The Move to Spain: Part I

Some two years after my Camino walk Ann and I made the formal decision to move to Spain in our retirement.  I have been waiting for it to all come together before posting much about the process, and that time is now. The house has been sold, the motorcycles have new owners, the visas are in hand and 60 years of accumulated stuff has been passed on to others.

In the next few posts I will detail why we are going, where we are going to live, what administrative steps it takes to live in Spain as retired, non-working Americans and finally how it all comes together as we arrive in Spain on May 11th and go about finding a place to live and begin this new chapter in our lives.

Briefly, we are going because I was first attracted to the healthy lifestyle in Spain while walking the Camino de Santiago in 2016 and after two visits Ann agreed that we needed another chapter in our lives.

We plan to spend our first year (or more) in ASTORGA which is in León province - in the northern part of Spain.  Why we chose that place has many dimensions which I’ll discuss in the next post.

But one hint that may appeal to you is that Astorga is the chocolate capital of Spain and even has a chocolate museum!


For those who may be interested in a similar move I will discuss the steps and resources we used to obtain our non-lucrative residence visa, including some tips on doing it yourself.

We will keep you in the loop on what it takes to find and rent an apartment, complete all the required administrative steps in Spain and ongoing reflections on being a foreigner learning a new language and culture.

We leave for Spain on April 27 from Tampa on a relocation cruise arriving in Barcelona on May 11th.

Let the adventure begin!

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The Other Jew today is actually the community of Jewish people in Astorga.  They somehow managed to gain recognition and exemption from taxes in 1432.  You can read more about it at https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/astorga