Nicola1256 wrote on Tue Jul 13, 2021 9:12pm:
We love the look of the area and are hoping to retire to Spain. Thanks.
The Mar Menor area would be an ideal place to buy a property to retire in. The main tourist periods are between the months of June to September and then a large percentage of the properties are shut up until the following summer, with a possible re-opening of some for Christmas and Easter. Winters can be pretty quiet as some of the restaurants and bars only open during the summer season. That said, there are places where there is a good all-year-round life with everything that you could need to live comfortably. The Mar Menor area is not as well known to the British as other areas of Spain, and property prices do reflect this. Towns such as Los Alcázares and San Javier have everything that you would need on a day to day basis - good supermarkets, health-centres, markets, and general shops and also have quite a reasonable number of British/Irish permanent residents, with their clubs and a few pubs, etc. but still feels quite Spanish. As others have suggested above, come over and stay in one place for a couple of months or book a few separate visits to try out a few different places. Obviously, if you are British citizens and are planning to relocate permanently to Spain, you will need to see whether you fulfill the new requirements for becoming residents here, as since the UK left the EU, the rules have now changed.