Expat Relocation Stories - Moving To The Costa del Sol Spain

Life can sometimes be shall we say a little bit odd at times, and in many ways, it is good not necessarily to know exactly what the future holds, I think it would take the fun out of it!

This is my own personal experience of having moved from the UK to start a new life in Spain.

My background is Spanish as a first language, having been brought up in South America. We moved to the UK in 1991 where I settled and started making a life for myself, at the age of seventeen it is all extremely exciting though daunting at the same time.

Over the coming years I had built up a successful sales career in telecoms, married quite young, bought a two bed semi with a garden and had a new car on the driveway and slowly getting into the “keeping up with the Jones’s mentality”.

Not quite the 2.4 children to go with it but we did have a dog. Life was good, fast motorbikes, flying lessons and a nice house; nice life yes? Well, not quite;there was one thing missing, and in my experience looking back over the past years, in my opinion it is probably one of the most important parts that was missing, that is quality of life. All the expensive hobbies only created a need to work harder, longer hours and leaving less and less time to enjoy them and only adding more and more financial pressure.

My parents having decided that the weather in South Wales was not quite to their taste, decided to up-sticks and move to Spain. They settled eventually in the white-washed village of Mijas in Andalucia’s Costa del Sol.

Having not been to Spain before, all I kept hearing from them during our weekly telephone conversations was what a lovely area the Costa del Sol was, what incredible weather and how much cheaper the cost of living was.

Eventually, curiosity got the better of me and I booked an Easy jet flight from Liverpool straight to Malaga. A few hours later, I had landed on Spanish soil, it was only then that I realized that I had forgotten a lot of my Spanish, I could think it, but engaging brain to mouth was where it all went a little bit wrong, finding myself tongue-tied and feeling a little bit foolish as Spanish is meant to be my first language!

Minor language barriers and unfamiliarity with the area and everything else were soon forgotten, in other words I was hooked! For all the same reasons my parents had told me, I felt very much this is the lifestyle for me, well, for us but I still had to tell my long-suffering wife, who had now started finding quite amusing what will I come out with next! I returned back to the UK an invigorated person, full of enthusiasm and with a zest for life she had not seen before.

We soon took another run back to Spain, this time together and she soon understood where I was coming from and why my ideas were not that far-fetched as well as realizing that life is too short to become “bogged” down with silly things, life passes us by too quickly not to enjoy it.

We continued our regular trips to Spain on a weekly basis, living in the UK Monday to Friday and spending every weekend in a small Finca we had rented in Alhaurin El Grande, some 20 minutes from Fuengirola.

Within a few months, we decided that Spain was our destiny, we looked for jobs in the Costa del Sol were soon offered good opportunities to work in Spain, the next part is probably the scariest, all of a sudden, your dream and all the talk of taking this massive leap, becomes a reality. In principle, it is extremely exciting, in reality, it is extremely scary!

We decided to sell absolutely everything we had worked so hard for, cars, motorbike, house, furniture and everything else we could liquidate.

D-day arrived and it was all systems go! We set off to start our own adventure and our new life in the sun! Car packed, dog in the car (with dog passport) and an indescribable feeling of excitement as well as fear.

We completed the drive in pretty much record time (keeping to all speed limits of course) and arrived in our rented finca in the outskirts of Alhaurin el Grande, the place we would call home; well for the next six months anyway.

Getting of the treadmill of life can sometimes be much harder than getting on it to start off with. We found it hard to slow down to the Spanish way of life, we recognize that if we were to succeed in our adventure, we should be the ones that would have to change, there was no way we would change the rest of the world. The novelty of a relaxed way of life as well as all the awesome things Spain has to offer we soon started taking for granted, the amazing countryside, watching the sunset over the med, walking along the paseo in Marbella as well as lovely Sunday afternoon walks along the forest in El Refugio del Juanar between Monda and Marbella.

The summer came and went, we were once again “bogged” down with work and travelling back to the UK on a regular basis, we were going down the slippery slope of returning back to the UK.

As winter started to set in, well, we call it winter even though the temperature never dips any lower than a pleasant spring evening in the UK; our minds were set, we are going back to the UK. We made a million and one excuses which we passed for reasons as to why it would be the best move for us. A few months later we were back in sunny UK and both starting new jobs. Was this the end of our dreams? Was it hell!!!!!!! The novelty of being back “home”, all the curious people who wanted to speak to us and find out what had gone so wrong soon disappeared, I think it probably lasted two weeks maximum before it was back to life as we once knew. The daily grind, finding a new house to buy, buying a new car and in effect, reversing all we had done less than a year earlier.

As weeks turned into months, we gradually realized what we had left behind and what an awesome opportunity we were letting slip through our fingers purely by giving in and not continuing the fight, nobody said it would be easy.

We were in the midst of buying another house in the UK when we decided that Spain was where we really wanted to be, all the things we missed from home were things from the past that really could not be replicated and should not be replicated, we soon realized that we only tend to remember the highlights of the way things were choosing to forget the downsides.

We returned to Spain with a different attitude and this was the key to our success, we integrated with the community (ex-pats and locals). I continued with my career as an Estate Agent and have been privileged enough to be able to assist hundreds of families in starting their new life in the sun and it is a real privilege and an honor to be able to be part of such an important part of someone’s life. Euro Property Spain will assist you with every part of your move, we have done the move and know that it takes guts and courage to take this massive step in life, we are always happy to share our experience with you in a professional as well as in a personal capacity like I have done by sharing my own personal experience.

If you feel this is for you, then come out and meet us, there is an awesome lifestyle waiting for you, there are around 1 million British ex-pats in Spain, there must be something pretty special to it!

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Read more Spanish expat stories as well as relocation advice and tips for people considering moving to Spain