Why We Chose Spain Over the UK (Even Though We Loved Britain)

People ask me all the time why we chose Spain over the UK, if we loved Britain so much.

It deserves a proper answer.

When we left the US, we knew it was for good. We just weren’t 100% sure where we’d end up. The paperwork was set up for Spain, but we wanted to look around first and make sure that’s really where we wanted to be.

I’m so glad we did. The search taught us a lot about what we actually value.

We planned three months in the UK first, partly because Rebecca spent part of her childhood in London.

She told me it was a place where mixed families like ours could just exist, without constantly explaining ourselves or our heritage. She still remembers how comfortable she felt there with her dad.

That’s the life I’ve always wanted for us. I’ve spent a lot of my life explaining myself and apologizing for making people uncomfortable.

The US is huge and multicultural in a lot of ways, and there are places where you can absolutely find that. In many ways it’s more progressive than it’s ever been. But there are still areas in every state I just wouldn’t go.

I’m not naive enough to think those places don’t exist in Europe too. The difference I’ve felt is that here, they don’t feel violent.

Back home, it only takes one angry or intolerant person to change your life in a second. That’s what getting on the freeway started to feel like, and I was done with it.

When we landed in the UK, I kept my expectations in the middle. I didn’t want to build up a place I’d never seen.

We started in the Peak District, which felt very rural to me, and I brought all my old caution with me. I stayed on guard for probably the whole first month.

Then the countryside slowly took that apart.

The small towns and villages turned out to be more diverse than I expected, and at the very least, completely fine with us being there. Back home, I just don’t stop in rural areas. In Derbyshire, I slowly let my guard down.

People say traveling gives you perspective, and it does. Staying somewhere for months at a time tells you even more. Traveling through different parts of the UK, I felt a sense of belonging I hadn’t felt before.

It was enough to make me start thinking about something more long term.

Spain was the country we actually had a path to, and it’s far more attainable for a family like ours. We’d heard great things, and we knew plenty of Brits had built a life there too.

Our first couple of months were in Malaga. Coming straight from the UK, the contrast made it hard to settle. Nothing was wrong. We just needed more time to know.

So we went back to the UK to learn more about ourselves and what we wanted. We looked into what a longer future there might take, and for a family like ours, it’s extremely difficult right now.

That made the choice clearer. Spain was the place to put down roots, at least for this chapter.

We also spent time in Crete and Amsterdam, which helped us figure out what we did and didn’t want.

In the end we chose Valencia, mostly for the public transport and how family friendly it felt. Both have turned out to be even better than we hoped.

So here we are, back on the original plan, with a little reluctance because of how much the UK meant to us.

Valencia keeps feeling more right than anywhere else we’ve stayed, and we’re genuinely enjoying building a life here. It hasn’t clicked as our forever place yet, and I’ll save the reasons for another post.

We’re happy here. And we’re still hoping to get back to the UK as often as we can, even if it’s just to visit.