SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to the Truly Expat Travel Podcast, where I chat with experts about their favorite holiday destinations. Let's be honest. Expats are some of the best travelers around. Always planning the next adventure, exploring hidden gems, and finding the best spots wherever they go. So who better to ask for travel inspiration? So thank you so much for coming on. I guess I feel like I know you because I've been following you for so long on your social media pages. So I'm really excited to have you on, to be honest. So yeah, let's get stuck in. Let's find out. So who you are, how like how how you became an expat, and what kind of traveler are you?

SPEAKER_00: 0:49

First of all, thank you very much for inviting me. And I'm really excited because I've been also following you for the last, I think, five years. We've been uh following each other online and we exchange messages. And so I'm I'm really excited to to talk to you, and I'm looking forward to to meeting you face to face, Mansico. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13

Yes, yes, definitely. So let's start. How how did you become an expat?

SPEAKER_00: 1:18

Expat is the the larger uh definition, let's say I'm the wife of a diplomat, so we have more or less the same life as expat partners. We've been traveling for the last plus 15 years or so, mainly to Europe. So we've been posted in Europe, in Austria, in Germany, now we are in Brussels. So for the last three years, we we are in Brussels. But I've been living in the US before I got married, and I also traveled a lot. I mean, ever since I was a teenager and I I started traveling because uh before we weren't allowed to, if you talk a bit of history, sadly. Um so ever since I could travel, we we did with my parents and afterwards uh alone with my friends and now with my husband and my family. So we are really keen travelers, I could say. And so what kind of traveler do you say you are? Like, first of all, I think we we always look for destinations where I look because I'm the one who chooses all the destinations mainly. And and look for offers and uh book the the flight tickets and everything. So I think I I first uh think of the destination of what could offer to everyone in the family. So I don't want to get bored. I mean, I like to travel somewhere where I can also learn something and maybe visit a museum or visit some uh some historical places. But my kids are teenagers right now, so at this phase, I don't want to bore them too much with all they do. And when they were smaller, I I have to admit it was easier.

SPEAKER_01: 2:57

Much easier.

SPEAKER_00: 2:58

Yeah, but uh so now I have to think okay, so uh would they like it, what would they want, and so it's uh it has to be active, but also uh especially since we moved here in Brussels, I'm always looking for sunnier destinations than here because it rains a lot here. So I every chance we get, every holiday the kids have, we go somewhere where it's warmer and sunnier. So this is my main uh criteria right now.

SPEAKER_01: 3:27

So I guess that leads us to the next question is why did you choose Spain? Like what made you decide this was your favorite destination?

SPEAKER_00: 3:37

As I said, we travel a lot, but I think the closest to us in general were uh Spain, Italy, and Greece. And uh the thing that they all three have in common is they are Mediterranean countries, so more or less they have the same attitudes, where it's light, and the the food is more or less similar, of course, the weather is fantastic, and the the sceneries are gorgeous everywhere. So we've been traveling to all these three. Greece is very close to Romania, so we traveled a lot also when I was a teenager. I was in Greece quite a lot of times. And then uh Italy is very close to us also linguistically because Romanian is a Latin language and is the closest one to Italian, so we understand each other very well.

SPEAKER_01: 4:24

Nice.

SPEAKER_00: 4:26

Yeah, so the language is really similar. And uh Spain came a bit later, I have to say, but now it's my favorite out of these three. I like everything about Spain, I like the people, I like the food, I like the places. We've been traveling a lot in Spain on the main continent, but also in the islands. We just returned actually last week. We were in Palma de Mallorca. My husband was joking that he has a colleague, and when they talk about holidays, where did you go? And he says, Okay, I went to Malaga, I went to Palma de Mallorca. He's always amazed, oh, you are our biggest fan. You always go to Spain for a holiday or something.

SPEAKER_01: 5:07

I think it's obviously caught your heart. It's uh yes. And do you think it did? So the first time you ever have you so the first time you ever went to Tenerife, did you go, was it a spontaneous trip or did you organize it? I'm never too spontaneous, I have to say, yeah, with kids when it comes to traveling.

SPEAKER_00: 5:27

I'm a big planner in everything, and this helped me also to manage all our life, which is quite chaotic at uh terms, especially when we move from place to place. So being very, very organized in general really helped me. And I'm the same with traveling. So I plan, just to give you an example, now I have all the holidays planned until April next year. So you sound like me. Yeah, just I booked already. So uh I cannot say I'm spontaneous, or at least uh for the longer, bigger holidays. No, I'm not. And I always have to to see, okay, when the when do the kids have holiday, when we can get holidays. So I have to adjust all this. But the first time we've been to Tenerife was quite a couple of years ago, and it was the only time that we've been alone without the kids. The first time we've been, uh it was our wedding anniversary, so we decided every year we tried to go somewhere, and we decided, okay, let's try Tenerife. And I I just fell in love with this island. I mean, I I would go back anytime there. Um and ever since we've been pretty much every year. Uh, we usually go in autumn, so for the autumn break, but it's not a rule. But I think as uh as an advice I could give to uh everybody else, I would say that try to avoid the summer months, which I understand are very, very crowded over there. So if you go because Tenerife has this is one thing that I also like about Tenerife, and which is particular to this uh the Canary Islands, and especially to Tenerife, they have the same temperature all year around, so it's it doesn't get it's around plus 25 all year, so it doesn't matter when you go, you will not feel too hot, too cold. So this is a huge advantage. It doesn't matter, it's a yeah, it's something particular. You you cannot find it in the Balearen or in other islands or Europe.

SPEAKER_01: 7:26

So and what does a two-day itinerary look like for you? A two-day or a one-day itinerary. So if you spent two days there, what would people what could people do? Two days not uh it's not enough. Yeah, yeah, I know. But if you only had two days, what could we do there?

SPEAKER_00: 7:47

Okay, so uh one I would say go to the beach. I'm uh a big uh lover of everything when it comes to the sea everywhere, so I I would always uh spend a couple of days at the beach and in Tenerife also. We preferred the south because the island is quite big, it's the capital of the Canary Islands, but it's it's a quite a big island. And also the the temperature and the weather, it's slightly different from south to north. North is a bit more windier and rainier, and maybe a couple of degrees less, especially in wintertime, and the summer is always sunny, so we always stay in the south, and we go. There is the one beach that we really like, it's called Las Vistas, which is really really nice. It has uh white sand in Tenerifa. The a lot of beaches have uh black sand. I don't know if you saw it because it's a volcanic island, so uh there are a lot of beaches with dark black sand, which is interesting ones to see, but I'm not a big fan of it. It's to tell you the truth. It's uh it feels really awkward when you see it on your feet, honestly.

SPEAKER_01: 9:04

Yeah, so I prefer the yellow one, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:07

Yeah, I think we all so the uh the beaches in the south, the Las Vistas, the one that I told you, has uh beautiful yellow sand, so it's very nice. But the whole area is uh it's nice, and there is this uh resort which is called Playa de las Americas, which was originally designed, I think, in the 70s or something. They started building it from scratch, so there was nothing there, and they built it as a resort, so you can see this. It's everything is designed to make you feel comfortable, to make you feel like on a holiday, it's full of uh English tourists. I I have to say, so everyone speaks English there, and you can uh find it. I mean, every time we've been there, we stayed in a different hotel. Everywhere they had, besides like normal breakfast, they had the traditional English breakfast. It's very accommodating for them, but it's a nice atmosphere, it's a lot also very lively nightlife. So you can also go to they have concerts, they have a lot of bars, they have live music. I really like it. I really like it. So this would be the first day, and the second day, as I said, it's it's not enough because the island is quite big and it's very diversified. So that's why I also like Tenefe comparing to other islands, because it has maybe you you heard about it on the island, it's this volcano called Teide, which is actually the highest peak in Spain, so it's almost 4,000 meters high. And one trip there is also a good idea for a day. It's quite expensive, I have to say, because it's a national park, you have to pay to get in, and then to go up, it's a cable, which is also quite expensive, but it's really worth it because the view is spectacular. You can see all the islands all around from over there if you're lucky to get a cloudless day. Yeah, yeah. And it's also a very um uh peculiar scenery, it's very solenaro. I cannot uh explain. I mean, it looks like uh from um another planet. Okay, it's it's really something that I've never seen uh anywhere else. And on the way there, as you enter this national park, it's full of pine trees. So it's also because I've been to other islands in the Canaries and they are not as green, also. So Tenarifa is also green, has a lot of forests, it has a very, very different but very beautiful scenery. Everywhere you look, you find all these plants that some of them you never see somewhere else. All these trees, so and the light is different. I mean, so when you're there, I'm like on cloud night. And um, if you had a third day, please let me take it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I should definitely go around the island to visit some of the cities because it has uh so it's La Laguna is the uh former capital of the island, which is a very, very nice town with colorful little houses and very, very pittoresque to go around and check it out. Capital, which is now Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which is a very modern city, very big, and it has um one of my um also my uh the thing that I like. Uh I like to see modern architecture everywhere we go. And on the island in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, exactly by the shore, they have this auditorium opera house, which was built by uh Calatrava, Santiago Calatrava. It's a famous architect who is originally from Spain, from Valencia, and he did in Valencia a whole complex of beautiful, gorgeous buildings, yeah, city of sciences and art, it's called in in Valencia, which I also visited once. But the the auditorium in Tenerife, it's a really, really marvelous building, exactly by the sea. So uh it's a it reminds me a bit of uh Sydney. Oh, really? Yeah, it's not the same uh okay construction, but it's also very modern, very beautiful. So you you should also go there and see this. And there are also other little villages and uh cities around the island that you could see. There is this uh place, I don't remember exactly the name of the village, but somewhere in the center, and you can see the oldest dragon tree. They say it's the oldest dragon tree in the world, which is really huge. Yeah, we have a picture many years ago. The kids were quite small, and we we did this picture in front of it, and you can see really the uh the size of it. We are like really, really small. It's like a sequoia or something. Really, really beautiful. Also, it's another village called Maska, which is somewhere between the inside the mountain, somewhere in a valley. So you go on a very, very winding road, and you arrive there, and from there you can have a hike for two, three hours, and you reach the sea on the other side. Okay, and you you can imagine the the view. So yeah, I could talk for hours a bit. Is it is it a place that you need a car for? Most of the time we rented a car, yes. But I would say that they have these buses, which are also quite convenient, they are also very cheap. For example, from the airport, you can go to this south part of the island to all the resorts by bus. So it's an option, but to travel around and to be more independent, yeah. I would say you would need the car. For example, to go to Moscow to this village that I said, yeah, we were by car. I understand there was also uh the possibility to get a bus, but I'm not sure how we like to be more independent. I think when you have your own car, you can do whatever you want your own. Yeah, if you get lost at some point, yeah, have some nice uh little dick, or end up in divorce, either one.

SPEAKER_01: 15:29

Uh is it a hard place to get to from Europe?

SPEAKER_00: 15:33

From Europe? No, it's four or five hours from here, flight from here, from depending uh how you you fly. For example, from Brussels, we uh we always used to the uh tap the Portuguese airlines, so we stopped in Lisbon, and but we it was also nice because we stopped in Lisbon for a day, so we were also um strolling around for for a while and then we we continued the trip. There are also some other options. I'm not sure from here there is any direct flight, but when we were, for example, in Berlin, yeah, we we we flew directly and it was I think around five hours, if I remember correctly. It's not that far, so it's yeah, it's doable.

SPEAKER_01: 16:19

Yeah, and I guess in Europe anything's not far.

SPEAKER_00: 16:54

I I just saw yesterday, in fact, there was someone who was saying, Oh, you in Europe you're always complaining if it's like four or five hours, oh it's a long flight. But when you come from Asia, it's like for Australia, everything is like 20 years.

SPEAKER_01: 17:07

Yeah, yeah, like a couple of days.

SPEAKER_00: 17:11

Yeah, so I so I should not complain. It's easy to get there. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:15

I know I feel spoiled in Asia as well because we, I mean, uh four hours, five hours, and I'm just anywhere, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00: 17:23

Yeah, and you have a lot of amazing places also and very exotic ones. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:28

I mean you're reached, so we well, not like you, like we have to fly there. You you can actually literally drive from place to place. Not not to Tenerife, but you can drive to place to place.

SPEAKER_00: 17:40

Is there a I have uh some friends, sorry, that uh they've been by car to Tenerife. They took uh something from uh from Fadiz, they took uh Ferry.

SPEAKER_01: 17:50

So I wonder how long I wonder how long it takes. I'd have to look that up. Was there a standout experience or moment that made you know this place the trip that uh or even on the first trip that you went on, what made it a standout time or place that you thought, okay, this is a beautiful place, I've got to come back?

SPEAKER_00: 18:13

I cannot really point it out on one particular thing, but I remember definitely from the first time that we've been there. I sensed something I I cannot really explain it. Like uh it wasn't like uh maybe a deja vu or no, nothing like this. But I I felt like I don't know, I I felt really well. As I said, I traveled to a lot of places and I never felt the same. I mean, I I like going to the beach, so I'm like happy, as I said, going to the North Sea if I to stand there or to Nokia High Spear or maybe the light is the atmosphere, the whole thing. And uh you cannot really point it out. So I I really like the island, I mean, and I always encourage everyone to visit it. So I'm like uh they should give me a price for you could be the ambassador.

SPEAKER_01: 19:05

Is there a is there a food or a drink you have to try?

SPEAKER_00: 19:08

We beat, I mean, I uh I don't eat meat in general, so I eat only fish. So you can imagine when you go on such an island, you are like in the best place. So there's a lot of uh of seafood and uh fish. But I discovered this drink, uh, which it's not something that I usually drink because I never have coffee in general. So I'm very sensitive to coffee, so I never have any beverages with coffee. But on this island, I mean somebody told me about it, I have to admit it, and I tried it out. It's this thing called barraquito, which is a special kind of coffee, but it's coffee with milk and also with a bit of liquor, a Spanish liquor. I think it's liquor 43 or something, is the name. I'm not completely sure, but it's a Spanish one. It's really, really delicious, and it also comes when when they bring it to you, they bring it usually in uh in a glass, so you can see the different layers. It's really, really nice looking, and it's also really good. Yeah, but I have to be very careful because if I drink one, I will not sleep forward.

SPEAKER_01: 20:17

You have to be careful you don't drink it at night.

SPEAKER_00: 20:19

Yeah, but I definitely recommend it, at least right once.

SPEAKER_01: 20:23

Yeah, that's uh I and is it just for that area? Like, can you get is it a is is it a particular drink that's really just found in that area?

SPEAKER_00: 20:32

Only in the canaries, yeah. You cannot find it in Spain, for example, because I I looked for it everywhere else with maybe they they might have it under a different name, I'm not sure, but uh under this name it's only there, so it's specific. Okay. Is there one from there?

SPEAKER_01: 20:50

Is there one thing that you wish you knew before you got there? Sure.

SPEAKER_00: 20:55

I mean, the first time we've been, as I said, it was just the two of us, so it was more of a party trip. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I could say the next times we've been, because I told you we've been a couple of times already. We've we've rented a car and we've been around, so we we discovered a lot of places, and I always try to do things, different things every year. So I I try to organize everything. And the only thing which stays every year, it's um they have this um aquapark, which is uh called Siam Park, which is really, really great. And it's it's big and it's it's also very nicely done because it's in an Asian style, and you you have flamingos inside, and you have all this big uh orange fish in uh in the pond. So it it really looks really nice, but it has a lot of water slides, and so the kits are really number nine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but the thing is that, for example, this is what I I mean, I as I said, I'm very organized, so to me it was never a problem, but I could tell others they should know to to buy tickets well in advance because if you go there, there is a long, long queue. Uh it doesn't matter if you go exactly at uh the opening times, you will still have to wait a lot, and if possible, take a fast track uh pass also.

SPEAKER_01: 22:19

Uh-huh. Okay. That's it. But it's worth it. That's good. Because I was gonna ask you do you have any tips or a bit of advice for anyone that wants to uh that's thinking of going to Tenerife for the first time?

SPEAKER_00: 22:33

So this would be one of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The second, if possible, don't go in summer, as I said before. Uh we've never been in summer because I we've been so many times. I started following a lot of uh groups of Tenerife residents. Yeah, yeah. So I I tried to find all these new places and to discover new things about the island, and they always say, I mean, especially the the locals, they always complain that especially in July and August, it's really crowded. And yeah, because they have a very large and uh also quite developed network of highways around the island, so it's really easy to travel around, but they complain that in summertime all these highways are jammed. So I I would not go there, and it's like especially if you come from Europe, it's not worth it anyway, because in Europe you have nice weather in July. Why you go there?

SPEAKER_01: 23:30

So yeah, you want to go save it out.

SPEAKER_00: 23:33

Yeah, to go in spring or to go in uh winter time. We usually, as I said, we go in October and November. Yeah, I would say I've never had any rainy days, and we've been many years already. The water is perfect, the weather is perfect, so yeah, the best time.

SPEAKER_01: 23:53

Amazing. I think it's I'm gonna have to put it on my bucket list now. On my very, very big bucket list. Yeah, wouldn't that be fun? Show me around like a local. Thank you so much. I've had such a great time chatting to you about Tenerife and just chatting to in general. So I'm hoping maybe you can come on again and tell us another destination that you love because I know that you travel so far. So I'll put all of your links in the show notes because I'm I ha as I've said in the intro, you have written some books and you've done some great stuff and you've got more stuff, great stuff happening. So if anyone wants to follow you, I'll I'll pop it all down in the show notes for you. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on, and I'll speak to you soon. It was a pleasure. Bye. Bye. So join us again next week on Truly Expat Travel Podcast, where I have another exciting destination in a world that's too big to be left unexplored. Chaffanna.