Our Life as Expats in Spain: An Update

In my mind before moving to Spain for a gap service year, I expected that I’d be blogging constantly, sharing all about the differences I have been experiencing here. But an unsurprising thing has happened the more time we spend in Madrid, with this now being our almost fourth month living in Spain: there’s nothing to blog about because this is simply our home.

I have learned the major difference this month specifically in being tourists and travelers, or travelers and expats. As a tourist, I would take pictures of every encounter, every single iota of a difference from the U.S. was documented. My love of that began back in 2017 when Logan and I spent time in Guatemala, the Bahamas and Costa Rica. We both craved more of that and wanted to know what life was like for culture beyond just our culture in the U.S. Every year, our love for the world grew. And slowly but surely, we were becoming expats, not just travelers.

I don’t come on here to blog about our life in Spain because it’s simply our life now. In comparison, do you need to call someone to tell them that you’re at the supermarket, that you’re in your car heading to a nearby town or that you are taking your kids to school? While life in Spain is still so different than life was in the U.S., it’s our new normal. Our new normal just happens to be in a different country with a different language and culture.

Our service gap year has slowly turned into two years of commitment to live in Spain, specifically Madrid. We are very aware that our hearts may change at anytime on where is best for our family to call home, but for now it is evident that it’s supposed to be Spain.

Thanks for joining us on our early treks, our time as tourists and our time as travelers. Life as an expat with children in an international school has always been a dream of mine, so it’s so bittersweet to be living that out. Follow along on Instagram at www.instagram.com/goanddogood for a daily post of our life in Madrid along with highlights of good hotels nearby and other expat, family travel and remote work abroad tips.