New Friends in Nerja

Exploring this cute coastal town in Spain

Mid-November 2023

Part of the joy and beauty of traveling is in meeting new people, and how lovely it is to be introduced to friends of friends! We met Ricardo, Michele, and their kids through my friend, Dene. At one point we all lived in the Bay Area, though they are all from South Africa.

Ricardo, Michele, and their family set out on their own global adventure pre-pandemic, first spending time in Tahoe, then traveling a bit like we’re doing now, and finally landing in Spain. They’re currently in a lovely little town along the Costa del Sol called Nerja.

They invited us over to their house and we sat out on the patio sharing our journeys until the kids tired of “adult talk” and went off on their own. We were still new in our journey when we met them and hearing their own challenges and motivations was inspiring.

Later in the afternoon we walked into town, ate some gelato, watched the sun start to set, and grabbed some dinner together. Nerja is full of walking-only paths, so you can easily wander the heart of the town. I imagine it’s swarming with people and sweltering in the summer but it was perfect in mid-November. In fact, we liked it quite a lot and immediately thought: We could live here!

Of course, we were just beginning our adventure, but since we ended up liking Spain so much, we did subsequently seek out a tax attorney to get a better understanding of the financial side of what living in Spain might look like. We knew we could qualify for the non-lucrative visa (NLV), but any investments we cashed out to live on would then be taxed in Spain as income.

I won’t bore you with the details, but we learned enough to realize that for us, Spain would likely take far more of our money via taxes than we could make peace with. So, sadly, Spain will have to be a place to continue visiting versus live in. Nevertheless, we really liked the Costa del Sol and Nerja especially. And we never would’ve discovered it were it not for Michele and Ricardo.

I wish we had personal connections in all of the places we’re visiting. They make such a big difference! Have you been to Nerja or the Costa del Sol in Spain? What did you think? What places have you visited that were significantly enhanced because of a personal connection you had?