A Never Retire Review: 5 Reasons Why We're Leaving America And Moving To Spain

Nov 11, 2024

Now is a good time to review the reasons why we’re moving to Spain and connect them to the larger Never Retire philosophy. Because you can certainly take and adapt our reasons and apply them to your situation.

There are three, maybe four reasons tied for first place. Everything else is a close second.

Ultimately this move comes down to place and the intersection between place, lifestyle and cost of living. From there, the work my wife and I do and want to do, closely followed by politics round out the reasoning.

I have written a bunch of pieces that quantify much of the above. If you pay to subscribe to the newsletter, you can scroll the archives and easily find them. Today’s installment focuses more on the rationale behind each reason. Because as much as hard numbers matter, this decision does not live and die by the numbers.

We’re not bean counters. We’re doers. At the same time as not living extravagantly, we don’t pinch pennies either. We could move to a place with lower taxes and Social Security contributions, but it’s not like we’re coming from a low-tax country, particularly for the self-employed and when you consider what you get—and don’t get—for your money.

I read and see accounts of people moving to super low cost-of-living countries around the world and—for a variety of reasons—I know I would not be happy in these places. I tend to go by the look—which is practical and observable—and feel of a place.

Maybe it’s the urban planning student in me or the knowledge and on-the-ground experience I have accumulated living, walking, cycling and driving in cities and more suburban environments, but I tend to have a good sense of places. I know if I could see myself living in a place quite quickly.

And it’s not merely about the glaring differences between, say, Cambodia and Spain. It’s more fine grain than that. Fine grain on the more abstract feel side of things.

For example, I immediately thought Italy would resonate most with me. I’m Italian-American and many of the people you see on the streets there remind me of family members. A fair bit of the cooking reminds me of how my Grandma used to cook. Sometimes when studying or (trying to) speak Spanish, I will say a word in Italian, without even thinking about. Of course, I don’t know Italian. But—to a real extent—it’s in my blood. And the Italy I have seen is freaking awesome. I can’t wait to go back. But after toying with the idea of moving there, my wife and I agree that we can’t see ourselves living there.

Because the second I set foot in Spain I knew it was for me. From the way the cities are structured to how well they’re looked after, every single thing resonated. The pace of life in the larger cities is an ideal mix of fast and slow. Fast where I like it. Slow where I want it.

The other day my wife put something into words that hit so well. She described this weird feeling of reentering Spain from another country and feeling like she’s home. While I can’t quite put my finger on this feeling and why I also feel it, it’s palpable. As we prepare to actually move and reside there and see what life really ends up being like, this is both a weird and encouraging feeling.

I look forward to figuring this out personally and in the newsletter, but I think Spain feels like home because of the way I live my day-to-day life. I’m pretty obsessive about getting up in the morning and—after having coffee with my wife at home—taking a walk. Making the rounds through the neighborhood. Working a bit, then, maybe going out again for a yoga class or some other activity sprinkled somewhere in there.

While this is my life in Los Angeles, it’s not the ideal urban environment to live that life. Some of it requires a car. And the walking is usually just average. For years I have longed to live in a place that does urban planning and design well, in terms of preserving, leveraging and improving what exists. I’m writing another piece I will tell you about soon where I expand on that line of thinking.

But I think it comes down to testing and visioning day-to-day life. When we were in Barcelona, I spent a couple of days when my wife was sick just navigating the city as close to the way I would if we lived there. It almost felt as if I had been doing it for years, even with limited Spanish. There’s just a vibe I have with living the city life to the fullest extent, not as some novelty, but in the day to day.

To this end—if you told me we could live in San Francisco or New York for the cost of living in Spain, I’d still go to Spain. Even in those places, we half ass urban living in America. That’s the focus of the other piece I’m writing so I’ll leave this part there. But—basically—as it stands, Spain’s large cities provide a good value as well as more financial wiggle room, which is always nice to have in the sometimes precarious world of freelance writing.

To this end times two—life’s biggest expenses, primarily the ones that can hit you in the second act of life, will cost less in Spain. Healthcare is a fraction of the cost there than in America and, by pretty much all accounts, it’s better. And, maybe most importantly, within a few years, we should be able to buy a small apartment in the city. This is literally something we could not do in a large—or even smaller—American city.

We’re not looking to get more for our money. We’re just looking to enter old age with, preferably, no house payment at all, but most definitely one that’s less than what it costs to rent the same apartment in Los Angeles (under rent control) or in Spain.

Work. My wife is a business owner in Los Angeles. While she’ll still own the business when we move, she wants out of the line of work. She’ll transition to working as an artist, ultimately opening up her own studio, which brings some pretty cool known and unknown possibilities.

She knows the cost of doing business in Los Angeles. And, while she could open a place here—(she has done it before and managed to make it successful for more than a decade)—she should be able to do it at a much more appropriate scale—financially, resource-wise and otherwise—in Spain.

For me, I have this sense that I can take what I do as a freelance writer to the next level and maybe even stumble into some other interesting areas. I have lots of ideas, but—even more exciting—I have a feeling that there are opportunities out there for us both that neither of us have even thought about.

While I’m not one to believe in the universe bringing you things or manifesting opportunity, I am a person who leads with my feelings. I’m introspective and sensitive, which might actually go a long way to answering how I experience and develop thoughts about city life. Anyhow, this leads to the final reason—politics.

As much as I don’t like Trump the person or the things he says he wants to do, I dislike the feeling in the country even more. This said—politics can be bonkers in Spain as well. What’s happening in Valencia now is pretty crazy and shares similarities to what we see here. I’m thinking about doing an installment or two on it, but I am hesitant since I don’t have as good of a grasp of things as I do here. But we’ll see.

To this end times three—I venture that there’s a lot more logic, restraint and, relatively speaking, adults in the room in Spain than in the United States. Or I lack connection to and deeper knowledge of the political dynamics in Spain and it’s every bit as toxic as it is in Trump’s America. While there might be a hint of truth to that, I feel comfortable stopping at a hint.

I think I will gather my thoughts and—soon—write a couple of installments on what has transpired in Valencia and Spanish politics after the floods, comparing the events to what we see/have seen in America.

But—bottom line—I prefer the sociopolitical climate in Spain. And I see greater potential for politics to do some good (see urban planning initiatives for one) in Spain, at least relative to the impossibility of much material and observable good happening here, no matter who’s in power.

Never Retire: Living The Semi-Retired Life

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