Discover Spain, One Blog at a Time
Spain continues to be one of the world’s most popular destinations for expats, retirees, students, remote workers, and professionals seeking
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) Every April, a certain kind of expat arrives in Valencia, sun-kissed and looking
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) Madrid. Not a particularly pretty city, Hemingway wrote in Death in the Afternoon. It’s sometimes
By Max Milano (Travel Writer and Photographer) This is part five of a six part El Camino de Santiago Roadtrip.
The Dark Reality Behind the Spanish Driving Test Industry By Max Milano (Travel Writer) Spain, we need to talk.I know
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) Morning is quiet and thick with mist. After nearly a month on the Road to
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Spain continues to be one of the world's most popular destinations for expats, retirees, students, remote workers, and professionals seeking a new lifestyle. Whether you are planning to retire on the Mediterranean coast, work remotely from Valencia, study in Barcelona, or relocate with your family, choosing the right visa is one of the most important first steps. Each Spanish visa has its own eligibility criteria, documentation requirements, and health insurance obligations. While visa regulations can…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) Every April, a certain kind of expat arrives in Valencia, sun-kissed and looking for the shore, but I am not talking about the humans who fill the cafés in Benidorm with their flamingo-like sunburns and lager, I am talking about the real flamingos that come back to the Albufera lagoon south of Valencia and farther down to the salt lakes of Santa Pola. They arrive from Africa, from…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) Madrid. Not a particularly pretty city, Hemingway wrote in Death in the Afternoon. It’s sometimes as if its grandiose buildings could be anywhere, Buenos Aires, for example. But it’s when one sees that deep blue, high-desert winter sky and the snow dusting the jagged peaks of the Sierra de Guadarrama as they loom above the city that one realizes it can’t be anywhere else but Madrid. But things have changed…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer and Photographer) This is part five of a six part El Camino de Santiago Roadtrip. You can read the rest of the chapters here. Hanging around Santiago de Compostela, surrounded by unenthusiastic pilgrims completing their camino by feebly posing for social media posts, was getting me down. So we decided to head out to Cape Fisterra, the end of the earth as the Romans thought. Only later did we learn…
The Dark Reality Behind the Spanish Driving Test Industry By Max Milano (Travel Writer) Spain, we need to talk.I know that we expats, particularly those of us from the United States, are often seen as privileged, maybe even entitled. And sure, many of us arrive with advantages. But the truth is that Americans and Northern Europeans who choose to make Spain their home bring a lot into the economy. We spend locally, we pay taxes,…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) Morning is quiet and thick with mist. After nearly a month on the Road to Santiago, it feels like forever. My feet sink into the cold water of a Galician ría, eyes fixed on the fjord-like channel ahead until it vanishes into fog. The pines across the ría blur between green and gray, their slopes hidden by a drifting veil of fog that slides down to the waterline. Coastal Galicia…
By Max Milano Dusk on Laredo beach. My feet sink into the wet sand as the last surf pulls back. We’ve come a long, hot way from La Rioja, via Vitoria-Gasteiz, skirting Bilbao’s police state cameras and slow-motion speed traps on the freeways and B roads. We’ve been chasing the coast, longing for cooler air. It was an asphalt-melting thirty-five degrees today in Vitoria-Gasteiz. We find relief on the Cantabrian shore. Laredo. A name that…
A Pilgrim’s Road Trip Along the Camino de Santiago By Max Milano, Travel Writer & Photographer It has been a long, tough road to get to La Rioja, Spain’s premier wine region, but it’s been worth it. We’ve set our GPS to avoid tolls so we can really see the country. The freeways in Spain are antiseptic and empty, skirting small towns and cities like a gerrymandered political map. We want to see the little…
A Pilgrim’s Road Trip Along the Camino de Santiago By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) “We’re staying in a retirement home for old ETA members,” I hear my wife say from the bedroom as I sip a Scotch and Coke Zero on the balcony of the Hotel Arriaga in Bilbao. Below me, a narrow alley funnels the whole of humanity into the maze of Bilbao's Old Town. I hear Dutch. German. Latin American Spanish.…
A Pilgrim’s Road Trip Along the Camino de Santiago By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) The Med in August is hot like fish soup. The air hangs heavy. The palms don’t move and the heat rides up from the Sahara with the sirocco. Yellow dust settles at dusk, and it’s 9:30 p.m. before the sun drops, because Spain still runs on Berlin time, a gift from Franco to Hitler that no one’s bothered to…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) I’m standing on a wobbly iron bridge bolted to the cliffs of Cuenca. They say it’s built in the Eiffel style, but when you step out onto it, it feels more Indiana Jones than Paris. The metal creaks underfoot. Hundreds of feet below, a river snakes through a canyon so deep you can hear it before you see it. Thick brush hides the water, but nothing hides the…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) I, like most tourists and expats, must’ve driven past Sagunto a hundred times. Always between Valencia and Barcelona. Always in a rush. The AP-7 skirts along the Mediterranean, passing citrus groves, factory outlets, beach towns with nondescript condos, and even a Roman aqueduct. But then there’s that hill, the one crowned by an ancient fortress that seems to grow out of the stone itself. I never stopped. Most tourists don’t.…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) We didn’t do the Camino to find ourselves. We did the Camino de Santiago because the Mediterranean summer tried to kill us. We weren’t looking for God, inner peace, or enlightenment. We did it because in July on the Costa Blanca the air stops moving and the Med becomes a hot lake. Fish soup. The sea is so hot and still that even the Roman garum vats that dot the…
At some point in every expat’s journey through Spain, somewhere between your third bocadillo de jamón and your first encounter with the dreaded Ayuntamiento, you’ll feel it. That itch. The one that whispers, 'You need to start a business.' Maybe it’s a beachside café. Maybe a yoga retreat in the hills of Ronda. Maybe you’ve got a software idea you swear will change the world, or at least solve one weird Spanish paperwork problem. Whatever…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) The day of the driving test finally came. Months of waiting. Over a thousand euros spent on driving school fees, paperwork, and lessons. He’d already flunked the first written exam. This was the last chance before the whole thing reset. Another fail would mean 300 euros to re-enroll in the school. The written exam stayed valid for two years, but the rest? Gone. Then 50 euros per driving lesson, with…
by Max Milano (Travel Writer). Valencian fishermen leave port before dawn to haul in the day’s catch, so there’s something about being out on a boat under the hot midday sun that makes them tired and hungry. It was out on the warm waters of the Mediterranean, just off the coast of Gandia, sometime in the early 20th century (around the 1930s) that a hungry captain aboard the Santa Isabel waited for his lunch. He…
Let’s start with a shocking truth: supermarkets in Spain are closed on Sundays. Closed. As in, shut down tighter than a Spanish pharmacy during siesta time. You’ve just stumbled out of bed on Sunday morning (after a big Saturday night), bleary-eyed, craving an orange juice, and boom, nada. No Mercadona. No Carrefour. Then, after wandering aimlessly along the quiet Sunday morning streets, you may or may not stumble upon a shady corner store with a…
When Sarah, a British expat living in Alicante, decided to sell her sunny two-bedroom apartment near the beach, she assumed it would be easy. After all, Spain’s property market seemed hot, and the flat was in great condition, with a spacious balcony and sea views. She uploaded a few photos to a popular property portal, listed the price slightly higher than she had paid a few years ago, and waited for the calls to come…
Lawyer Up To Avoid Scams, Squatters, Bureaucracy, and Costly Mistakes when Purchasing Property In Spain As An Expat Buying or selling property in Spain can be one of the most rewarding moves of your life. Whether it is a beachfront villa, an investment apartment in a growing market, or your next full-time residence, the Spanish property market offers exciting opportunities for expats. However, those opportunities come with significant legal and bureaucratic challenges that are often…
Use This Checklist to Simplify the Complex Spain Real Estate Buying Process The buying process in Spain is different from what many foreign buyers expect. If you want to avoid delays, hidden surprises, and unnecessary stress, it is essential to understand the whole buying process before you start house hunting in Spain. This checklist walks you through every stage of the Spanish property buying journey: From finding the right home to signing at the notary…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) Spain and fiestas go hand in hand, like jamón, paella, and sangría in the sun-soaked dreams of travelers the world over. Hemingway started that dream. His first novel, Fiesta (published as The Sun Also Rises in the U.S.), burned the image into the world's mind: bulls thundering through narrow alleys, chasing drunk Americans as they slipped and stumbled over Pamplona's cobblestones. But fiestas in Spain aren't made for…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) There is a reason why so many bright-eyed expats arrive in Spain full of hope and sunshine, only to end up neck-deep in housing disasters, unread WhatsApp messages, and real estate contracts that look like they were written during the Inquisition. One minute, you're sipping cañas and daydreaming about tile work. Next, you're begging a landlord in Valencia to explain why he wants 12 months of rent in cash and…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) The day begins with dust, dry air, and a sun sharp as glass, even this early. Aragon opens on the road before us. We’re in high desert country. Red and ancient. Carved by history and silence. Orwell called it beautiful in the snow, even with machine guns on the hills. Today, it's just hot. Aragon is an arid, high inland desert that extends from the snow-capped Pyrenees Mountains…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) It begins, as these stories often do, with a pint of lager at 9 in the morning. We’re deep in the heart of the British zone, inside a place called “The Queen Vic,” and the man beside us has just announced that he’s on his third pint of the day and still hasn´t had breakfast. His skin is redder than a bullfighter’s cape, and he swears that the…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) It's late at night, and darkness engulfs us as I drive southbound on Highway AP-7 between Barcelona and Tarragona. I am thinking of the Roman Empire because Highway AP-7 follows the ancient Roman road, the Via Augusta, which once linked Cadiz with Rome. Traffic is light, but mosquitoes swarm the car, challenging visibility. Our windshield wiper fluid is exhausted, leaving smeared bugs obstructing the view. Every few kilometers,…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) In the quiet suburb of Lliria, just outside Valencia, Spain, I find myself standing beneath an apartment building, where a grand subterranean space was once meant to be a parking lot for the luxury apartments above. But a builder's shovel struck more than just rock; it hit a Roman tombstone. The city's swift intervention preserved the site, at the cost of the building losing its underground parking. This is a…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) When one thinks of Spain, the image of a steaming paella often dances through our collective minds. It's practically a culinary postcard from España. But hold onto your forks! Upon touching down in Valencia, some of you might be shocked to discover that what we've been calling Paella all this time is actually called "Arroz a la Marinera", which is a delightful mix of rice, saffron, and seafood.…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer & Photographer) I'm deep inside the ruins of the Roman Forum in Cartagena, Spain. This was New Carthage (Carthago Nova). The sight of 2000-year-old amphorae, mosaics, and Corinthian columns is mind-blowing. Ancient lewd graffiti on the walls reflect the phallocratic obsessions of the average classical Roman. Two stories above us, in the modern city, a Spanish waiter yells at someone in an even more lewd tone, invoking the same phalluses…
By Max Milano (Travel Writer) A green sea of rice sways in the wind, stretching as far as my eyes can see. It's a magic carpet of green waves shimmering under the bright Valencian sun. Just weeks ago, this was all water - a vast lagoon, an inland sea divided by dirt roads extending for miles. But today, all you see are green waves with golden flashes as the rice stalks dance in the breeze,…
From the Road to Damascus to an island paradise in the Mediterranean, because even Saints need to relax once in a while. Welcome to Tabarca Island (once known as Saint Paul’s Island, as it was rumored that St. Paul stopped there on his travails), the perfect antidote to the hustle and bustle of Alicante and Benidorm.