sarahandjohn

Hi everybody,

My name is Sarah and along with my husband John and two daughters age nearly 2 and nearly 5 are hoping to move to Estepona within the next year of so. We love Estepona and have been a few times and are going back out at the end of October for a good look around again. We are hiring a car (for the first time) and have got an apartment instead of hotel so we can fend for ourselves a bit more.

My husband is in IT, Project Manager/Consultant and earns a good wage here in the UK. We are hoping to buy a house in the Estepona area and will have a budget of about £250,000.

John will be looking for a job and we were thinking of Gib as it looks like there are quite a few jobs there in IT/Manager. Does anybody have any advice regarding this.

My two daughters would be going to a Spanish school as we really want them to mingle with the local children and become "spanish" in the way of life and language.

We are all learning spanish at the moment and are going to hire a private tutor to help us more within the next 6 months once we have got to grip the basic words and phrases.

Any advice on moving to Spain with the children, schools in the area, jobs and anything else you can help us with would be wonderful.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards.

Sarah

mrsjdr

Hi Sarah and John, welcome to the Forum. If you do a search on this site I am sure you will find all the answers to your questions, there is a thread on here regarding working in Gib, and many on young children and schools etc.,

If you also check out the "free beer" thread at the top of page 1 you will see JDR has listed many links to helpful sites.

Good luck

sarahandjohn

Thanks Mrs JDR,

Glad to have a friendly reply, I have been on some other forums on other sites and people haven't been very friendly and very negative!! I know it is a very big step and we are doing lots of re-search ourselves, it is just good to hear things from people who are already out there.

Thanks again.

I will be in touch.

Sarah

TheArmChairDetective

Hi Srah,
Welcome to the site.

Big_john

Hi Sarah,

Welcome to the site, and to you new life in Spain.

I used to live in Estepona, I bought an 3 old houses in the Cacso Viejo and then rebuilt them after knocking them all down and then rebuilding as one but in the same old style exactly.

Wonderful place to live all the locals are dead friendly, they have some fantastic fiestas that take over the whole town for a week at a time.
Your kids will really enjoy life there, it still has that real soanish village feel even though it is right in the heart of the Costa del Sol

My Spanish family are Esteponearians and have lived there for generations.
It has a great central market daily for fish, meat and vegetables, 3 very large good supermarkets and you are very close to Gib for your husband's work

The Port there has good nightlife & bars & restaurants & unlike Banus does not attract the trouble.

The very best of luck

onlineamiga

Hi Sarah,

I can certinately relate to your post. I too am heading out to the Costa Del Sol, probably Estapona area because of its proximity to Gibraltar.
I am in IT Support so will be hoping to find an IT job out there too.

Once i am settled my partner and her baby who is 16 months old will also be coming out to join me.

So we will probably have a lot in common! Initially I am just renting, im not ready to buy a property yet.

Can i recommend you join the New to the Costa Del Sol meet up group? http://spanish.meetup.com/736/ Its free. Im just trying to get a good group of peop;e around the Costa Del Sol area together who are new and who arent, so that when you do come over you will have familiary people you can talk to.

Best of luck and hope to see you out there in October! I go in 5 days!!

sarahandjohn

Hi Onlineamega,

Wow 5 days time, you must be excited but scared at the same time.

I would love to keep in touch with you regarding your move, jobs etc. I have just joined your "meet up" site and would love to meet up when we come in October if that would be at all possible, I would love to hear about your adventures and what you think to it all. I would be terrified going out there on my own so "you go girl"!

I wish you lots of luck. I will be on here most days from now on finding out as much as I can so if you have any info I would be really grateful. If you happen to stumble across anybody there whose children go to an Estepona Primary School (Spanish) I would be grateful for any info there, also with the job situation in Gib.

Stay safe, good luck and have fun.

Warm regards.

Sarah

sarahandjohn

Sorry onlineamega, just realised I said "go girl" didn't mean to put that!!!

Too excited you see my head is full of everything regarding the move!

My husband is driving backto Yorkshire from Reading at the moment, just bombarded him with all this forum stuff and your new meet up site!!

Anyway I look forward to hearing from you. Good luck to you and your family.

Sarah

sarahandjohn

Hi "Big John",

Thanks for all of your friendly input. We are so looking forward to coming out again in October. Got a 2 week holiday in Mexico in June so we can brush up on some Spanish whilst we are out there too.

I will be in touch and look forward to any other issues or advice you could help us with.

One thing that I would be really grateful for, do you happen to know the names of any of the Spanish Estepona Primary Schools? I have been on the internet looking but it seems to be the international ones that come up.

We are hoping to have a look around the schools in October.

Thanks again.

Sarah

crispy

Hi sarahandjohn welcome to BE you are more than welcome here and on the whole we are friendly, loving and caring and good fun can be had by all. Wish you all well in research and when you make that move we will be here to help you through it.

jandy44

Hi sarahandjohn,welcome to BE,I can only add to what everyone else has said,Iv only been a member myself for a few weeks,you will find this forum very addictive,we are a friendly bunch,there is a lot of fun but at the same time there is always someone at hand for your more serious questions,there,s loads of info on here.
We are also hoping to make the move within the next few months to Adalucia region.
Well Im sure you will keep us posted with your progress.I wish you and your family the best of luck,and when you do move lots of happiness

onlineamiga

Hi SarahandJohn,

First dont worry about the "You Go Girl!" theres been a bit of misconception about my gender due to my name being onlineamiga. As you may know from learning spanish Amiga is the feminine word for Friend. However the Amiga in my name comes from the great 1990s computer which we will all never forget (I had my connected to the net for several years hence 'online'.

As I know how hard it is and worrying it is going out there by going myself, I dont mind filling you with information and my own experiences of going out and wanting to do a similar thing to your husband. So yes we will definately keep in touch, my email and MSN is [email protected] if you do wish to keep in touch.

Now youre on the meetup group you'll also get information of meet ups and stuff so we can organise a meet up once youre out there and also you could meet other like minded people as ourselves. It'll be great, will really help you settle in.. and itll help me settle in!

5 days till i go to the Costa Del Sol Alone!
Hotel room booked for 5 days
Car rented for a month.
No job
No Where to live.
No Friends
Its going to be great!!

Big_john

I'm down with the family 29th April - 15th May Estepona/San Pedro so will ask about the schools for you in Estepona, I don't have any children at school so have forgotten about those trying times.

sarahandjohn

Thanks to all of you have have replied, you had me "filling up" you friendly bunch!

I am sure if we all stick together and help each other out we can make our dreams come true, I know it will be hard from time, i.e. getting jobs, language barrier, schooling for children and just generally adjusting to the "new way of living", but I am sure if we all help each other out we will all make it!

Here's to all of us wanting to make it happen.........................

And if there is a meet up between 24 Oct and 31 Oct this year when we come out for the week then I would love to meet some/all of you.

Keep us all posted and I will do the same.

Good luck online amiga for 5 days time, I am sure you will have great fun - no nagging women and babies crying!!!!!

Take care all, can't wait to join you all out there.

Sarah. x

lucy5

Hi sarah , I keep bumping into you in cyberspace. Regarding schools it is very hard to actually go and look round them, it's not the Spanish way. The way it is organised is much like England, you have a local catchment area. You won't find much on the internet as again, not really the thing down here. I did write an article once about Spanish schools so I will see if I can find it.
My daughter is actually at an international school as we tried the Spanish system and it didn't work for her. To be honest we weren't very enamoured with the Spanish schools but I will happily pass on what I know, I have a few friends with their kids in Spanish schools.