Before you start looking at houses or schools, there is a more important question to answer.
Is Spain actually the right choice for your family, or does it simply sound like the right choice from wherever you are sitting right now?
This stage looks at the four decisions I encourage every family to think through properly before they start planning the practical side of the move: whether Spain is right for you at all, when you should go, where you should live, and how much Spanish you actually need. Get these four straight, and everything that follows — schools, visas, healthcare and money — becomes far easier to plan properly.
1. Should you move to Spain with children?
This is where every family should start, and it is the one question I see most families skip past on their way to the exciting parts. Should You Move to Spain With Children looks honestly at why families really want to move, what Spain can and cannot fix, and the real difference between a two-week holiday and an ordinary school day living here. READ the article: Should You Move to Spain With Children? 10 Questions to ask yourself!
2. When is the best time to move to Spain?
Once you know Spain could be right for you, timing becomes the next big factor, and it matters more than most families realise once children are involved. When Is the Best Time to Move to Spain works through your children’s ages, the Spanish school calendar, visa timelines and the practical reality of choosing a moving date that actually works. READ the article: When Is the Best Time to Move to Spain With Children?
3. Where is the best place to live in Spain with children?
There is no single best place to live in Spain, only the place that is best for your family. Where Is the Best Place to Live in Spain With Children walks through how location, schools, lifestyle and transport all connect, and why the area that feels perfect on holiday is not always the one that works for daily life. READ the article: Where is the best place to live in Spain with children?
4. Do you need to speak Spanish before moving to Spain?
Language worries stop many families before they even get started, often for the wrong reasons. Do You Need to Speak Spanish Before Moving to Spain gives an honest answer to how much Spanish your family really needs, what that means for your children, and what you can realistically achieve before you move. READ the article: TBC
These four questions build on each other
I would encourage you to work through these in order rather than jumping straight to the one that interests you most. Whether you should move shapes how seriously you take the rest of this process. When you move affects where you can realistically live and which schools are even an option. Where you live affects how much Spanish you will need day-to-day. None of these decisions sits in isolation, and treating them as four separate questions rather than four parts of the same decision is where many families lose their way.
Where this leads next…
Once you have worked through these four questions, the decisions get more practical. Stage 2 of this guide covers choosing a school, understanding your visa and residency route, sorting out healthcare, and building a realistic budget — the foundations you need in place before you commit to a property or a move date.
You can also return to the main Moving to Spain With Children guide at any point to see the full picture of how all four stages fit together.
Moving to Spain with Children, 2026 edition, takes these four decisions further and covers the practical realities of relocating your family, from education and property to visas, healthcare, money and settling into Spanish life.
Look inside the book and read a sample on Amazon before you make your plans.
