Spain was the country that kicked off our digital nomad life.
We rented an Airbnb in Barcelona's Poble-sec neighborhood and, the day after we got engaged, spent two weeks figuring out what living in Europe was actually going to look like. We signed up for a coworking office, grabbed espresso on the walk there each morning, worked during the day, took a pincho break in the afternoons, and then headed back out for late dinners once the city came alive again.
One thing we learned quickly: Spain operates on its own schedule. Finding coffee early in the morning was surprisingly difficult coming from the US, and dinners before 8:30 PM felt almost pointless. Eventually we adjusted, and once we did, we completely fell in love with the rhythm of life there.
We especially loved Poble-sec. It felt residential and local while still being close to everything we wanted to see. During evenings and weekends, we worked our way through the major Barcelona sights, but honestly some of my favorite memories were much simpler: finding neighborhood restaurants we loved, wandering the city without a plan, and finishing almost every night with gelato.
There's one restaurant we still go to every time we're in Barcelona: Lascar, a small neighborhood spot right around the corner from where we lived during that first stay. The same owner is still there, and every time we return, he seats us in the exact same corner by the window. There's something oddly grounding about that. We change, life changes, entire chapters of life pass, but somehow that little restaurant is still there exactly as we remember it.
And almost every night back then ended the same way: gelato on the walk home. We still joke about our "Dos Bolas" era because I consistently ordered two giant scoops every single time.
Barcelona still holds a uniquely special place in our lives. Not because it's necessarily the most beautiful city we've visited or because the food is objectively better than Italy or Greece, but because so many meaningful memories are attached to it. It's the city where we first started experimenting with a completely different lifestyle, where we transitioned from dating toward marriage, and where a lot of our personal and professional growth quietly happened in the background.
Over the years we've continued returning to Spain in different ways. We've spent time in Mallorca, Valencia, San Sebastián, Ibiza, the Costa del Sol, Madrid, and Sitges while exploring different parts of the country and considering potential long-term European bases. Jessica actually published her first book while we were staying in Ibiza and picked up the first printed copy in Barcelona afterward.
At this point, Spain feels less like a single trip and more like a country woven through multiple chapters of our lives. It's one of the few places we can return to repeatedly and still feel excited to be there. The energy, the food, the walkability, the late dinners, the café culture — somehow it never really gets old for us.