as the time to go on vacation and people are set on going to the Mediterranean when it is super hot and they can swim in the ocean. So Retirees don’t expect to travel south in the winter.
5. Northern Europeans don’t crave the warm weather like Americans. not sure about this either…

I definitely need some help here. I don’t really understand this. My Dutch and British friends are always complaining about the rain. I know it gets cold in Scandinavia. My theories aren’t really explaining why “snowbirding” is so popular in North America but doesn’t seem to have caught on in Europe. Or are my perceptions all wrong? Are there high seasons in Southern Europe in the winter? I have looked in Malta, Cyprus, Canary Islands, Morocco, and Turkey and none of those places have the snowbird rush that we see in places like Puerto Vallarta or Phoenix. Do Europeans go somewhere else and join snowbird communities in places like Thailand, India, the Caribbean or somewhere else? Help me out here and comment below or on my Facebook Senior Nomads group post.