Ranking UNESCO World Heritage Sites
How to Disappear Completely (Yet Let Everyone Know You’re Living Your Best Life in Spain)
Moving to Spain and leaving your normal life behind is a simple, 28-step process. I’ll explore that process, below, in waaaaaaay more depth than you could ever possibly care about. Step 1: Choose an Independent, Work-From-Anywhere Profession (We failed here, initially. Luckily, somehow or another, we recovered). My wife and I are both practicing attorneys. We work crazy hours (50-70 hours a week). And, if you know anything about our profession, it’s all-consuming. It is your life. This means checking and responding to emails at night and on weekends. It also means long, unhealthy hours in an office chair staring at a computer screen, worried about deadlines, dealing with crazy clients, and thinking we never have enough time for it all. Throw in three young, needy kids (and take away a lot of childcare help) along with a general hatred of our profession, and you have our predicament. Over a decade ago, when we graduated law school, we immediately went on a yearlong “gap” trip around the world. We weren’t ready to work, work, work, up until we died. Have you heard about that study about people on their deathbeds? Basically, their biggest regrets are that they worked too much. We all know this without a study. But there we were slaving away. One thing we did do years ago, however, is to sorta chart our own course with respect to our profession. When we moved from Los Angeles to San Diego – for me to get my post-doctorate degree (because one cannot have ENOUGH debt), my wife was able to keep her legal job and work remotely. Remote work is practically unheard of in our profession, but her years of putting in extra hours at the office gave her some clout and the firm didn’t want to lose her. And, after years of toiling for awful, egomaniacal bosses, I too became semi-independent by opening up my own law practice (and after five years, I gave up this practice because I had secured basically the only other possible legal job that allowed me to work remotely – #blessed). Now, Millennials are much smarter than us, in this respect. They don’t have baby boomer parents to model themselves after. So they don’t appear to seek the same fortunes – big mortgage, large car payment, huge credit card debt, enormous pressure to keep up with the Joneses. (Or maybe they do but realize it’s unattainable. But that’s a story for another day.) And, if you’re not tied down to such material possessions, you are able to move about the world. So, choose your profession accordingly. Digital nomads may be happier than the rest of us…. Step 2: Have an Absolute, Unapologetic, Midlife Crisis This was easy for me. I had been mired in a midlife crisis for about a decade. Big, philosophical questions kept popping up in my head. I was constantly questioning my decision making. Why did I become a lawyer? Why wasn’t I an archeologist? I mean, money was the answer to both of those questions…but you get the idea. The big thing was, I felt like at the pace I was going, I would be 50+ years old and wouldn’t remember the past 10+ years. Stuck in a routine and I tend to mix all my days up. And then days turn into weeks, into months, into years, etc. I remember most of my college days (even though I was drinking heavily). Those were exciting and fun and novel and filled with interesting people and adventures. And our post-law school trip around the world was impossible to forget. Almost every day held an amazing adventure. Ten years removed from that trip, and I barely remembered (or, at least, cared about) anything from the past ten years (except, as my wife loves to point out – our marriage, the birth of our three kids, yada yada, this is where I tune her out blah blah blah, etc. etc. etc.). Step 3: Figure Out that Spain is the Place to be So, where do you go and how do you determine that? You could just pull out a map and chuck darts at it blindfolded. And when your dart hits Djibouti, if that doesn’t float your boat, really study the map to determine what you want. We wanted a lot of culture, a new language, good weather, and a place that was central to other cool spots around the world. Oh, and, it had to be cheap. We initially chose Greece, because it was incredibly cheap. But we read that the schools were bad, the country wasn’t overly efficient (read that as you wish), and the, uh, alphabet was all Greek to me. So Greece was out. Looking around, we saw that Spain had a reasonable visa process. It was also close to not only Europe but Africa as well. It had a language that we already sorta understood (seven years of Spanish and I could almost order beers off of a menu). And Spain was cheap (about 40% cheaper than the cost of living in San Diego, California). So Spain it was. I think you’ll agree, so I just made your decision for you. You’re welcome. Step 4: Really, Really do your Research We missed city life, as we lived for quite some time in San Francisco and Los Angeles. But now we were living in suburb hell. And we wanted to get away from the slow, beachy surf town that we lived in (sounds awful, right?). But where to in Spain? We had only been to Madrid and Barcelona in our previous trips to Spain. But those two cities just seemed to big. We wanted a city, but not that big of a city. So, our research led us to Seville (rhymes with “agree” OR rhymes with “agree-a” OR rhymes with “coup de ville”… it just depends on who you ask I suppose). Seville was a large city (but not too large). It was warm (one of the