One of the first practical questions anyone weighing a move to Spain asks is also one of the hardest to get a straight answer to, which is simply what the utilities cost. What will it really run, month after month, to keep the lights on, the water flowing and the home warm or cool, across …
When an American couple marries, they simply become married, and the question of who owns what tends to surface only later, usually in the unhappy event of a divorce, when the courts sort it out according to state law. When a couple marries in Spain, something quieter and more consequential happens at the very moment …
There is a bottle of sparkling wine sitting on Spanish shelves that is made by exactly the same painstaking method as Champagne, ages for months or years in cool stone cellars gathering the same toasty, biscuity complexity, and comes from vineyards an easy drive from Barcelona, yet costs a fraction of what a comparable Champagne …
To an American, laundry is a simple, fast, high-volume affair. You toss a big load into a large machine, run it hot, throw it in the dryer, and you are done in an hour or two, several times a week. To a European, that same routine can look careless, wasteful and a little baffling, because …
On a hot night in Spain in August, when the idea of cooking anything is unbearable and appetites have shrunk in the heat, dinner is often almost absurdly simple. Cold sweet melon, cut into wedges or wrapped in slices, draped with thin curls of cured ham. That is the whole meal, or most of it, …
In America, an unmarried couple who live together are, in the eyes of the law, mostly just two people who happen to share an address. There is no official category for them, no registration that recognizes their partnership, no in-between status between total legal invisibility and full marriage. In Spain there is exactly such a …
A 64-year-old woman in a small Spanish town spends €127 per year on what an American wellness influencer would call her “stack.” Her annual list: a bottle of quality extra virgin olive oil every three months (€80), one pair of good walking shoes replaced every two years (€40 annual amortization), a small monthly supply of …
A man in his late sixties in Córdoba finishes lunch at 3:15pm. A bowl of gazpacho, a piece of grilled lamb with roasted vegetables, two pieces of bread, a small glass of red wine. He clears the dishes and walks to his bedroom. The shutters are already closed against the afternoon sun. The room is …
An American couple from Ohio arrives at a public pool in Valencia on a Tuesday morning in July. The pool is half full. A grandmother in her sixties is doing slow laps. Two women in their thirties are reading on loungers. Several teenagers are playing in the deep end. About half the women are topless. …
Updated for 2026: We first published this Omio review back in 2024, and a lot has changed since — Omio is now live in 47 countries, added ferries, and launched in Japan. We’ve refreshed the whole thing below with current prices and features. If you want our full hands-on test of the new Japan booking, …
Of all the shocks that await the American who moves to Spain, this is the one almost nobody sees coming, and it is among the most maddening. You have been driving for forty years. You have a spotless record and a valid license from your home state. And roughly six months after you become a …
In August, Spain splits in two. The great cities, Madrid above all, drain of their people and fall strangely quiet, shops shuttered and streets hushed, while the coast swells to bursting as half the country and much of Europe descends on the beaches at once. It is as if the nation empties out of one …