Step-by-Step Planning for Your Year Abroad
Our family’s answer to this was to spend a year as a family immersed in a new and different culture, learning the local ways and the language.
Our family wanted to to experience a local Spanish life so we chose a city with a mostly Spanish population and sent our kids to the local school. In addition to this we wanted to travel and explore as much of our European cultural heritage and family connections as we could during the school holidays or long weekends.
Each family achieves the ‘how’ differently. Most apply for non-lucrative visas that allow them to live in Spain long term without working and therefore must prove sufficient funds to support themselves. Many work remotely back to their home country or come to Spain with sufficient savings for a year. Spain is quite affordable compared to many other countries and is considered the most affordable country in Western Europe. We were lucky enough to have European passports so avoided the visa process and my husband had accrued long service leave that gave us an income.
For us, although we are big city people, we wanted to experience something different and chose to live in a small city: Granada. We were really happy with our choice as it is a manageable, walkable city with many cultural and sporting activities to keep one busy and engaged. Granadinos were welcoming and warm and had time to get to know us.
Most families arrive at the end of August in time for the commencement of the school year in September. This is also when many rental properties turn over and become available after the summer high season. Other families from Australia and New Zealand prefer to arrive in January to follow the southern hemisphere school year.