Lapping it up, in Las Palmas

I’m a Piscean, for as long as I can remember I’ve been happiest when I’m close to the water, although I’m a terrible swimmer. I also love travelling although in recent years, mainly due to the pandemic, I haven’t strayed very far from home. For the past twenty years, I would say when asked how I wanted to retire, I would reply, ‘I want to travel the world like a Victorian.’ I didn’t mean that I wished for my Louis Vuitton luggage to be transported by servants from one grand hotel to another as I did the ‘European tour,’ but that I wanted the freedom to move from place to place without a timetable.

I wanted the luxury of knowing that I could rough it in a hostel or choose to spend a night or two in a five-star hotel and be comfortable enough financially and liberated enough, workwise, to be able to make that choice. I had no date in mind to accomplish this but, turning sixty, combined with the dreadful, cold winter we’d endured in the U.K. in 2020, created an impetus in me to make a move. Losing all the work I’d been doing in a physical place, I went on to create an online course for older people seeking to start their own business, this enabled me to work from anywhere with a decent wi-fi connection which promptly sealed the deal. It was simply a matter of finding a place somewhere warm and preferably by the water to call home. OK, not forever, but for long enough to escape the wet, damp, frosty U.K. winter and to experience a different culture and style of living.

I joined various digital nomad groups, mainly populated by software developers. Thailand seemed a popular choice. It was warm, cheap, and there were lots of ex-pats. The downside was that it was in a different time zone and would make it challenging to attend my regular meetings. My friend Shelley suggested L.A., but I couldn’t afford it, and then there was the same time zone problem. I’d been to the Canary Islands in the past during the Autumn, and although it would have been a stretch to say it was beach weather, I knew it was warm enough to wear a t-shirt most days and a light jacket in the evenings.

Las Palmas, Gran Canaries, seemed the most favourable place in all the islands for my requirements. It had superfast wi-fi, plenty of short term lets, a large, mainly transient ex-pat community and just about enough culture to mean I wouldn’t suffer from lack of stimulation. I checked on EasyJet and found a flight for £28. Then in my typical impulsive fashion, I booked it to leave on 1st December and return on 1st March. Next, I…