Travelling to/from camp

Travelling to/from camp

So you’ve been offered a position on our camps and now it’s time to book your travel? Well hopefully this can be the complete guide to what you need to know:

1. Contract Acceptance Travel Clause

So I’m sure you’ll have seen as part of your contract offer with us that we require all of our staff to book and send us proof of your travel to camp in order to accept your contract. The reason we ask for this is two-fold:
A) The reality is that over the years we have had A LOT of people who have dropped out at the last minute when they didn’t have their travel booked. By booking your flight/train it is a sort of guarantee that you won’t leave us in the lurch at the last moment.

B) Organising the arrival of approx 60-100 people from all over the world on one day is complicated and so we need to plan out where people are coming from, times, etc. to do it well.

2. Where and When to Arrive?

All our staff, no matter what camp you are working in, will have training week in our base camp, TECS Camp Puerto, in El Puerto de Santa Maria in the south of Spain. You can see the exact location on google maps here. 

Date: The date of arrival is written on your contract offer. Please make sure you have this clear and if not check with us.

Time of Arrival:

Although you can book your flight or train for whatever time, we will only be collecting people and accepting staff into the building during certain times:

  • Managers: 15:00 – 20:00 (Welcome dinner at 20:00)
  • Camp Support + Drivers: 10:00 – 13:00
  • Everybody else: 15:00 – 22:00

This means that any staff whose flight/train/etc arrives in before those times will need to wait until our collections begin during those times. If you need to arrive after the stated times, please check with us first to make sure that we can collect you.

Andalusia is well connected to the rest of the world and it is easy to get to El Puerto de Santa Maria once you’re in Spain. There are several major airports (Jerez de la Frontera, Seville, Malaga) in the area of El Puerto if you are coming from somewhere outside of Spain, and even Madrid airport is connected by a direct train. Have a look below of very useful information about booking any transport to and also from camp:

3. Can we collect you?

As long as it is organised with us in advance we can collect staff from the following locations:

  • Train station in El Puerto de Santa Maria (buses also arrive here)
  • Airport in Jerez de la Frontera.

If you are arriving elsewhere then you should make your way to one of those two locations where our camp drivers will be there to collect you wearing their green TECS polos. Before your arrival in May/June we will ask you to choose a pick up time from one of these locations, eg) if your train arrives in at 16:15, you would pick the next available pick up time. Pickups will only take place between the times stated above.

4. Best ways to get to camp

Airports

Jerez de la Frontera is the airport that is closest to El Puerto de Santa Maria, and one of the places that our drivers can go to collect staff when they arrive. However, it is a small airport and only has flights from limited locations which you can see here. Often this can be a popular option for people to do Dublin – Stansted – Jerez de la Frontera.

Seville Airport is the next closest airport and is a bit bigger. It is very easy to get to El Puerto de Santa Maria from Seville airport as there are regular buses that take you from outside the airport (just go outside, turn left, and look for the EMT bus) to Santa Justa train station. From here you can take a direct train to El Puerto de Santa Maria which will only cost around €18 one-way and will take 1 hour 15 mins (check out Renfe link below).

Malaga Airport is the biggest airport in the province of Andalucia and has many flights each day to many cities and countries around the world. Malaga is a little bit further away as you will need to:

Trains

  1. Get train from Malaga airport to Malaga Maria Zambrano (8 minutes and leave very regularly)
  2. Get train from Malaga Maria Zambrano to Seville
  3. Then get a train to El Puerto de Santa Maria.

Madrid Airport (Barajas) is obviously one of the biggest in the entire country, and even though it is geographically a good distance away from El Puerto de Santa Maria is a very viable option as there are many very economical flights from all over the world that arrive into here. From Madrid airport it is just a €5 bus ride (EMT) or a trip on the metro to get to the Madrid Atocha train station where one can book a direct train to El Puerto de Santa Maria. The train can sometimes go up to €80 one way so going by bus can also be a cheap alternative.

5. Travelling after camp

If you were offered a 2 or 4 week contract and you would like to work longer, then we recommend that you don’t book any flights or transport after camp. We will usually be able to let people know if we can extend contracts on arrival to camp.

All camps have an end of camp staff dinner/party on the last Saturday night, so we highly recommend staff to stay for this night as this is a special evening that we put on for all of our staff to thank them for all of the hard work over the summer. Staff are permitted to stay on camp that night but must leave before 12:00 the next day.

6. Useful Links:

  • Aena: To see the flights that operate to any airport in Spain. Select the airport you wish to see the connections for in “choose an aiport”.
  • Renfe: national train connections (note it isnt for local routes). Note that El Puerto de Santa Maria may be listed under “P” rather than “E”.
  • Cercanias: Local Train Connections, this is for when you are getting a train from somewhere in the province of Cadiz to El Puerto de Santa Maria.
  • Local Transport in El Puerto de Santa: this link is only in Spanish but it has useful links to buses (local and in the province), ferries as well as info on the local airports.
  • TECS (Family Camp) Location: find us on google maps in case we are not collecting you and you want to arrive directly yourself. We are TECS, Ctra. Fuentebravia Km.1, El Puerto de Santa maria, 11500 Cadiz. You can also ask around the town by asking for the schools name “El Centro Ingles”.
  • Buses: http://www.tgcomes.es/
  • Skyscanner: a userful website that will let you choose a from and to destination and will compare lots of different flight companies to find the cheapest option.