26 November 2004

Thousands of young couples are downshifting to find a new life in the sun, but how can they earn a crust? Nigel Lewis finds out

For more than a decade, a significant portion of our population has been slowly decamping to new lives in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Florida. What started as a trickle is now a deluge - last year, 300 000 of us sold up to start a life in warmer climes.

In Spain, which is the No. 1 market, latest research by property firm Parador shows that half-a-million Britons live there permanently, and it is thought that up to two million Britons live in or near the Mediterranean.

In Portugal, the town of Lagos in the Western Algarve illustrates this trend well. Not noted for its tourist trade, Lagos bustles with British home-owners and they make up to 20 per cent of the local population.

These home owners are retired couples plus the occasional family over for a week's holiday at their villa.

But a new trend is emerging: young couples who move abroad permanently in the middle of their careers, rather than at the end of them.

They are not the usual expats, such as diplomatic staff or hippies, rather working business professionals looking for a complete change in lifestyle but who still crave the creature comforts in life - and have found a way to finance a lotus-eater's lifestyle.

The internet has been instrumental in starting this trend, as many people can run businesses from their laptop, and even once-isolated Mediterranean regions now have internet facilities - and even broadband.

Other people put their creative talents to use in order to earn a crust. Their new jobs range from making ceramics to writing books.

Others find work in the local booming market as estate agents, builders, architects and project managers.

Ironically, in many parts of southern Europe it is the huge influx of foreign buyers from the north who have invigorated local economies and made them viable places to live and work for the next wave of property buyers.

We talked to three couples who have taken, or are about to take, the plunge and sell their British home and buy a place - and a life - in the sun.

The Fischel Family

Three years ago, barrister Robert Fischel, 51, and his wife Ana, 33, decided to escape the rat race and live on the Costa del Sol.

Robert had been warned by his doctor that he needed to slow down, and the couple had always dreamed of moving abroad with their daughter, Isabella, who then was just a year old.

So they put up their 16th-century, six bedroom detached house (pictured above right) in Ockley, Surrey, for sale.

During a visit to friends in the Ronda area of southern Spain, they were told about an old converted mill just outside Estepona (pictured above left).

The mill, which took them five months to buy, had been converted into a house, but the Fischels decided to run it as a hotel during the high season.

"All the rooms were en-suite, so it didn't need much conversion work,' says Robert. But Ana didn't want to while away her days cooking meals for guests. Instead, with Robert busy running the hotel, she wrote a book.

"We wanted sun, but I had always wanted to write and this was the perfect opportunity,' says Ana. Her childrens fantasy book, The Zartarbia Tales, has just been published and she has a contract to write a further eight books.

Ironically the couple are now spending less time in Spain and more time in Britain promoting her book, which has sold 15,000 copies since its launch a month ago.