People choose to relocate to new countries for numerous reasons, but while life abroad can provide many exciting new opportunities for expats, there can also be struggles which go alongside it. Sharing to a Reddit forum, one German expat who, at the time of writing, had lived in Spain for four years, revealed one of the biggest challenges they faced daily was a social issue.

They explained that while people in Spain are “friendly” they found it hard to integrate and make a solid group of local friends.

The expat said: “Spaniards are generally really open and friendly. Especially if you are a foreigner and the smaller the city, the more people are curious about you and talk to you.”

They continued: “While people are friendly, it is honestly really hard to find local friends here.

“Similar to other countries but in my opinion even more prevalent is that people have their tight-knit social circle which is really difficult to get into. Even Spanish people from other cities often have problems connecting with locals.

“I would say this is especially true for Seville but also for many other cities.” [SIC]

The expat recommended finding communities of people who have relocated to the same town or city as you but warned that there is always the risk fellow expats will end up leaving again.

“Every bigger city in Spain has an active expat scene,” they said.

“Especially before Covid there were tons of language exchanges, trips, etcetera. You get to meet lots of people but often times it’s just socialising and no place to find friends.

“Lots of foreigners and expats eventually leave. Either back home, to another country or to another city. This isn’t a Spanish problem per se but worth mentioning.” [SIC]

When it comes to British people in Spain, migration from the UK has increased rapidly since the late 1990s. According to Statista, the number of British citizens that lived in Spain was slightly over 284,000 as of 2023.