Day 16: Expat Confessional: Spain Edition

Dear 40 Days To Your New Life In Europe Student,

Today, we’ll bring back Spain expat, Lucy Culpeper, for her to tell you how she came to start a business and raise a family in Spain…

Follow along with the slides here.

How This Midwestern Lady Found Support To Reinvent Her Life In Spain

Melanie Veah

I found myself single at a later age. One of the things that gave me something to look forward to was knowing I could now do the international travel I had planned so many times before but never realized.

I know myself well enough to realize that I needed to make it as easy as possible on myself traveling as a single female. I decided to start somewhere First World, like Western Europe. I began to travel to places like Germany, Portugal, Luxembourg, Spain, and France. Usually I had a friend with me, but I was always the only one beginning to consider a permanent move.

I kept feeling pulled back to Spain. I really started to admire the laid-back attitude in this country. I visited along the coast and inland, at different times of the year and for various lengths of time. I tried smaller cities and other areas in Spain, but I loved the larger cities like Madrid and Barcelona. I appreciated the architecture, the food, the shopping, and the overall vibe of these exciting cities.

At this stage in my life, I had come to value a “work to live” attitude instead of the “live to work” attitude of my younger years. I wanted to change my priorities, to slow down and appreciate life, family, and friends more. I wanted to start accumulating experiences instead of things.

A big life change helps you take stock of where you are and where you’d like to be and can be a chance to set off in a new direction. I’m not getting any younger, I figured. Worst case, if I made a move to a new country and it didn’t seem to be working out, I could always turn around and move back to the United States.

That is the thinking that has kept me going at this, pushing ahead to establish a new type of lifestyle based on what I’d like to do rather than on what I’m supposed to do, according to someone else’s definition.

I am a planner by nature. I enjoy the process of preparing for an experience as much as the experience itself. I started looking into any resources I could find on moving out of the country. That’s how I came to find Live and Invest Overseas. I signed up for every free resource they offered at the time.

I found sites that had forums with expats from around the world and started reading their comments and suggestions. It was exciting and motivating to hear other peoples’ stories and experiences, both good and bad, about their journeys. Through expat sites, I began corresponding with others who were living in Europe, both those born there and expats who’d moved there.

As my excitement grew, I signed up for Live and Invest Overseas’ annual Retire Overseas Conference in Orlando in September 2015, as a birthday present to myself. I wanted to connect with real people who had firsthand knowledge of Spain and who could be potential resources for me when I moved.

I have to say, the conference was a double-edged sword. None of the other attendees could have come in the door with a more specific idea for where they wanted to move. But, as I heard about other places, I began to think about alternatives to Spain. At first I thought it may have just been the overflow of excitement… being in a huge room full of hundreds of other people excited about the possibilities new adventures in new countries could bring. Finally, I’d found my people!

It was overwhelming, but in a great way, to finally talk with others who didn’t look at me like I had a third eye when discussing a move out of the States. I took a ton of notes, went to every meeting I could, spoke to almost every speaker and vendor, and talked to as many people as possible, everyone interested in my potential part of the world.

One by one, I began to rule out other places, not because they weren’t great alternatives, but because they didn’t seem like better alternatives to Spain for me.

I did, though, also come to the realization that Spain would not necessarily be my end game. It would become my jumping-off point for a great adventure and a chance to begin discovering the rest of the world. I left the conference with a few potential contacts, lots of investment ideas, and more confidence that I was doing the right thing for my situation.

I went home and started working immediately on my visa. I looked into the steps I needed to take to be ready to move four months later. I had waited years to make this move, I didn’t want to wait any longer or give myself a chance to talk myself out of it!

I have been selling things and giving things away. I took a writing job to brush up on my skills and start a freelance career I could continue in Spain. I’m getting back into photography to include with my writing. And I’m planning to take a CELTA course to get my certificate to teach English in Spain.

I am holding on to my home for now. I downsized to save money for my move, so the cost isn’t prohibitive. A couple of months in, if all goes well, I will come back and sell the house and car. I will take that final step and embrace my new life fully. I will continue to come back to the States to visit family and current friends, of course. Several are excited to come visit me in my first full year abroad.

I am grateful that I found Live and Invest Overseas as a resource for my move. I feel good about my destination decision and ready for whatever may come. I think the checklist I received at the conference for picking a destination was great information and confirmed what would work for me. I believe I’ve done my due diligence and appreciate the honest information about both the good and challenging parts of destinations outside the United States.

It’s certainly not the norm for a single Midwestern female to pick up and leave everything familiar, but that’s what I’m doing. I’m confident, though, that with preparation and a mantra of “Be Flexible,” one can get through most anything.

Besides, all those surprises that are bound to happen will make for some great stories later… stay tuned!

***

Another longtime Spain expat, Mike Herndon, has shared his story of finding and choosing Spain for his retirement overseas, read on for his story…

How I Came To Find Myself In Valencia

Mike Herndon

There is a scene in the 2003 movie “Under The Tuscan Sun” that I now can identify as the moment everything began to shift.

I was a 51-year-old single man living in Nashville, Tennessee, with no real job and no prospects.

A friend had called to let me know that he had two tickets to an afternoon preview of the “Under The Tuscan Sun” movie prior to its release. I was aware of the memoir of the same name written by Frances Mayes in the 1990s but had discounted it as a travelogue about Italy with judiciously inserted recipes that would appeal to the largest possible demographic embracing women “of a certain age.”

For one September afternoon my friend Eric and I joined this demographic.

The plot quickly became unimportant, because, for me, time stopped when the heroine accepted a ride in an Italian two-seat convertible traversing the route between Rome and Positano.

As the camera followed the moving sports car from above, it was as though I was sitting there rounding the next curve on a winding two-lane road resting precariously at the edge of a precipitous drop to the Mediterranean.

I turned to my friend and whispered, “What am I doing here?…”

A month later I had left to California for four months (ironically in my 1991 Mazda Miata… a two-seat convertible) before settling near Daytona Beach, Florida, in early 2004 to begin a new job…

With visions of Italian seaside drives in my head, the universe (or Mother Nature if you prefer) gifted me with a lot of time to begin my online research about international relocation courtesy of three hurricanes in six weeks.

Over the next dozen years, I followed Kathleen Peddicord and Lief Simon through their writings until I was ready to join Live and Invest Overseas (LIOS) as an All Access Pass member in the summer of 2014.

When LIOS announced Nashville as the destination for their Annual Retire Overseas Conference in August 2014, I knew the time had come to make my move.

Shortly after the conference ended, I created a 3-week itinerary for April and May 2015 that was anchored by a 5-day conference attended by 700 international travel bloggers (TBEX) in Lloret de Mar, Spain. I was convinced that learning about successful travel bloggers’ nomadic lives would offer a glimpse into my future.

It could also provide me with the opportunity to travel the world through their eyes and uncover hidden gems as possible destinations.

The bloggers proved as enlightening as I had hoped they would be, but a funny thing happened on the way to Lloret de Mar…

I stopped first in Valencia, Spain.

As I stood in the baggage claim area of the Valencia airport, I remember having the crazy thought that “this could be the place…” before ever setting foot in the city!

Fortunately I had been to 47 U.S. states and 25 foreign countries, so I had 72 points of reference. Not 1 of the 72 had ever provoked this reaction, so I proceeded… though with caution.

Three days in a hotel and three days in a bed-and-breakfast confirmed my initial reaction to the city.

LIOS had referred me to a local real estate broker who gave me a city tour and showed me seven properties. At the end of our tour, Ramón gave me advice that would become the foundation for my future plans:

“Come back next year,” he told me. “Stay for at least a month… and move around to various areas of the city to determine if Valencia is your destiny.”

One year later I was ready to cut my ties with Florida. For those readers who were at the Retire Overseas Conference in Orlando in September 2015, you’ll remember me as the guy hobbling around on crutches with my right leg in a bright orange cast.

When I tossed the crutches at the end of December 2015 I was ready to sell, donate, give away, or throw out all of the things that didn’t matter and put the things that did in storage.

On March 21, 2016, I left Orlando, Florida, with a giant backpack, two checked bags, and a Panama hat. I sold my car the morning I left and rid myself of key rings. After all, I had only my storage unit key to worry about.

After a stopover to attend the wedding reception of my best friend, I arrived in Valencia on March 28. Nine weeks and two Airbnb apartments later, I placed a deposit on my two-bedroom apartment in the central historic district of Valencia; the sale was closed Sept. 20, 2016. Remodeling was completed for the most part by mid-November of the next year.

Because I was operating on a tourist visa that only allowed me to stay up to 90 days in a row in the eurozone, I have lots more tales to tell about my ongoing adventures…

The wedding reception in a French castle… a week in Marrakech, Morocco during Ramadan… nine days in Portugal… three weeks in Cape Town, South Africa… two months in Buenos Aires, Argentina…

When I set out, the “grand” plan was to explore the world in search of my new home and make no decisions until the journey was over.

As the author and cartoonist Allen Saunders wrote in 1957, “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”

My future life seems to have been determined at a Valencia baggage claim carousel in 2015…