By Yana Bergmann-Duquesne

Yana Bergmann-Duquesne is a traveler from France/Germany who has been travelling and working in Australia for almost a year now. She arrived in Port Douglas three months ago and gathered a few thoughts about what it is like to live here. Here’s her story.

When I first heard about Port Douglas, I could barely place it on a map. Two Germans and a Canadian traveler told a friend and I about it, while we were still living in Melbourne. They sold us this small town as the perfect mix of working and saving good money, and living in a beautiful environment with loads of other young people.

When I got here at the beginning of June after two months on the road, I needed a job and a place to stay. That was all that mattered to me. I had six bucks in my bank account and was sick of sleeping in a tent. I quickly realized that Port Douglas wasn't a secret spot after all.

Every time I was about to walk in a restaurant to hand out my resume, I felt like I could almost see us travelers queuing to beg for a job. Accommodation was the same: hostels were too expensive and I couldn't find a room in a house.

When a couple of friends and I decided to move of the hostel, we even struggled to find a vacant camp spot in a caravan park. I was definitely not the only traveler chasing the sun and wanting to settle down here for a little while.

More and more, I noticed that locals were very friendly and ready to help. This became pretty obvious to me when the manager of a restaurant where I had just presented my resume, asked me if I had a place to stay. He then gave me a contact which I followed up. Or when the barista of a cafe in town gave me a list of places (owned by her friends) where I should go and apply for a job, and to use her as a reference.

Lucia, 26, who is from Argentina, agrees that people are very helpful and open-minded in Port. Two months ago, her friends were about to sleep in their car at the beach, when it started pouring with rain. Some locals, about to go for a walk on the beach, invited them for dinner and suggested they stay at their house for the night, instead of sleeping in the car and getting wet. This is not uncommon in Port.

After a while, the couple offered them to stay in their house and take care of their animals while they were overseas. Lucia has now been living in the house for two months and concludes: "Port Douglas is amazing, such a peaceful place full of open-minded people."

I've now been living here for three months, I have found a good job in a restaurant and share a beautiful house with the best housemates I've ever had. After 10 months travelling across Australia, Port Douglas is definitely one of my favourite stops.

Amazingly beautiful pure nature, a cute little town, loads of things to discover with happy, open-minded, helpful and funny people.

Now here's this catchy song I'm singing every day: "should I stay or should I go..?!" 

Alex, 27, from France, has been an inspiration on this issue. He's a French chef and came to Australia two years ago on a work and holiday visa. He fell in love with Port Douglas, decided he wanted to stay and found a sponsor. As a kid, his dream was to live on a sunny island.

Port Douglas might not be an island, but at least it has all the characteristics Alex's imagined an island needed: wide-open beaches, pure rainforest and warm temperatures.

One thing Alex and I agree on: we're living in a little tropical paradise.