I left my 'perfect' Connecticut life and moved my family to Spain. It's more expensive here than I expected, but I'm happier.

• Izabela Oquendo, 35, had it all on paper but still felt burnt out and isolated in Connecticut.
• In May, she, her husband, and their two young children moved to Alicante, Spain.
• In Spain, they work less, spend more time together, and no longer tie their happiness to money.

This as-told-to essay is based on conversations withIzabela Oquendo, a 35-year-old mother of two who moved her family from Connecticut to Alicante, Spain. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

On the surface, our life was great.

My husband and I both had thriving businesses. I was an accountant, and he was a home inspector. We had a lot of external things that defined success, like two brand-new cars sitting in the driveway, a beautiful 2,000-square-foot two-story house that we spent a lot of time renovating to be perfect.

From the outside, it looked like we had it all together. But the truth is, we weren't really happy.

We went through some personal turmoil and had falling-outs with our closest friends. And in 2023, my father passed away, and my mother, who is from Poland, moved back there to take care of her sick brother. We felt really isolated.

Eventually, we started thinking about moving somewhere new — somewhere near my mother with warm weather. We're beach people, so we landed on Spain.

In January 2024, we took a trip there to experience it firsthand and loved it so much that we knew it was right for us.

Before moving to Spain, we went on a road trip

Before making the leap to Spain, we sold our home and auctioned off everything in it — furniture, kitchenware, and all the little knickknacks we'd accumulated over the years. We also sold our other real-estate properties for a decent profit.

We also decided to fulfill a lifelong dream of traveling around the US in an RV. I wanted to test if I could take my business on the road and reconnect as a family, knowing that in Spain, with the language barrier and a brand-new environment, it would be just us for a while.

We left in July 2024 and returned to Connecticut in 2025, hitting Tennessee and Kentucky and looping back through Michigan, South Dakota, Washington, Montana, California, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas. Luckily, our kids were young enough to love every minute of it.

When we got back to Connecticut, we rented a small apartment in a beach community for about $2,000 a month while we waited four months to move to Spain.

We went from a big home to a small apartment

By the time we landed in Spain in May, we had pared everything down to just two big suitcases, two carry-ons, and nine shipped boxes. That was everything we owned.

I have Polish citizenship by descent, so my children and I came to Spain as EU citizens. My husband obtained his residency through Spain's family reunification visa program.

We live in Alicante, just past Valencia. It's a really up-and-coming area with lots of new apartment buildings and constant construction. There are tons of people, many from other parts of Europe, so we hear many different languages and see plenty of non-Spanish restaurants.

I wouldn't necessarily describe it as the quintessential "Spanish" experience, which is a bit disappointing. If we could do it over, we'd probably choose somewhere that feels more traditionally Spanish.

We're in a 1,500-square-foot apartment with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It's decent, but we're not used to apartment living; we've always had a house since the kids were born, so keeping things quiet, especially with little ones running around, can be tough.

We do want to buy a house within the next few months. We're actually thinking of having my mom coming to live with us at least part time when we have more space. The areas we're looking to buy are in a lot more traditionally Spanish areas.

One city we're particularly interested in is Calpe. It's just beautiful and super cute. There are lots of restaurants and shops, and there's even a beach there.

Spain isn't as affordable as I thought

I've been surprised by the cost of living in Spain. I thought it was going to be significantly less, and it's really not. The prices for goods and services have gone up over the past two years from when we first started thinking about moving.

Our apartment costs about the same as the one we had in Connecticut, and we're spending about the same on groceries as we did in the States.

It's also been difficult to communicate with the locals. My husband speaks Spanish, but the dialect here is different. We're getting by, though.

One of my biggest fears about moving to Spain was how my kids would handle learning the language and assimilating into the culture.

They definitely notice they're in a new country. When we arrived, we enrolled them in Spanish lessons to give them a foundation. Of course, they're still learning the language.

My daughter is very social, but when she first started school, it was hard for her to make friends — something she'd never struggled with before. It's because she can't just walk up and start talking to them; the other kids don't speak the same language. That was tough, but an English-language camp we also enrolled her in has helped a lot.

My advice for parents moving their children to a new country is to be gentle with the process. Kids are resilient and adapt to almost anything. I grew up with immigrant parents, so I remember this from my own upbringing. I think if you provide a stable structure and show up consistently, the external stuff matters much less.

Money no longer defines my happiness

One of the main things we wanted in moving to Spain was a slower life. In Connecticut, my husband and I were constantly working — passing each other during the day and collapsing at night. It was a grind we weren't enjoying.

I am working here, but a lot less. I continue to do accounting and bookkeeping for my US clients, and am transitioning into more healing and therapeutic work. In June, I published a book I started working on while traveling the States in our RV, about finding your life purpose, which deeply influenced our move.

A typical day for us involves my husband taking my daughter to school in the morning, and me starting bookkeeping.

I usually work half a day, pick my daughter up at two, and we have lunch. In the afternoons, we go on walks or go to the grocery store, and then we just hang out for the rest of the day. It's much slower than the 10-hour days I was used to working.

I feel like our happiness is less dependent on our accomplishments now. Before, it was always grinding for the next thing — a bigger house, a nicer car, a promotion, more clients.

Now that I'm not striving for external milestones, I feel real happiness. Now, the things I strive for are within my family and things that make me truly happy. Money is not at the top of that list anymore.

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