Why We’re Not Crazy for Moving to Spain

It’s funny. Years ago, Steve and I were on a walk in our Florida neighborhood, chatting about life and what not, and he mentioned the idea of teaching internationally, maybe in Spain. Wouldn’t it be an adventure? Wouldn’t it be fun? And wouldn’t it be great for us to all speak Spanish?

I was ardently and adamantly against it. It was a CRAZY IDEA. Never, I thought. To him, I said, I don’t think so. The idea of completely starting over terrified me. There was no chance that I would uproot my life to move internationally.

We had a good situation in Florida. Good jobs (close enough to bike to), good house, good neighborhood, good friends, good life.

All good.

But all good things must come to an end.

Again, it’s funny — because as good as we felt life was in Florida, somewhere inside of us we knew we needed a change. A difficult change. But one that would make life fuller. Better. When I began to feel unhappy in a job that I had always been incredibly happy in, Steve, unbeknownst to me, starting looking for and applying for jobs at international schools.

We moved to Quito, Ecuador on August 7, 2020.

I never imagined living internationally. And I certainly never imagined loving it as much as I did. Living in Ecuador and enjoying it opened up the idea to live internationally — permanently. But as much as we loved Quito (especially the friends we made there), we knew it wasn’t a long-term situation. We had always thought we’d live a few years in Ecuador, master the Spanish language, and come trotting back to the States to settle down. But as we thought about going back to the States, we couldn’t quite picture it. Healthcare was expensive. Gun violence was scary. Politics were bonkers. People in the States just seemed … mad a lot of the time. And in a hurry. And busy. And obsessed with work. And, dare I say for some of them, ethnocentric.

We began allowing ourselves to think about Spain. So many things were drawing us to Spain: being in the EU, climate, culture, cost of living, the Spanish language, and quality of life. A country that just a few years ago sounded to me like an alien planet was now the place we’d most like to live long-term. Funny.

Keep in mind, we had never been to Spain.

And we didn’t have jobs in Spain.

And we didn’t have connections in Spain.

Crazy.

But allow me explain how it wasn’t crazy for us. It all has to do with the objectives behind all of this.

Objective 1: Become bilingual
We started this by living in Ecuador. We know that the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it. We also realized that to “master the Spanish language” takes more than a laughable “few years.” So we will be continuing the journey to bilingualism in Spain.

Objective 2: Be good world citizens
Living in Ecuador and now Spain, we continue trying to be better world citizens. The kids go to an international school and have friends from all over the world.

Objective 3: Give stability for the kids (and us)
We are in Spain for the long haul. We want our kids to grow up feeling like this is home. We want them to go off to college and come home for vacations to be able to see their hometown friends. We want them to feel stability so that Steve and I can feel stability!

Objective 4: Experience safety
One reason we chose Spain is that it is very safe. Not much gun violence, drug use, or suicide. And Valencia is even safer than Madrid and Barcelona.

Objective 5: Enjoy ease of travel in Spain and within the European Union
Well, I’ll say this: living in the European Union is certainly more conducive to traveling within it. And in about two months, we’ll be living in a pueblo directly on the metro line to the city. Within the pueblo, we’ll be able to walk to playgrounds, restaurants, bakeries, groceries, and weekly markets.

Objective 6: Embrace Spanish culture
In Spain, work is secondary to life. Hustle culture doesn’t have much place here, and cramming as many activities into a day isn’t common. In contrast, taking your time at meals and having long conversations over coffee or wine or beer with tapas are common. Resting when you need it without guilt is another bonus.

Objective 7: Live in a beautiful place with a mild climate
We chose Valencia because it is close to the sea and to the mountains, it’s fairly flat (great for running and biking!), and there’s lots of sunshine. We get a Mediterranean sunrise in the morning and mountain sunset in the evening. We get plenty of vitamin d.

Objective 8: Do hard things
This is the worst. But we know it’s so good for us to put ourselves in difficult situations. It forces us to keep learning, and it forces us to stay humble. We were living the comfortable life in Florida. We felt like we had life pretty well figured out. Now we’re starting again at square one.

As I write this, I am sitting at our dining room table in our furnished apartment we’re renting in a suburb outside of Valencia. Steve and I are officially retired. My kids go to a great international school here, and they are finding friends and happiness. We are taking things slow, knowing that it will take time to find our people. We are in the process of buying a house in a pueblo close to the city and on the metro line.

There are so many things we love about Spain, to which I will dedicate a future post. For now, we are finding our rhythm in day-to-day life — doing laundry, going grocery shopping, getting sick, cooking and washing dishes, and taking the kids to playgrounds. The kind of stuff everybody does. The kind of stuff that can feel tedious at times but also the kind of stuff we often look back on with feelings of nostalgia (minus the getting sick part…).

So wherever you are — Spain, or the US, or Ecuador, or Sweden, or Japan, or Australia, or Italy, or France, or the UK — we hope you’re finding joy in the everyday moments. And if you’re looking for a big life change, we’d love for you to be our neighbor in Valencia!

Check back for an upcoming post about how we moved to Spain from a financial perspective. I’ll make Steve write this one. 🙂

Yep, We Moved to Spain

The story of moving to Spain actually begins with our move to Quito, Ecuador in 2020. We were living in Florida at the time, feeling like we needed a big life change. We really wanted our kids (and ourselves!) to become bilingual, and what better way to do that than to live in a Spanish-speaking country. So Steve got a job at an international school in Quito, and off we went — all in the midst of Covid. The move was made easier having employer help in all the logistics of moving internationally, and the first night we were there, our apartment was set up for us with clean sheets on beds, food in the fridge, and fruit and coffee on the counter. Even with help, though, it was a ton of work. When you live somewhere for a good amount of time (we lived in FL for 12 years), you tend to accumulate stuff. So before actually moving, we sold our cars and as much stuff in our house as we could. We contracted our house to be rented to a colleague. Steve’s parents drove a moving van down from Michigan to take some things we wanted to keep back up to MI to store. Then we crossed our fingers that we wouldn’t get Covid as our flight to Quito approached.

The plan was to stay for a set of two teaching contracts (6 years total) and then move back to the States, preferably to an area with a decent size Spanish-speaking population. But then we realized something: We don’t have to live life in the States. And Steve wasn’t particularly happy in the teaching job, so after the first contract was up, we knew we needed to make a decision.

We had gotten a taste of living internationally, and we were empowered to entertain the option of living internationally long-term. We didn’t quite feel that Quito was the right fit for us, so we started looking at different areas of Spain. The idea of living in Europe was incredibly enticing to us, and we began the hunt for international school teaching jobs. But when it started looking like we weren’t going to be getting a job, we were torn. We could easily live in Quito another year while we set things up for a low-stress, smooth transition to Spain. Or we could rip the bandaid off and move to Spain without jobs, without help from an employer, and without — what most rational beings would say — enough time.

We decided to move. We knew moving sooner would be an easier transition for our kids, especially our eldest, who would be going into 6th grade. So in May of 2023, we decided WE’RE DOING THIS.

We do not recommend a 4-month window between making the decision to move internationally and actually moving. We knew we needed some help at that point, so we found a small relocation company based in Valencia (where we had decided to move) and hired them over the phone. Summer consisted of flying to the States (and bringing things we knew we wanted to keep but that wouldn’t make the first trip to Spain), running around in circles getting documents prepared, and calling on friends to help. (Shout-out to Sam to getting those Florida forms to the right desk, and shout-out to Carissa for saving us with those medical forms.)

We returned to Quito for the month of August for the final push of selling our stuff, packing, and saying goodbye to the amazing community that we had made there. Just a couple of weeks before our flight to Spain, our application for a non-lucrative visa was finally complete, and Steve’s dad (THANK YOU!!) mailed the documents to the Miami consulate. We were told that the Miami consulate typically took four weeks to respond to an application, so we were almost certain that we’d have to fly to Spain without our visas.

We flew to Madrid, Spain without our visas on September 1, 2023. We arrived on tourist visas, which gave us 90 days to get our non-lucrative visas approved and obtained. We crossed our fingers and trusted the process as much as we could. We rented a car in Madrid, stuffed it full of suitcases and us, and drove the 3.5 hours to Valencia. The first two weeks, we stayed in an Airbnb and looked for an apartment, all while on the edge of our seats waiting to hear from Miami. We found an apartment by sheer miracle, and moved in literally on our last day in the Airbnb. Still no word from Miami.

Then, on Monday, September 25th at 4:25 p.m., we received the email from Miami.

Our visas were not approved. They wanted even more documents.

We sent them. And waited.

Another email came. More documents needed.

We didn’t have exactly what they wanted. We sent what we could. And waited.

A third email came. More documents needed.

We sent them. And waited.

Then, on October 9th, a fourth email came. The subject line read, “Resolved Non-Lucrative Residence Visa applications.” Excitedly, we opened it to read that, yes, we had been approved! The email let us know that we must all come, in-person, to the consulate on October 19th at 11:30 a.m. The five of us flew to Miami on October 18th, picked up our visas the next morning, and flew back to Spain that night.

Many people say that what we’re doing is crazy. To that, we reply,

YES.

But only to the timeline. Our decision to move to Spain?

NOT CRAZY.

Next up, I’ll be detailing why we’re not crazy for moving to Spain, so check back soon!