Welcome to Anyone Moving to Lanzarote
Hello, and welcome to our Blog - all about relocating to Lanzarote! We are Alan and Elle, who moved to this beautiful island of Lanzarote - Playa Blanca to be precise - September 24th 2006 to be exact. We decided we’d set up this Blog to provide some useful, unbiased information for those who might be considering emigrating to Lanzarote themselves. We love it here - and, if we say so ourselves we’ve been pretty successful so far!
Why? Simple. Because in our time here, and before we moved here, we had the practical help and moral support of a number of good people on the Island which helped us immensely. And, since being here, we’ve done our best to help others too… The move is so much easier with a bit of support from people already on the island, and it doesn’t take much effort on our part to help others out. We spent a lot of time on forums before making the move, getting to know people, and doing our research. It’s a great place to get started… But we decided to write this Blog to, over time, provide a simple resource in one simple place by dropping in articles, useful snippets, general information, interlaced with a few of our personal experiences - good and bad…. Also, should you want to throw us any specific questions we’ll also use those to direct future content (just add a comment somewhere or send us an email). We hope you enjoy what we put together as it begins to take shape.
We’re not trying to sell you anything (well, strictly speaking that’s not entirely true, we do have a web design and marketing business here, so we’d hope you’d want to talk to us about that if you’re setting up business), but it’s not our intention to push that through this site, we don’t have an agenda, this is just something of a hobby for us… (we have never got around to having Sky fitted so don’t watch much TV!)
Here’s our top ten tips, they might sound cynical - but you’ll learn soon enough,
- Take the rose tinted glasses off - it’s not as easy as you might think…
- Make sure you have enough money to tide you over until you get on your feet…
- Do your research…
- Don’t rush into buying a property in Lanzarote until you are sure you’ve done the right thing…
- It’s not one big holiday - and, if you’re used to coming here on holiday, you’ll find living here quite different…
- If you have to work for a living, it’s unlikely in most cases you’ll be able to stay in your existing profession - many occupations will be closed to you unless your Spanish is fluent…
- Very few people earn what they could in the UK, wages are poor by comparison…
- Try to learn the Spanish lingo - it’s hard work, but you’ll notice the difference in the way you get treated - it’s good manners to try to speak the language, no matter how little you know. Remember, the days of the Empire are gone - we are the ‘immigrants’ here…
- It’s wise to listen to personal recommendations - as ‘back home’, there are sharks and not everyone is what they seem…
- Mañana means exactly that, you’re simply going to have to get used to it…
Perhaps that all sounds a little pessimistic, but if you do choose to make the move you’ll thank us for it - as we have thanked others for the same advice since we arrived.
We do not receive any paying advertising on this blog site whatsoever - and would like to thank those individuals that have provided informative articles for us, in order to help those of you contemplating relocating to Lanzarote.
If you’re still thinking of moving to Lanzarote - good luck! We hope you find our ramblings useful…
Alan and Elle
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