el gran sueño

“If asked if we were going to something or from something, I would say that we were probably running away. We had already made up our minds in 2009, during the economic crisis. We lived in Brighton at the time. Javier was a teacher and working conditions were becoming less favorable. More teaching time per week and working under a management team becoming evermore obsessed with targets meant, it was increasing challenging to find time for planning lessons and marking students’ work. I was a top salesman at a UK manufacturer and did really good numbers even though the country was in deep recession. I recall the deal breaking day well. I had closed the biggest sale in company history and, instead of congratulating me, the owner said: ‘Let's watch this one go wrong’. Then and there I knew it was time to go. We started to talk about what we might do instead. We discussed starting a Spanish shop since Javier is from Spain. Starting a B&B was also one of the ideas we were throwing around. We discussed doing it in the UK but the property prices were too high. Instead, we turned ours eyes at Spain and, after many trips through the country, we settled on Asturias, Javier's home. In 2012 we sold everything we had in the UK and took the ferry to Spain.”

Dave and Javier
Hosts since 2013, 8 units 
el gran sueño, Asturias, Spain