Relocating to Spain from USA

Hi Amber and Shawn!

Welcome to Expat.com.

Your thread has been moved to Barcelona forum for better visibility.

Do not hesitate to browse through the forum, it may help.

Harmonie.

Hello, and welcome if you have any questions pm me. I'm English but my wife is Spanish, I also have a brother and his family that live in Minnesota.

Hi Amber & Shawn.  I'm Grant & my wife's name is Kathy.  We are nearing retirement and are considering Spain as a possible destination.  I am curious to know how you have come to this decision, what steps you have taken to prepare, etc.  Looking forward to hearing from you.

Hi Grantaa,

My husband and I are waiting for our retirement visa approval. Hopefully, we'll be in Spain by Sept. We're looking at Valencia area and more specifically Alicante or Gandia. We're looking for a quiet village. I'm pretty sure I posted the visa steps somewhere in the forum, not sure where though.

Best,
Alinda and Art

Look here Kyero

Hi Amber,

When you come to Barcelona I recomend you to join Barcelona Women's Network. There you will meet lots of ladies from all over the world who will be glad to help you discover the city. bcnwomensnetwork.com I am a member of this great club myself.

I hope to hear from you in the blog!

Nuria

[Moderated]

There is really no reason to be worried about moving to Barcelona, its such a international city with lots of things to do every single night. You will find things to do as soon as you arrive, which is quite easy here as its primarily on the streets and plazas, so all you have to is go for a walk and you will find yourself in the middle of a neighbourhood party, or something similar. And way to often realise that you should have been home in bed several hours ago as you got work tomorrow...

I havent really been here for that long, so the advices i can give so far is pretty limited, i can however say, WATCH OUT!!! for people trying to scam you, pickpocket you or in other ways cheat you. They are EVERYWHERE here, more then i have ever seen in any other big city. These is several websites dedicated so all the different ways they try to scam people.

And also, take your time finding a good neighbourhood to live in, i dont really feel like there is any unsafe neighbourhoods here, but some areas are packed with tourists, which gets annoying very fast when your on your way or from work, or your day to day business.

Also, if you want to experience the real spain, stay away from the "little america" neighbourhoods, there is areas in Barcelona that is so packed with americans, that you gotta look for a long time to actually find spanish people.

Also, dont be too suprised if local people dont really show any interrest in you at first, this is from my experience due to the fact that they are so used to tourists coming, and staying for a few weeks, or month. So people simply cant be borthered really getting to know new people all the time when they leave anyway. This changes alot as soon as they find out your living here permanently though.

Thomasbau wrote:

And also, take your time finding a good neighbourhood to live in, i dont really feel like there is any unsafe neighbourhoods here, but some areas are packed with tourists, which gets annoying very fast when your on your way or from work, or your day to day business.

Also, if you want to experience the real spain, stay away from the "little america" neighbourhoods, there is areas in Barcelona that is so packed with americans, that you gotta look for a long time to actually find spanish people.

Also, dont be too suprised if local people dont really show any interrest in you at first, this is from my experience due to the fact that they are so used to tourists coming, and staying for a few weeks, or month. So people simply cant be borthered really getting to know new people all the time when they leave anyway. This changes alot as soon as they find out your living here permanently though.

All wonderful advice! Great post Thomasbau!

We moved to Spain from Atlanta over three years ago. We currently live down the coast on the Costa Blanca but visit Barcelona whenever we get the chance - just met some friends from the US there a couple of weeks ago. We've been thinking of moving up there and have rented a place for a month (Dec/Jan) just to confirm it's still what we want to do. Is it a work move or just a change?