Giulio first came to Fuerteventura as a visitor. He liked it enough to return, then enough to buy a home. That purchase was ten years ago, but it was not the start of ten years of full-time retirement on the island. He continued working and travelling between Spain and Italy before retiring and settling permanently in Puerto del Rosario four years ago. That distinction matters: his view was shaped by both years of anticipation and the ordinary routines that followed.
He is happy with his decision. He also thinks the familiar portrait of island retirement—sun, calm and effortless savings—leaves too much out. In an interview with the Italian publication Fanpage.it, Giulio described a life he enjoys while pointing to housing pressure, limited shopping choices and services he misses from home. His account is not a warning never to move. It is an invitation to look past the holiday photograph before making a permanent choice.
The Island He Chose
Fuerteventura has an obvious appeal to someone ready for a change of pace. Its beaches and open landscapes attract visitors, while Giulio says daily life there feels good and peaceful. He did not arrive after a single impulsive trip: he had visited several times before buying his property. When retirement made a permanent move possible, he already had a connection to the place.
Even so, familiarity as a visitor has limits. On holiday, a short stay can make an unfamiliar supermarket interesting and a quiet evening restorative. As a resident, those details become part of the week ahead. You need groceries again, an appointment when something goes wrong, and a home that works in every season—not just a pleasant place to return to after the beach.
Giulio’s point is not that the pleasures disappear. Rather, they take their place alongside chores and concerns. He says his everyday life is now in Fuerteventura, and he returns to Italy when he wants a change from that routine. It is a telling reversal: the country he left has become somewhere he goes for a break and for things he still misses.
Groceries Tell a Different Story
One of Giulio’s biggest objections is to the idea that moving to the Canaries automatically makes ordinary life much cheaper. During a visit to Italy, he compared supermarket shopping in Milan and Padua with what he knew on Fuerteventura and said he found similar prices. He also felt that eating in restaurants offered no clear saving. These are his observations, not a formal price survey, but they challenge a promise that can sound persuasive from afar.
For him, choice matters as much as cost. He says Italian supermarkets offer a broader range of products than he finds on the island. Fresh fish, he told Fanpage.it, is not always available when he wants it, so frozen fish is sometimes the practical option. A visitor might never notice; someone planning meals week after week will.
That is the kind of small difference that rarely makes it into a retirement daydream. Moving abroad does not require recreating life at home. Many people welcome different habits. But there is a gap between choosing to change your routine and discovering only afterward which familiar conveniences you relied on. Giulio seems comfortable with the former; he wants prospective movers to think harder about the latter.
A Home Changes the Calculation
Housing is the other pressure he wants people to see. Giulio says rents rose after the pandemic and that available homes have become scarce. He bought his own place years before his permanent move, so his experience is not identical to that of someone arriving now to look for a rental. In fact, that difference makes his warning more useful: a retirement plan that worked when he bought may be harder to repeat under today’s conditions.
A home is more than an entry in a moving budget. Its location shapes how easily a resident can shop, meet people and reach care. Renting may offer flexibility while someone learns the island; buying can provide stability but makes a mistaken choice harder to undo. Either way, the decision deserves more than the impression gained from a favourite holiday apartment.
Giulio also links housing strain to a wider unease about tourism and newcomers. He has observed tensions involving the Italian community and local residents as demand for homes increases. That is his account of the situation, not a reason to blame any single group for a complex problem. It is a reminder that moving somewhere means joining an existing community, not merely choosing a setting for your own next chapter.
Health and a Sense of Security
At 70, Giulio also thinks about services differently from a short-term traveller. He told Fanpage.it that he considers healthcare better in Italy. That is his personal comparison, not a measured judgment of every hospital or doctor on Fuerteventura. Still, it points to a sensible question for anyone planning retirement abroad: what happens when a routine appointment becomes a regular need, or an urgent one?
He has likewise said that crime seems to him to have increased in recent years, particularly in tourist areas. His perception deserves to be reported as a concern he raised, rather than turned into an unsupported claim that the whole island is unsafe. Feeling secure in a new home depends partly on personal experience, which may differ between neighbourhoods and residents.
These subjects can be awkward to raise when friends expect an enthusiastic report from a sunny island. Yet Giulio’s willingness to discuss them is part of what makes his story valuable. He is not trying to prove that Italy is perfect or Fuerteventura disappointing. He is comparing the places through the eyes of someone who has needed both to function as home.
What He Would Still Choose
Giulio has not changed his mind about the move. He says he is glad to live on Fuerteventura and would make the same choice again. He values its calm and the different rhythm of life. At the same time, he misses some things about Italy and resists describing his present life as a dream without qualifications.
For a prospective retiree, the lesson is less dramatic than a tale of regret—and more practical. Spend time somewhere outside a holiday schedule. Notice what is available on an ordinary weekday. Think about housing under the conditions you would face when you move, not those a long-settled resident faced years earlier. Consider what you will need from healthcare and what links you want to keep with home.
Giulio’s ten-year story began with a house purchase, not a permanent departure. Four years into living on the island full-time, he can say both that he belongs there and that some of its drawbacks are real. Perhaps that is the most honest version of a successful retirement move: not finding a place without compromises, but knowing which compromises you can live with.
Table des matières — français
L’île qu’il a choisie | Des vacances répétées à l’installation permanente |
Les courses au quotidien | Des économies moins évidentes et un choix de produits plus limité |
| Le logement change la donne | Pourquoi son achat ancien ne reflète pas forcément la situation d’un nouvel arrivant |
Santé et sécurité | Les préoccupations que Giulio exprime à partir de son expérience |
| Un choix qu’il referait | Une retraite heureuse, sans idéaliser la vie sur l’île |