Sentinella gave you a good opinion, i think Marbella or Sotogrande its the right place.
I whish your family good luck.

By the way , SANTI i don?t know what happened to you here in Spain, concretely in Andalucia.
I have read many of your posts and 99% just say bad things about Spain , you said all your comments are based in your own experiences. What kind of people have you meet? what experiencies you had?.
Maybe you are right in some points , i?m not going to judge you because i dont know you personally, but reading your post (i remark READING), i just see a person wich a lot of prejudices who has a love/hate relation with the spanish enviroment. I haven?t read any positive point from you, and that makes me wonder what happened to you, because i cant explain myself how a person who dislike almost all of this country ,have been living here for a long term and even married a spaniard.
This country is not the paradise, spaniards are not perfect and sometimes we can behave as profesional morons, but…who don?t , Santi?.
Well ,i just wanna say i hope you get a good living where you are now , better than in Spain if is possible, and maybe   in a future ,if you back to Spain you will find a different place and maybe your mind could change.

Unemployment situation still shows no sign of recovery. Even if you speak good Spanish I would tread very carefully. I think the only people that should move to Spain now that need to also work are those that can work from home anywhere in the world?

Why Spain, why Europe? you might find the lifestyle that you are really looking for elsewhere. Do lots of research first and see where your skills are needed - it the answer is in the UK then that may be your best bet unfortunately.

“Spain isn?t a great place to run with your kids 2 unless u have a bit of cash ready to support potential unemployment for a month or two.”

I think they made a typo it should read “a year or two”!! Unless you have some super hot skills (Not joking!)

Jazintosh - 28 March 2010 03:59 PM

By the way , SANTI i don?t know what happened to you here in Spain, concretely in Andalucia.
I have read many of your posts and 99% just say bad things about Spain , you said all your comments are based in your own experiences. What kind of people have you meet? what experiencies you had?.
Maybe you are right in some points , i?m not going to judge you because i dont know you personally, but reading your post (i remark READING), i just see a person wich a lot of prejudices who has a love/hate relation with the spanish enviroment..

My experiences are all in the info you read, although you don’t seem to have comprehended my points, more likely you read one sentence and decided not to use your own advice.

It would be nice to have a response from the OP who went out in April, although I guess they decided this section was too negative and went to a more rose tinted forum, although they seem to be rare or filled with retired expats.

It never fails to amaze me how people assume negative advice is only made by negative people, maybe the ones who assume this are the ones who get it completely wrong.

I’ll say it again for the ones who missed the point, I love Spain, I’d live there today, but only if I didn’t have to work there for a living and only if there was no Andalucians near me.I would love to live in many other countries to, if I had the chance, winning a lot of money on the lottery would leave me with several hard decisions on my home location and persuading my OH that living a month in each country is not stupid.

Maybe this is why I don’t view Spain as the only place to live a perfect life, then again I still love the UK and have not made a complete mess of my life and need to find a paradise to take away my troubles, unlike many I read who write obsessively that Spain will suddenly make there life more fulfilling, so to tell you if you have a crap life in the UK running away to Spain won’t help, at least not in the long term passed the initial novelty holiday new life feeling.

But feel free to follow in the foot steps of the many who leave and return homeless and skint.There are forums for these peeps, but I guess there too negative, full of idiots and you’ll be different.

As the Spanish say “Humans are the only creatures to trip in the same place twice” or words to that effect.

Immoved jan 2009, 2 kids (6 and 11) and the wife moved june 2009. I work online so am very lucky!

We are italian and so language and culture is similar so no major chnages ... if not for the better.

We live near Girona in a small village not too far form the sea and absoltuly love it here. Local catalan school is SUPERB, move was pretty much hassel free, small internet & phone problems at the begging but were all resolved by fellow forumee PIETER (thanks again!) and now live a perfect life.

Must say I am comparing life here to life in north east Italy and EVERY ASPECT is much better here. Quality of life is just amazing. Again, I already had a job (am not rich in no way) so just kept doing what I do (clothign designer) online from the house. We rent a beautiful big house with pool (impossible in Italy unless you are a millionaire), have both local and expat friends. Find that services here are much better than in Italy, doctors are great, people are more relaxed, very friendly, more law abiding (spelling?), there is more social awareness here. Sure it is not perfect (everyone smokes EVERYWHERE!) but would not go back for nothing.

This area is known (well, before the recession) for its high quality of life so may not be like this in other parts of spain.

If you do not know the language, or have troubles learning it (espeically if you are an expat-only kind of person, or if you take big brother as a social standard), and if you do not have a job, don’t bother comming.

Unemployment is 20% as stated and is rough for locals as well as foreigners. If you think you can come over and find a job, this will be extremely risky.

Best decision I have made in my life (and I have made various major ones).

A deu

Claudio

good for idea…

only just found this chat,  I am curios now how you got on Mark with your move to Marbella??  A lot has changed since you wrote about wanting to move & I am more than curios to see if you are enjoying the ‘good life’ in Puerto Banus or other locations in Marbella?
Work wise,  I think it is still a challenge for Spanish let alone expats and of course for Brits the ? does not seem anywhere near as valuable against the Euro as it did when the first post went on!.
We have just returned from a weekend there in Puerto Banus just to suss out the cost of living & to enjoy a nice break. If anyone has not yet been to Marbella, in my opinion it is certainly worth a look! There is a lavish yet very inspiring Marina with amazing yachts & there is also a lot of very designer (& the expensive) shops for all tastes.
There are some amazing restaurants that you can get to on foot, but I would consider reading all trip adviser reviews first. It was nice to walk about on an evening, but we had a hire car to drive to other locations in the day. Driving from Malaga airport was a nightmare though, a terrible start to the holiday, (but we won’t go down that ‘discussion path’!)  If we go to Marbella again, i think it would be easier to get a taxi / transfer from Malaga airport. If any future readers and keen holiday makers could suggest a reputable taxi transfer company to Marbella please suggest it! I wont drive again.  One really memorable thing we did was to cycle all along the paseo with the sea breeze on our faces, however we tended to walk it if we were eating! So most things are within reach. Overall, I think there is plenty to do for kids in Marbella and loads for sporty or even gastronomy expert adults, and those looking for some Spanish culture (see the council cultural pages http://www.marbella.es/cultura/agenda-cultural/eventos-por-tipo/festival-todo-danza.html) . but to stay there for more than a week, I think it would need to be budgeted carefully.

Hi Pam L, 

When we travel to Marbella we always use a taxi transfer company called   https://www.marbellataxis.com/  You can read the tripadvisor reviews if you wanted reassurance (https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g187439-d8090389-Reviews-Solhop-Marbella_Costa_del_Sol_Province_of_Malaga_Andalucia.html)  Which hotel did you use? Have you ever tried ones just outside of Puerto Banus?

Hello rax,
Thanks for that .  The hotel in Marbella was Casa la Concha Boutique Hotel we & used booking.com. Let me know how you get on or if you have any more tips you can share about going to Marbella. Pam