Exploring outdoors Spain

Last weekend I revisited an old favourite coastal route, given that the weather was pleasant. Unfortunately I also had some work to do, due to my inability to say no to new projects! The ultimate hiker's sin is to take a laptop on a hike, but sure enough that's what I did. The curse of the digital nomad :-)

Starting Point: Venta El Pelayo (next to the Venta El Pavo Real), Barriada del Pelayo
Completion: Castillo de Sancho IV or Guzmán El Bueno in the vicinity of the sea port of Tarifa.

Ideally you want to park in Tarifa, then take the bus upto Pelayo (the starting point) and walk downhill. Like this you are constantly facing the views to the sea as the route progresses.

First the map:

The route commences little more than five minutes from Venta Pelayo, where we are entering the beautiful canopy forest that surrounds the Marchenilla stream and that has nothing to envy of the nearby rivers of La Miel or Guadalmesí.

The pleasant hike down soon leads to impressive views.

The area is full of interesting geological formations and bathed in history - some fortifications still exist from the 1700s against British invasions from Gibraltar. The trip can be continued along the rocky coast (you'll get wet :-) ), or on land (you might have to walk along roads).

I chose to continue until the area of Punta Paloma, the high white sand dune in Tarifa, and take a well deserved break.... with my laptop.

We are privileged to live in this part of Spain that enables us to combine such different activities! Hope you join me on the next hike soon!

The recent lockdowns have woken up people around the world that certain types of work are indeed possible from home. We have always had the technology since the 90's, but the last 2 years were the first opportunity to experiment with these teleworking arrangements in mass scale. Spain stands to gain from the latest movement of teleworkers (also called digital nomads) who travel whilst working, enabling them to live a different lifestyle of adventure and exploration, without sacrifising income and quality of life. We are lucky to have stable predictable weather in Spain, especially in Andalucia, which helps attract digital nomads from everywhere. I will be restarting this blog that I have left dormant for a while, to talk about my own experience of being able to explore outdoors Spain whilst working as normal from my laptop. Next stop will be Cadiz, Andalucia - watch this space.