Profile information
-
Host is looking for help immediately
-
Host rating
100 %
-
Last replied
10 Jun 2026
-
Reply rate
100.0 %
Usually responds within 12 days
-
Feedback
10
-
ID verified
-
Email verified
Country info
Badges (5)
Find your perfect host
Min stay requested: at least a week
Details
-
Description
Hey, I'm Dan.
This is a small off-grid camp in the hills of Beira Baixa, central Portugal. Three and a half thousand square metres of olive trees, dry grass and pine, the Serra da Estrela on the horizon, and a silence at night that takes most people a couple of days to get used to.
Everything here runs on its own. Power comes from the sun, water from our own borehole, internet from Starlink and 4G. Off-grid, but not rough — hot showers, flush toilets, washing machine, dishwasher, oven, electricity across the camp. The comfort is here, it just doesn't come from a grid.
Two things keep this place alive, and they are exactly where I need hands: the garden and the kitchen. Someone to water, plant, weed and harvest. Someone who likes to cook and will put breakfast, lunch and dinner on the table for the camp. Everything else — the building, the systems, the machines — is my side of the work.
I speak German and English, and I'm learning Portuguese slowly. I get on best with people who can be independent: do their four hours properly, then take the rest of the day for themselves. The camp is quiet on purpose. It isn't a hostel and it isn't a party — it's a working place with good food and a lot of sky.
If that sounds like your kind of month, write me.
Dan -
Types of help and learning opportunities
Help with Eco Projects
Light gardening
Farmstay help
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
Light maintenance
House & pet sitting
-
Interests
Plant care
Camping
Dancing
Mountain
Videography
Technology
Sustainability
Van life
Self development
Charity work
DIY & crafts
Music -
UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve
-
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
This is a working off-grid system, not a demonstration of one, and you're welcome to look inside all of it.
The power. Panels, battery bank, inverter, and live monitoring of what the camp is actually drawing. You can watch consumption in real time and see for yourself why the kettle is a bigger decision here than the lights.
The water. Our own borehole — pump, storage, filtering — from the ground to the tap.
The garden. Growing food in thin soil, hard sun and very little rain: watering strategy, shade, mulch, what survives a Beira Baixa August and what quietly gives up.
The kitchen. Cooking for a changing group out of what's in the store and what's ripe, with Portuguese ingredients and their Portuguese names.
The language. I'm fluent in German and English and I'm learning Portuguese. If you speak Portuguese I'd love to trade — my German or English for your Portuguese, half an hour at a time over coffee. -
Help
I need help in two places: the garden and the kitchen. Four hours a day, five days a week, two days off. Pick the role that suits you, or split your week between both.
The garden
The garden here is beds, a lot of pots, and drip line running between them — tomatoes, courgettes, sunflowers, herbs, young trees, all of it under a sun that does not negotiate. Watering and keeping the drip system honest, sowing and potting on, planting out, weeding, mulching, composting, harvesting, and looking after the olive and fruit trees. Keeping green things alive through a dry Portuguese summer is the whole job. You don't need to arrive an expert — you need to notice what a plant is telling you and come back the next day.
The kitchen
Breakfast, lunch and dinner for the camp. Breakfast is simple and unhurried — bread, eggs, fruit, coffee, whenever people surface. Lunch and dinner are the real cooking: mostly Mediterranean, Portuguese and West African, plenty of fish and vegetables, very little pork. I do the shopping and keep the store filled; you decide what we eat and cook it. If you have dishes from home you want to feed people, even better — that's my favourite part of having volunteers here.
And the ordinary care that comes with both
Keeping your own workspace in order, washing up behind yourself, and telling me when something is running low or has broken. That's it.
What I'm not looking for this season: a building crew. The construction projects are mine. -
Languages
Languages spoken
German: Fluent
English: Fluent
Portuguese: BeginnerThis host offers a language exchange
🇵🇹I am interested in learning portuguese -
Accommodation
You get your own tent — small, medium or large, or a bell tent, depending on what's free when you arrive. They're furnished: a proper bed with a real mattress, mosquito netting, a rug on the floor, somewhere to put your things. Not a mat on the ground. If you travel in a campervan there are three good spots for it with power.
Shared by everyone: hot showers, flush toilets, electricity, Starlink and 4G internet, washing machine, dishwasher, oven, and the camp kitchen.
All meals are included. Whoever is on kitchen duty cooks; when nobody is, I do. Nobody shops or cooks for themselves alone here — we eat together. -
What else ...
Your time off is properly yours. Four hours in the morning, and the rest of the day is for reading, sleeping, your own projects, or disappearing into the hills.
There's a pool — four metres by two, up and full through the summer, looking out over the valley. In August that pool is the centre of the afternoon and nobody pretends otherwise.
Around you: pine forest and olive groves you can walk into straight from the gate, hammocks in the shade, and views across to the Serra da Estrela. There's a village bar a short walk away — good for a beer, and for hearing Portuguese spoken at full speed.
Shopping. A mini-market is a ten-minute walk or five minutes by bike. The big Intermarché is ten minutes by car, thirty by bike. Castelo Branco — old town, castle gardens, cafés, a proper city evening — is twenty minutes by car.
Transport. This is the honest catch. Public transport out here is thin. With your own car or van you'll have a completely different stay, and I'd genuinely recommend it. Without one you depend on lifts and your own legs, which some people love and some find long.
Also here. There are animals at the camp and the area is fenced, so a well-behaved pet can usually come along — ask me first. I smoke, outdoors.
Come for a week and stay as long as it works for both of us. The people who got the most out of this place arrived for two weeks and left three months later. -
A little more information
-
Internet access
-
Limited internet access
-
We have pets
-
We are smokers
-
Can host families
-
-
Can host digital nomads
🛜 Yes - we have 4G Internet and Starling
-
Space for parking camper vans
🚐We have around three nice camping spots for your campervan with electricity
-
Can possibly accept pets
🐶Pet friendly environment area is fenced but ask first
-
How many Workawayers can stay?
More than two
-
My animals / pets
Chat with Workawayers who've visited this host
Feedback (6)
Dan is a helpful and interesting host. He guided us firmly but respectfully, and he made sure the volunteers felt comfortable and had … read more
The time I spent there was varied. Sometimes there were only two of us, and other times there were a lot more people.
It was off-grid, but I still had full comfort.
The place is quite remote, and public transport isn’t very … read more
Photos
Chat with Workawayers who've visited this host
Feedback
These are extra optional ratings when members leave feedback. The average rating left for each option is displayed.
Accuracy of profile:
(4.5)
Cultural exchange:
(4.8)
Communication:
(5.0)
Dan is a helpful and interesting host. He guided us firmly but respectfully, and he made sure the volunteers felt comfortable and had … read more
The time I spent there was varied. Sometimes there were only two of us, and other times there were a lot more people.
It was off-grid, but I still had full comfort.
The place is quite remote, and public transport isn’t very … read more
In Camp I had the opportunity to learn new skills without the fear of doing mistakes or to be imperfect and this was really important for me to push myself out of my comfort zone and learn a lot.
The camp is located in a … read more
