Editor’s Note: Living the Dream is a series that looks at the experiences of people hoping to make that vacation lifestyle last forever. It follows them across the world as they try to build new lives and explores the practicalities of moving abroad.
After continually moving further and further south in search of sunshine, Gail and Greg Warner, both from the United States, were seriously considering relocating somewhere much further afield.
The couple, who were based in Florida at the time, had traveled to many different countries across the world together and often wondered what it would be like to move to one of them.
“You know how everyone does that, when they’re visiting a place and they go, ‘Oh, I could live here,’” says Gail, originally from Chicago. “But we were serious.”
However, there was always one thing holding them back — their beloved dog Beau.
Canine conundrum
“We have no children, so he (Beau) was like our kid,” says Gail, adding that they felt such a move might be too much for the canine. “And the intention was just to wait it out until he went to the big farm in the sky.”
By 2017, Gail and Greg, who’ve been married for around 35 years, realized that they could retire early if they made some lifestyle changes.
And after spending a lot of time researching “expat life,” Greg understood that they didn’t have to wait until it was just the two of them. They could actually take Beau with them if they made the appropriate arrangements.
“Within about six months of deciding that, we pulled the cord,” adds Greg, who previously worked as a project manager.
Choosing the right place to relocate to wasn’t easy.
Eventually they narrowed it down to Singapore and Spain — two destinations they knew well, and could envision themselves living in.
After weighing up the pros and cons of both, they settled on Spain, mainly due to its closer proximity to the US, which would mean a shorter flight for Beau, who had a heart issue.
“It was one thing to get him to Europe,” says Gail. “But we don’t even want to be on a plane for 27 uninterrupted hours, let alone this poor guy.”
Concluding that the Spanish city of Valencia, situated on Spain’s eastern coast, would suit them best, they arranged a trip there to “test it out.”
“We’d never been there,” explains Greg, originally from Indiana. “And we wanted to see what it was like and make sure it was what we had read about, and seen on YouTube videos.”
The couple then began the process of arranging a non-lucrative visa, which allows non-EU nationals to live in Spain without working provided that they can prove that they have enough money to support themselves.
Starting over
They’d originally planned to leave the United States in December 2018.
But Gail and Greg ended up bringing their move forward several months after a “very, very nice man behind the desk at the embassy” made it clear to them that once their visas were approved, they could head to Spain pretty much whenever they wanted.
“We get back (from the Spanish embassy), and Greg’s like, ‘Guess I’m retiring a little bit earlier than I thought. I’ve got to make some phone calls.’” recalls Gail.
The couple quickly put their Florida home on the market and set about winding down their lives in the United States.
“We did all the paperwork ourselves to file for permanent residency, sold two cars, our home, and 90% of our possessions,” says Gail.
As having a long-term rental contract was one of the requirements for their visa, they already had an apartment set up in Valencia.
“The realtor walked us through it by video call,” Gail recalls. “And we were like, ‘OK, that’s fine.’”
In July 2018, Gail and Greg, who were in their mid-fifties at the time, “shut everything down in Florida” and jetted off to begin their new lives, bringing a few friends along for the journey.
“About one week after I retired, we were on a plane over to Spain,” says Greg.
Once they arrived, the trio moved into a two-bedroom apartment in the “historic core” of Valencia and got themselves acquainted with their new surroundings.
“I’d say, within two weeks easily, we had everything we thought we needed,” says Greg.
“We had figured out where the grocery stores were and where the market was.”
The couple say they hired a mutual friend, who spoke fluent Spanish, to help them with tasks such as setting up a bank account.
“The bank account was probably the most difficult,” says Greg. “But the need to speak the language is what makes it more difficult.”
They settled into life in Spain very quickly, and immediately noticed that the attitudes and priorities of their Spanish neighbors were very different to what they were used to back home.
“I am constantly inspired by people’s ability to enjoy the moment,” says Gail. “And not be like, ‘Oh, if I work even harder, I can get a bigger car. Or, ‘If I work even more, I can get a bigger house.’
“It is just not about that… Everything surrounding you is so absolutely beautiful, and you’re so ingrained in your community that it’s not about showing off.
“It’s being content with what you have and really enjoying whatever the day brings you.”
Cultural differences
As she’d studied Spanish for over a decade during her younger years, Gail hoped the language would come back to her over time.
However, she found that she didn’t remember much more than “useless phrases” that popped into her head every now and again.
“Some things I can rattle off perfectly,” she says. “And other things where, if I’m trying to respond to somebody in real time, it’s tricky. Then they walk away, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I know that.’”
Greg has taken up padel, a hybrid of tennis and squash, which he says is “enormous” in Spain, since their big move and regularly plays with locals.
Although he’s now retired, Greg has noticed that some of the other players will sometimes play in tournaments in the middle of a work day, which is something he can’t ever imagine happening back home.
This aspect of the laidback Spanish lifestyle suits them fine, but there’s one particular difference that Gail and Greg are still adjusting to –— the later lunch and dinner times.
“In Valencia, the restaurants would not open until 2 p.m. for lunch,” says Greg. “We get up and have breakfast at 6:30 a.m or 7 a.m. in the morning and we can’t wait to eat that long.
“And then their dinner won’t start until about 8: 30 p.m. or 9 p.m…. We’re usually in bed by 10:30 p.m. So that’s way too late.”
They also admit that they’d gotten used to being able to get most things whenever they wanted when they were living in the US, and have to adapt to the idea of shops closing “For siesta”.
“So if it’s 2 p.m. and you go, ‘Oh, we ran out of soap.’ Well, you’re waiting until 5 p.m., if the store even opens again,” says Gail.
While they initially had private medical insurance, another requirement for their visa, the couple signed up for the Spanish public health service after a year in the country, and have been very impressed by the standard of care, as well as the lower costs.
“I think the health care system here is so much better,” says Greg. “The quality of care is better. The cost is unbelievably less expensive.”
Gail goes on to recount how they misheard the price of Greg’s prescription when they visited a pharmacy, and asked the pharmacist if they could pay by card.
“She kind of looked at me funny,” says Gail. “So she runs the card, and he gets the receipt and it was one euro and four cents, and he’d thought it was 104 euros.”
Forming connections
Over the years, the couple say they’ve “basically formed a family composed of Spaniards and fellow expats from both the US and Canada as well as France.”
And according to Gail and Greg, they have Beau to thank for many of the friendships they’ve developed while living in Spain.
“Dogs just open up a whole different world… We made so many dear friends, literally, just because of Beau,” says Gail.
“Lots of people just can’t resist a cute dog. So either he would pull up to someone and we’d have a conversation, or they would come to him — because he’s so cute — and then the conversation was open.”
Sadly, Beau passed away in 2022.
“He stuck around for a good three and a half years (after we moved,)” says Greg. “And I bet it (relocating) was easier for him than it was for us. He seemed more outgoing here than he was in the States.”
On reflection, Gail and Greg are very glad that they opted to move to Spain with Beau in tow rather than waiting it out.
“I’m so thankful in so many ways, that we had him when we came over,” says Gail.
Although the couple have both made learning — or re-learning in Gail’s case –— the language a priority, they still feel as though they’re not at the stage that they’d like to be.
“I can understand a lot better than I can speak,” says Greg. “It’s taking me a lot longer than I ever thought it would to be able to speak it (Spanish) simply.”
After five years in Valencia, Gail and Greg decided to move to Malaga City in the Costa del Sol, a region of Southern Spain.
Now that they’ve lived outside of the US for so long, the couple say they can’t imagine ever moving back, and feel as though they were often on a “hamster wheel” before.
Adopted home
“You don’t really realize how much of that is going on and how overt it is until you leave it,” says Gail. “And you’re like, ‘Why would you kill yourself like that?… It’s easy for us, from this vantage point, to see it.”
Some of the Spanish people they meet can’t understand why they would ever leave the United States, and the couple say they believe that it’s actually “the perfect place to be” when you’re working.
“It is a land of opportunity if you’re willing to sacrifice a lot,” says Gail, conceding that they made some “smart investments” along the way. “Yeah, I will give you that to this day.
“We were just born there, so that was nothing but dumb luck. And we were opportunistic, so we took advantage of that. It is the last place we would want to be without having to work.”
Gail and Greg now consider Spain as “home” and say that the United States “felt like a foreign country” when they took their first trip back in 2023.
“Just the crush of humanity that is around you all the time,” says Greg. “It seemed like everybody was in a rush.
“And then that gets you tense, because you’re like, ‘Wait a minute. I’m sorry I’m in your way.’”
He says he can’t think of anywhere else in the world that appeals to him as much as Spain now.
“I’d be very depressed if we had to move back to the US somewhere,” he says.
Gail was surprised to find that many of their relatives didn’t seem particularly interested in their lives in Spain, but says she’s thankful that they’re “happy where they are.”
“They know our guest room (with a view of the Mediterranean) is always open to them,” she says.
Last year, Gail, whose maternal grandparents were from Slovenia, hired a researcher to help track down some of her relatives, and has since traveled over to the country to visit.
“I doubt that would have happened had we stayed in the US,” she says.
Earlier this month, several areas of eastern Spain, including Valencia and Malaga, were impacted by extreme rain and flooding.
Gail and Greg hope to be able to volunteer to help those affected in the coming weeks.
“The floods were horrific,” says Gail. “Fortunately our neighborhood was not impacted. However, we have friends in both Valencia and here in the city of Malaga that were not so fortunate.”
The couple say they’d advise anyone considering moving to a completely new destination to really throw themselves into the experience and accept that their lives likely won’t be the same as they were before.
“The people that struggle the most are the ones that are, for whatever reason, just trying to replicate the life they had in the place that they left,” says Gail.
“So it’s not that they’re actively shutting out traditions and the environment… But they just bitch about stuff…
“Like, ‘I can’t find soft pretzels.’ And I’m like, ‘Why are you looking for things that don’t even exist here? Just go with it.’”
Gail and Greg couldn’t be happier with their new lives, but the couple do have one regret about leaving the United States and starting over in Spain.
“For people who are sort of on the fence and thinking about it. Honestly, my only regret is that we didn’t do it earlier,” says Gail.
