After nearly a decade in Spain's Costa del Sol, the heat was becoming unbearable for Gabriele Pohl. Temperatures soaring above 100 degrees Fahrenheit were making it difficult to go out during the day, and water shortages were making her business, which uses horses to coach business leaders, untenable.

Last winter, she and her husband moved to Tomiño, a small town in Galicia, in northern Spain, close to the Portuguese border. "You go northwest if you want enough water, you want good temperatures, you want green fields, you want good food and good wine," said Pohl, 58 years old.

She is one of a number of Europeans who are moving north in search of cooler weather and greener pastures.

Drought and heat waves made much of Europe a tinderbox this summer, with wildfires raging across parts of Spain, France and Greece. River levels in Germany dropped to record lows, and England's green fields turned straw yellow. The conditions have helped make new areas of the continent more appealing for Europe's wealthy and middle classes.

Internal migration data is patchy, but the most recent data from Spain in 2024 showed northern provinces were growing as Spaniards migrated there from other parts of the country. Property prices suggest the trend has continued.

House prices in northern Spanish provinces such as Cantabria and Asturias have risen 17.2% and 14.1%, respectively, year-over-year in August, according to data from Idealista, a Spanish real-estate website. That is much faster than major cities such as Barcelona and Madrid, which have seen increases of about 7%.

It is a similar story in France, where cities like Caen, Le Havre and Brest on the Atlantic coast had roughly 9% increases in property prices during the first half of 2026 compared with the same period last year, according to Notaires de France, a directory of French notaries that publishes property data. Bordeaux, which has experienced huge wildfires this year, fell 2%.

Florence Chapelier, 53, moved to Normandy from the south of France last year, uprooting her and husband's architectural-design business. She said summers in Aix-en-Provence, where she used to live, had become so hot that her cats were struggling to breathe. "It became a permanent fight against the climate. We were just surviving, not living," said Chapelier.

She said she has now moved to a much larger property for the same price as her old house, and she is able to go back to her hobbies of gardening and swimming, having been forced to stay inside during the summer in her old home.

For areas in Spain, a greater number of days above 95 degrees Fahrenheit tends to translate into lower sales and rental prices, according to research by Adrian Fernandez-Perez, assistant professor at the University College of Dublin. "For real-estate developers and investors, they highlight profitable opportunities in cooler regions, where housing demand is shifting," said Fernandez-Perez.

It isn't just the heat. Researchers in Italy have also found that persistent droughts can be a factor in why people move, leaving rural agricultural communities behind in search of more viable land. Olive growers in Italy, for example, have migrated north in recent years.

Rising insurance premiums are also a reason for some. In France, premiums for multirisk home insurance, which includes natural disasters, rose 8.4% in 2025, according to France Assureurs, an industry group. Catastrophe premiums are expected to rise by more than 200% by 2050 in southern regions, compared with 100% increases in more northern and inland areas, according to an analysis by the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority, which oversees the country's banking and insurance sectors.

"All things that affect your home, your mortgage, the value of your home, your ability to insure your home affordably, property taxes-all of those things tend to play a role in people's decisions about staying in a particular community or maybe going somewhere else," said Koko Warner, director of the University of Pennsylvania's International Climate Observatory.

FJ Unger, a 65-year-old entrepreneur, moved to Galicia in northwestern Spain in 2022, drawn in part by the relatively cool summers. The lengthy beaches, high-quality food and lower house prices were a bonus, he said.

"It's growing," Unger said of Galicia, adding that it isn't just the Spaniards moving to the area. It has become popular with German, Swiss and Dutch migrants as well.

"Everywhere else in Spain, you're now looking at virtually all regions hovering between" 90 and 105 degrees Fahrenheit, said Unger. "That is boiling."