Moving to Gran Canaria or to any other country sounds like a dream to me. When I first thought about moving to an island, I was a bit concerned as I come from Slovenia and all the islands near my country are quite tiny. If you’ve ever been to Croatia, that’s the size of the islands I had in mind and I was completely wrong.
With my stereotypical opinion about what an island is like, I came to Gran Canaria and was beautifully surprised. The capital city of Gran Canaria is Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and, funnily, it’s bigger than the capital city of my country, Ljubljana. Las Palmas de GC is the ninth biggest city in Spain, so welcome to big city life.
The island of Gran Canaria
On the island you have many sports to practice, many things to see, mangos and avocados are growing everywhere and job opportunities are quite wide: You just have to trust your gut and keep calm.
Since the day I started looking for a job, it took me nearly 7 months before I got the first reply and it was for a 1-day-a-week job. I was completely frustrated and I already wanted to go back to Slovenia as I considered that I had more possibilities there. But I stayed and slowly started to grow my business.
Many people ask me: “Nika, is it easy or are there any complications?”
Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. But, please, call it PARTY TIME. That’s how I have approached every problem since I came and doing this I avoid frustration when things go wrong (and, believe me, things can go terribly wrong even though you live in a paradise island like Gran Canaria).
I always try to be positive and encourage people to come over not only for a holiday but also to work. However, be very careful who you compare to. For example, you cannot compare my story from today to my story from 5 years ago. The fact that I made it, the fact that Aljosa Petric made it and the fact that there are many compatriots that made it, doesn’t mean that we aren’t working like crazy on a daily basis to keep our local businesses moving forward. It just means that you can do it too if you only start trying.
Everything is possible in this life, but you will have to work hard, you will probably have to start with something that’s not actually your cup of tea and then, after having some experience, you’ll jump over your field and be able to show your genuine self to make a real difference in the world.
Just a reminder for the teachers: If you are a teacher, prepare yourself for not being able to work in public education organizations as long as you don’t a) homologate your studies or b) do the whole degree again in Spain. Sounds like a likely story, but that’s the truth and I can actually say: Been there, done that. Not worth trying. There are plenty of private schools which you can try, you can get a job at a language school like ours or open your own.
Paperwork when you leave Slovenia
There is just 1 thing you will have to do. Once you leave Slovenia, you will have to:
⭐ Cancel your Slovenian tax citizenship (here is a great page that leads you through the steps
⭐ Plus, here is the actual page with the required questionnaire
TOP TIP: Send as many documents to prove your citizenship as you can.
In order to fill in the questionnaire, you will have to gather several documents, plus you’ll have to change the address in your Slovenian Passport and ID card to the Spanish one.
If you are moving to the Canary Islands, here is a step by step explanation about how to get your EMPADRONAMIENTO written by our amazing Erasmus student in Las Palmas, Katja
The art of starting your new life
Once you have it all sorted, you are already an employee or a freelancer. Spain offers great help for everyone who wants to become a freelancer, so definitely go for it if you want to run your own business or if you have several employers at the same time.
You can read more about my life as a business owner abroad on my blog:
- Interview with Nika
- My 5 priorities
- Nika about the challenges and success
- 2 ideas you should steal from me
- or even get yourself a book from Eva Škobalj where one of the chapters is about me: the chapter about responsibility.
And now I want to hear from you: what main reason is keeping you away from moving abroad? Why can’t you pack your suitcase and leave? Write your answers in the comments below and we’ll tell you how we faced the issues.
