Choosing your Dream Location when Moving to Spain – the Ultimate Checklist

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Choosing your Dream Location when Moving to Spain – the Ultimate Checklist

Thinking about moving to Spain? 
How do you choose where to live? 
What exactly do you need to consider?
How would you like YouTooSpain’s ultimate checklist to help you decide?
You’re in the right place, here it is!

If you’d rather watch the videos, here they are below. Otherwise, read on!

Here’s the ultimate checklist of the 20 things you need to consider. 

Number 1 – Access! This whole list is all about making sure you have access to the lifestyle you want, and balancing that with having access to what you need. Keep that in mind.

Number 2 – Employment! Are you working or retiring? If you’re retired, the world is your oyster, but if you’re working you need to have access to your clients and all of the things you need for your business, which usually means being in a city or within easy reach of one.

Number 3 – Climate! Spain isn’t just hot & sunny, there’s enough snow for skiing in the winter in places, even down south. 
And the north is much more temperate with rain and greenery and proper seasons.

Number 4 – Roads! Wherever you choose in Spain, make sure you’re not too far from a main road. You may like the peace and quiet, but there are times when you’ll need something that only a city or large town can provide, and if you feel the need often enough, you don’t want it to be a four hour round trip, however beautiful the scenery is.

Number 5 – Medical! Whether it’s an emergency or a regular prescription, it helps to be not too far from a hospital, your local health centre and the farmacy.  There’s no way of knowing what you might need or when, don’t assume you’re going to be healthy forever. And if you’re on private healthcare, make sure you’re not too far from a health centre that’s linked to your healthcare insurance provider. 

Number 6 – Winter! Some towns, especially in tourist areas, are deserted in the winter, and lots of businesses are seasonal. Make sure you visit at different times of the year so you can be certain you like a place all of the time. Isolation can be a problem for some people.

Number 7 – Size! Do you like big cities, smaller cities, towns, villages, or no buildings at all? They all have different characters and features, and it’s important to consider your practical needs as well as what it feels like.

Number 8 – Driving! Make sure you have a car that’s suitable for your environment if you need one. And if your nearest amenities and local restaurants can’t be reached on foot, bear in mind someone has to be sober to drive you home each time you want a drink.

Number 9 – Community! Do you want to immerse yourself in Spanish and be a part of your local community? Or would you prefer to be in a mainly expat urbanisation. Or somewhere in between? 

Number 10 – Languages! You’ll need to speak Spanish to a greater or lesser degree depending on where you live. Even in the tourist areas it pays to have a good grasp of the language. Also, in the north of Spain especially, there are other languages like Catalan, Galician and Basque spoken so it’s helpful if you live there to know at least a few words and phrases. It’s definitely worth the effort for the response you’ll get.

Number 11 – Head versus heart! If you’re the sort of person who makes decisions based on their emotions and how a place feels, then when you’re looking around Spain take someone with you who thinks with their head and has seen parts one and two of this video series, so they can be the practical one.

Number 12 – Check it out! You have to be here in Spain to get the full picture of what it’s like in different areas. Looking on property websites and watching TV programmes only gives you a small part of the picture from someone else’s perspective. It’s remarkable what having your feet on the streets of a place can have on your priorities, and how much it narrows down your search.

Number 13 – Internet!  Having a fast and reliable internet service was high on my tick list, for obvious reasons. Have a think about where it sits on yours. A lot of Spanish villages, even the remote ones, have fibre broadband, but there are places where you’re reduced to a very limited service. Even if you’re happy to be far from anyone else, being cut off from family, friends and the emergency services might be a step too far.

Number 14 – Facilities & Amenities! Consider how far you want to be from your nearest shops, like the local bakery, the fruit & veg market, the butcher’s, the shoe shop, the clothes shops, and the supermarket, then there’s the notary, the bank, the post office, the courier pick up point, your Gestor, your Doctor, and of course where’s your nearest restaurant or cafe? Some of those you’ll need to be closer to than others because you’ll need them more often.

Number 15 – Airports!  Whether your going to be travelling about or not, being in Spain means you’re going to get visitors, so being close to an international airport that has direct flights from where they live can make a big difference to how many and how often they come. If you want them to of course. 

Number 16 – Geography! Where do you feel most comfortable? In the mountains or down by the sea? Do you have any difficulties with mobility? If so, a mountain village with steep streets might not be your cup of tea. If you get car sick or you’re afraid of heights, then you should probably stay away from the pueblo blancos in the hills with their precarious roads and cliffs.  

Number 17 – Culture!  Spain is full of culture and history, so you don’t have to travel too far to find it. But if you want to visit the places where there’s loads of it, then do your research and live near the city where your favourite events, museums, architecture, and galleries are. 

Number 18 – Family! When you decide to move to a different country from your family, but you still want to see them, then you’ll need to consider a combination of number 13’s good internet, number 15’s airport, and Number 4’s Roads to make sure you have access to them and stay in contact. And bear in mind Number 6’s Winter as well. Some flight destinations only operate from Spring to Autumn. 

Number 19 – Crystal ball! It pays to look ahead 5 or even 10 years and ask yourself what you’ll be doing then, or what could go wrong. You may be a relatively fit 65, but in 10 years a lot can change. You’ve just got to look at my situation to understand why you need to consider the many possibilities, some of them worse than others, and make some decisions now to put yourself in a position to be able to deal with them. 

Number 20 – Cost of living!  There’s quite a difference in cost of living between the big cities and the small villages. Not only that, but everyone’s lifestyle is so different that it’s almost impossible to compare your budget to anyone else’s. But you can at least be fairly sure that the bigger the place you live, the more it’s going to cost you for the basics, and for meals out, and for rent, and everything else. Utility bills can vary considerably depending on what you use. It took nearly a year for us to get used to what it all cost and how to reduce the bills by a lot. 

BONUS! Here’s one extra bonus thought for you.

Remember you’re in a foreign country, and however much you liked it here when you’re on holiday, when reality smacks you in the face and you realise that some things work quite differently here and you haven’t quite reached the point where you can have a successful argument in Spanish, you’ll be glad you watched these two videos with their 21 pearls of wisdom and thanked me by buying me a coffee dot com via the link below, or the QR code up here.

Peace & Love
Peas & Fluff
Let’s dance!

Article by Skatz

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