The Lemon Fool

Not sure this is the correct section, mods move if it needs to moved.

The good lady and I are thinking of going to say southern Spain, November and December.

Back for Christmas for a week or so.

Then maybe the Canaries January, to say early April or maybe late April.

It is 31 March today and snowing in Scotland!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apart from arranging for friends to stay in your house for a few days each month and picking up the mail and letting your house insurance and doctor etc know what you are doing.

Does anyone do this most winters and if so can you comment, we are going to rent the properties out there as I do not want the hassle of owning a property overseas.

The problem with southern Spain in winter is that you can have lovely warm sunny days - but that’s between 10am and 5pm. In the evenings it can get chilly, and it’s made worse by the Spanish not bothering with insulation. In short it is not easy to get “cosy”. I would spend all 4 months in the canaries as you’re more likely to get warm evenings and warm days. A Scottish house benefits from central heating, good insulation and fitted carpets - ideal for cooler nights! I would only go for Spain if underfloor heating was provided, and included in the rental as electricity is VERY expensive in Spain.

Make sure your house insurance covers you for over 60 days, or it may be cheaper for one of you to take a cheap flight back to keep within the contract.

I would spend all 4 months in the canaries

I second that. Or Madeira.
Spain - even the normally hotter parts like Andalusia - get rain, and when it is wet or chilly outside most apartments are just plain cold. I remember trudging sadly around Seville one vile February trying to find somewhere to dry off. The Bar Americano was the only place that wasn't freezing.... that was my excuse for the lengthy bar bill anyway.

I suspect Thailand would be more reliable for warm weather and in fact probably no more expensive, at least after the air fare.

Dod

Hiya..

Depending on the age of the poster then Thailand can be a bit far.From Perth it is 7 hrs roughly.

However the weather would be perfect,30 C during the day and cool 25 C at night

Eating western food can be expensive but the Thai food is great.They will usually leave chillies out.I worked there in the 1970's and became quite addicted to hot chilli.

Bangkok can be very overpowering.Google Hotel Manhattan on Soi 15 Sukhumvit,right in the middle of the tourist area and close to Sky train and underground stations ( Asoke ).

A few expats lived in the Honey hotel on soi 19 but I think that is closing,land in central BKK is worth a fortune.

Google property for rent in Hua Hin a beach resort straight down the motorway from the airport so you don' t have the hassle of Bkk traffic.Hua is a German /Swiss retirement village,so some lovely German food there.

There is also Pattaya,people love it or hate it,endless bands playing Smoke on the water and Hotel California.Google property for rent there or Jomtien.Jomtien is a bus ride out of Pattaya and quieter.

For something cooler head for the northern hills,Chiang Mai.Wonderful fruit market there,probably catch the smaller ( and not as good ) second crop of lychees around then.Google property in Chiang Mai.Chiang Mai is around 1 hour by air from BKK.

Koh samui is good but like Phuket pricey.
Krabi is probably not wester enough yet.

They have tesco lotus there for a selection of western food,and all of the US fast food outlets.Sadly the wonderful street food is scarce now unless you leave the tourist areas.

Good luck

A morning walk around the beach and bay at Hua Hin is great.

For golf Hua Him or Pattaya would be the choices.

Not sure where you get 7 hours to Bangkok from...

Cheapest flights are on Norwegian, via Oslo, Stockholm or Copenhagen. Norwegian only fly to Singapore from Gatwick.

I spend a lot of time in Kanchanaburi. I'm not interested in travelling in Thailand or sightseeing or lying on the beach; just relaxing. There are tourist attractions there - the bridge, (River Kwai) the war cemetries, the Death Railway, Erawan National Park (7-tiered waterfall), Khmer architectural remains, Sangklaburi up to Burmese border at 3-pagodas Pass etc. etc. Even a few golf courses.

Kanchanaburi is cheaper than the coastal tourist resorts. In a bad winter it can get down to about 15C for a week or two. Once I even had to wear long trousers..

Taurus

SWMBO wants to stay in Europe!

TaurusTheBull wrote:Not sure where you get 7 hours to Bangkok from...

The poster appears to be based in Australia, as he said "From Perth it is 7 hrs roughly."

mearnsfool wrote:SWMBO wants to stay in Europe!

The short answer is that you can't expect consistently warm weather anywhere in Europe in winter.

I know, as I was trying to find some warm sunshine to get away from the misery of January, and I'd looked at all the usual suspects - viewtopic.php?p=112889#p112889

Even the Canaries are by no means guaranteed. I was lucky in Lanzarote at the beginning of February, but other friends who'd been out before and after had said it had been cold and wet.

Realistically if you do want somewhere warm and dry you're going to have to leave Europe. My recommendation would be South Africa. We went to Cape Town a few years ago in February, and had a brilliant time. The weather was perfect, the country itself is fantastic and it's also very cheap to live there.

toofast2live wrote:The problem with southern Spain in winter

The OP was talking of Nov/Dec in southern Spain. My experience of Seville in November was that for us (Brits and other northern Europeans), November was still very much shorts&t-shirt weather, even in the evenings.

Make sure your house insurance covers you for over 60 days, or it may be cheaper for one of you to take a cheap flight back to keep within the contract.

Isn't the usual solution there to have a friend drop in to sort mail and check things out about once a week, so the house isn't unoccupied for insurance purposes? Depending on location, letting it out (a "winter let") might even be an option, and take advice from your agent on insuring that.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

toofast2live wrote:Make sure your house insurance covers you for over 60 days, or it may be cheaper for one of you to take a cheap flight back to keep within the contract.

Isn't the usual solution there to have a friend drop in to sort mail and check things out about once a week, so the house isn't unoccupied for insurance purposes?

I agree it's a good idea to have a friend drop in to check, but it's worth checking on the insurance situation as my policy said that the house had to be occupied by the usual occupants, ie having someone else drop in or even stay the night was not enough.

You have to tell your home insurance company and an additional payment is required for the higher perceived risk.