# Where to live



## Julie Boddy (6 mo ago)

Hi, researching areas to live south costa blanca. Hopefully over in Sept to have a look and narrowing down our search.
Nicest prettiest villages, towns on the coast. Can someone tell me the yeahs' and the nays' as to where to live.
Kindest regards


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## tebo53 (Sep 18, 2014)

Julie Boddy said:


> Hi, researching areas to live south costa blanca. Hopefully over in Sept to have a look and narrowing down our search.
> Nicest prettiest villages, towns on the coast. Can someone tell me the yeahs' and the nays' as to where to live.
> Kindest regards


Everybody on this forum has their own preferences as to the best area to live with a wide variety of reasons. The only way to be sure for yourself is to have a long holiday and visit many areas and whittle the list down.
Some areas in summer are totally different in winter. Research with your own requirements in mind is the only way.

Steve


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## MataMata (Nov 30, 2008)

If you're looking for 'pretty villages "Costa Blanca" is going to prove a great diasppointment, you'll have to venture well inland to find those and even then 'pretty' is not an adjective I'd readily apply to many.

Coastal towns are mostly dull and bland, totally dead in the Winter and and infested with tourists in the Summer.


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## Barriej (Jul 23, 2012)

Julie Boddy said:


> Hi, researching areas to live south costa blanca. Hopefully over in Sept to have a look and narrowing down our search.
> Nicest prettiest villages, towns on the coast. Can someone tell me the yeahs' and the nays' as to where to live.
> Kindest regards


I will echo what Steve has said, you are going to get a ton of 'my town is the best' comments.

There are loads of towns and villages along the southern Costa Blanca. 
You need to more specific.

We live in an OK village in the hills inland of Altea. Its not ugly but it serves us well. 
There is one restaurant, no bars or shops and only 200 or so inhabitants. 
Its not dead or alive at any point (except in spring with bloody cyclists all over the place and August when the 'second homers' turn up). 
Its a 1k walk or drive to the nearest bar and another 1/2k or so to the little town of Polop (which is pretty and very Spanish, even with a foreign population of about 35%). 
We can get to Benidorm in 25mins, Altea or Albir in 20min and La Vila (to me the best coast town around here) in around 30min.

Some coastal towns are better than others. The further south you go (past Alicante) the more likely you will hit some large Urbs and towns that are dead in winter.
But the ones I listed are all busy all year round.

My suggestion is work out budget and accommodation size (do you want Urb, isolated, pool, close to stuff) and then search on the property websites and then go Google maps and 'walk' around.
Then come over in the winter and have a good look around, come back in spring and do it all again. And then again in summer just to be sure. 
It took us ages to plump for the village we are in and we have been coming to this area for the last 15 years and have family and friends who were already here.


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## Julie Boddy (6 mo ago)

Thankyou


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## Roland_O (Oct 17, 2016)

Julie Boddy said:


> Hi, researching areas to live south costa blanca. Hopefully over in Sept to have a look and narrowing down our search.
> Nicest prettiest villages, towns on the coast. Can someone tell me the yeahs' and the nays' as to where to live.
> Kindest regards


As everyone else will say: there is no right answer. Using the UK as an example: some would love the Cotswolds, some the lakes, while others would only be happy in the east end of London. Many brits like suburbs. Some dream of country isolation. 



Here are a few generalisations that may help…

Madrid and Barcelona are modern, hip, vibrant and expensive. Spain has many smaller city’s that are much cheaper to live in yet will still provide you with a full life, very much a first world life, but this entails living in a flat which some brits do not like.

It seems to me that if you choose to live in an area with a lot of brits (like the Costa Blanca) then one pays more for property. You have to decide if you want to live in a Brit, or Dutch, or German enclave. There are pros and cons.

You need to decide how you will spend your time, I am assuming you are retired or retiring. Retiring is probably as big as shock as moving to a Latin culture. Some people move to the middle of nowhere and regret it. Bits of Spain are really isolated.

As you head south from Alicante there are vast areas of retired immigrants, some bored stupid. As you head towards and past Valencia it becomes more Spanish, more first world. The climate in Murcia, south of the costa Blanca can get tough - very hot in summer.

The mountains between Alicante and Valencia are beautiful. As are the mountains north of Valencia.

Gandia is a nice enough little town. Not too expensive. Lots of places to live around Cullera. The coast from Alicante to Denia seems very expensive to my eyes. 

Does it have to be beachy? Life may be fuller year round near an in land town. 

The best advice, which none of us ever follows, is to rent for a few years before you buy. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Melosine (Apr 28, 2013)

To be perfectly honest have yet to find a "pretty " village or town, inland or coastal, from Rosas to Almeria City.
Many areas of England on the dullest, wettest days are far more attractive.
However the sun and bougainvillea does weave a special magic even in the grey dusty, fly ridden, places many Brits seem to adore.
As per excelkent advice from others here, there is only one way to locate your dream location and that is to rent and travel around.


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## dancingspider (Mar 4, 2018)

Budget is a key point and if you want to live in a large city, village or in the country.
Also, if you want to be part of a expat community or not.
Services like hospitals, shops, transport links are key for some people but not other.
Start to make a list of your likes and dislikes.

Good luck!


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## stevec2x (Mar 24, 2012)

Hi Julie 

If you've already tuned in to the Southern Costa Blanca as a destination, then you will get far more specific information by joining this forum https://www.costablancaforum.com/ 

There are plenty of places which stay lively through the winter because of the large population of resident Brits/German/Norwegian/Dutch etc.

I'm one of those who rented for a few years first, and I'm so glad we did! We spent the first six months in Villamartin and were so pleased to get out of it easily! It was the wrong place for us.

Cheers 
Steve


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## dancingspider (Mar 4, 2018)

I tend to agree with Steve.

Renting first is the way to go!

It takes a bit of time to get to know the lie of the land here, as it were.

Be renting first you really get to figure out your likes and dislikes. Also, take into consideration that the Spanish property market is very different to the UK market. People in the UK buy and sell properties at the drop of a hat, but in Spain it is very different.... Once you buy you are in that property for the long haul, as the taxes etc make it very costly to buy and sell properties...


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## Goatherd (Feb 19, 2010)

Hi, I have lived here in the hills of the Alpujarra for the past 12 years whilst rebuilding/extending a beautiful cortijo.... Fabulous views, love the isolation for living, but as far as communication, shopping, meeting/making like minded friends and having some form of entertainment close, forget it! 
This is the very reason that we are moving to the Crevillent/Elche area of Alicante in the Southern Costa Blanca.There is no community here, generally a peasant lifestyle...
You should check out this forum which will give you lots of info about the Alicante area... Log into Facebook
If you are trawling through the property sales sites like Idealista, and Fotocasa, both very good, BUT, the problem you will have is if you email for more info on a property, don't be surprised if don't receive a reply... ever! From experience you need to telephone the agent.... that's the main way they do business... so if you can't speak Spanish, then find someone who does to phone for you. These days it is normal for the agent to ask for a reserve deposit which reserves the property for you for a period to allow you get a contract in place and enquire of the local Junta for any answers regarding the property. If you don't purchase then your deposit is returned, but make sure that your legal man has overseen the reserve contract....
Good luck, Graham


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## number9 (Dec 4, 2021)

We live on the southern costa blanca, 20 minutes from the coast. It isn't full of whitewashed pueblos but some of the villages and towns still have charm regardless of the aesthetics.

Much depends on you and what you want along with what makes you smile.

We plan a road trip back to the UK later in the year and it will be the first time we've travelled through the Spanish interior rather than along the coast, quite excited.


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