Planning our move to Spain

Hi Everyone, we are planning to move to Spain full time after selling our rental villa in Florida.  We live in Devon, UK, both retired and need an new adventure!!  We are going to be travelling to Costa Brava on 2nd July and have 4 days of looking at properties with Agents, but we don't have a huge budget although there are many properties within our budget. We think we may rent first off so we can look at all various areas around.  We used to own on the strip in La Manga but that was 27 years ago and of course everywhere has been so built up since then.  We don't want to be out in the sticks, and we don't need to be absolutely on the beach, but possibly within 10-15 minutes of a beach.  We want to be able to walk to a few local restaurants, bars, buy a paper and sit and watch the world go by!!!

Any suggestions of things to watch out for would be most welcome and I will be asking some questions I expect as things progress.

Cartagena, Murcia, is a wonderful place for watching the world go by with fantastic shops, cafés/bars and lots of interesting streets and buildings to explore.

The expat area of Mazarron is nearby as are the holiday home areas of Los Alcázares and Mar Menor.