# Why Spain



## Elyles (Aug 30, 2012)

There are a number of different nationalities on this forum and we all opted to relocate or retire in Spain. With most Brittish I can fully understand (in Spain there are nice beaches, decent dry weather, etc) . With ourselves and other Americains, for the adventure and (just because it's there). Of course, most Americains have never even seen a State other than where they live. What about you other guys. I fully realize the decision is actually individual and not nationality based (or might be). We all grew up,in different cultures but why change what we have known our entire lives for this? Many times I have been asked Why Jaca? Why Spain? Why leave your family? (believe me, that is the least of my worries with my family being more like the Adams--just joking, Lurch is only a second cousin). Anyway, what we all have in common is that we are expats. Just curious!


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Speaking for myself, we chose Spain mainly for the climate, but it is more spacious that the UK, less crowded and do I dare say it.....less structured?? Its also an easy trip to visit and to be visited. And of course, as its in the EU, it does make it easier to immigrate

Jo xxx


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

The things we were looking for were a better climate (warmer and drier for the majority of the year) than the UK, could buy a better property for less money, lower cost of living, better public services and public transport than the area of the UK we lived in, we could live in a historic town close to both sea and mountains, good healthcare facilities and ease of travel (short duration of flights and wide choice of flights available) both back to the UK and to other parts of Europe, and less crime and anti social behaviour. We considered both Spain and Portugal and Spain won out mainly because of better infrastructure particularly health and public transport, and my feeling that Spanish is an easier language to learn than Portugese.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

Pure chance in our case. We had no idea where we would end up when we set out. I can't think I would want to live anywhere else abroad now after Spain.


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## Elyles (Aug 30, 2012)

Our location Jaca was pure chance but we feel the same about here


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

For work reasons mainly, my wife had a choice of relocating to Prague or Paris and neither of those appealed to us so wanted to find somewhere else. In the end we had a choice of Cadarache in France or Bilbao, Barcelona and Alicante.
We primarily chose Alicante because it was the most affordable of the lot and we can save a lot more plus we could actually afford to buy without being stuck on a 30 year mortgage.

That's pretty much it.


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

Too expensive in Yorkshire, poor climate, I had been visiting the Canary islands since 1962, so it seemed a natural choice.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

When first planning our retirement (mine actually since I'm 18 years older than SWMBO) I had a list of 7 countries with which we had ties/interests (holidays, language, family, property) and were worth researching for more information. One by one most of them were ruled out for various reasons - crime, financial stability, high taxation, high cost of living, etc. In 2001, my in-laws had moved to the USA (m-i-l is a Texan) following near bankruptcy when a bank went bust. We helped set them up in a rented property and subsequently bought them a villa in FL. 2005 f.i.l. passed away so it was obvious that we would eventually have to accommodate the m-i-l.

Our place in UK was a 1BR flat (council tax £840 pa, water and sewage £1200 pa {even on a meter}, gas and electricity £1300 pa, etc.) and way too expensive. We had raised some money against the flat to help buy the place in FL (balance on one of those interest-only mortgages. We decided we would sell the villa in FL, but made the mistake of letting the m-i-l engage the realtor (m-i-l: "she was so nice") who turned out to be breaking almost every realtor rule in the book so eventually, we switched to a good realtor who sold it with in a month or two and by then the property bubble had burst so we barely got back what we had initially laid out (not counting the interest in the meantime). By 2005 I had got down to two countries Portugal and Spain, SWMBO said that (although she spoke some) she didn't want to learn another language at her age - the same age as I had started to learn Spanish!) so it was going to be Spain.

M-i-l came to UK to spend Christmas with us and we did a quick trip to Spain, visiting Córdoba, Granada, Ronda and Sevilla (passing, although we didn't know it, within a few miles of where we live now.) We all agreed that we liked what we had seen and that gave us a starting point for actually looking for somewhere to move to. I continued research and we came to the conclusion that there were certain parts that were worth avoiding, especially lower ground that become furnaces in summer. We all like mountainous areas so that gave us a number of areas to explore as far as properties were concerned.

To cut a long story short, we found the house we live in in 2007 and set about paying for it (mostly by further extending the mortgage on our flat) and made the final payment September 2008. We planned to move at the end of November so had put works in progress for those bits of reform that we felt were necessary - replumb, rewire, remove one wall, install a log-burner with s/s flue, etc. We left UK 1st November 2008 and moved!


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

It was nearer to my family than Colombia.
I wasn't planning on staying though


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Because vegetarian OH was finding life in Prague tough and my son and dil have had a property in Spain for years. Dil suggested we move to their house while we looked for a place of our own so off we went.
So in a way it was pure chance as I would have stayed in Prague or preferred Berlin or somewhere in France. I certainly never thought of Spain as a place to live although we knew it well from long summer holidays. It took about six months and a move to the house we've lived in for over six years to convince me that it was the best move we could have made.
We had bought a place in the Ottawa Valley intending to retire there but it's too far and the climate too extreme . We also pondered on Amsterdam but couldn't afford the posh district we really liked, near the Vondelpark.


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## stefig (Jul 14, 2015)

The climate, I already speak the language quite well, much cheaper living costs than back home, more relaxed lifestyle (people working to live instead of living to work...cliched but true), the meal times and general timetable suit me much better, much prefer the drinking/going out culture here, the quality of fresh produce.....many things!


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## Rabbitcat (Aug 31, 2014)

Well personally I am ignoring those critics who say I have not done enough research and am opting for Spain for the excitement of Paris, the beauty of Bordeaux and the delicious frogs legs and snails.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

We stuck a pin in the map years ago to decide where to go on holiday. Then we were drawn back here time & again - to me it just felt like home  

Although when we actually decided to move here when the kids were little, it could easily have been Corfu, because my husband had lived there previously.

Jávea won because Spanish has the same alphabet as English........... 

I'm thankful for that every day


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## Rabbitcat (Aug 31, 2014)

You are lucky, no privileged to live in such a beautiful town.

We were there only for a day ( got the boat up from Denia) and we didn't want to leave . It wasn't just the beauty of the town- it was just that feeling you get about some places that feels so great and makes you feel warm inside 

If you ever get the desire to swap for Belfast I MIGHT be interested.....


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Rabbitcat said:


> Well personally I am ignoring those critics who say I have not done enough research and am opting for Spain for the excitement of Paris, the beauty of Bordeaux and the delicious frogs legs and snails.


Don't forget the the climbing opportunities offered by the Andes and the native tigers


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

We wanted to retire early (turned out to be ten years early!) and live somewhere beautiful in the countryside. To do that in England you would need to be very wealthy. We weren't.

Ireland and Wales are too rainy and Scotland too dark in winter. France and Italy were too expensive and northern Europe didn't appeal. Neither of us spoke Greek, Serbo-Croat or Portuguese. So Spain it was.

We picked the Costa de la Luz because it was cheap and relatively undeveloped. We both like a bit of wilderness. Even so, reasonably sized houses on the coast were out of our price range, so we found one in a village inland. I'm glad we did, it's pretty well perfect for us.


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## Overandout (Nov 10, 2012)

I just wanted to work in an overly hierarchical business structure, doing long hours in a foreign language, only to earn about half of what I earned in the UK......

Oh no, hang on, I moved for a girl...


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