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What Cities did Expats Prefer in 2023? Malaga, Valencia, and Alicante, Spain at the Top of the List!

A view of the port of Malaga, Spain
Malaga, Spain

The World's 20 best places to live

(according to Forbes in November 2023)

In November 2023, Forbes magazine published the article "Ranked: The World's 20 Best Places To Live, According To Expats." (Bloom, 2023) Her byline states "Transformative Travel: I look at how travel can change lives." Her article notes that "InterNations-the largest global community for people who live and work abroad-has just released its annual Expat City Ranking." It is a ranking of 49 cities based on the feelings of expats. Apparently expats like to live in places that offer "an enjoyable and affordable life." Five Spanish cities were included in the top 20: Malaga, Alicante, Valencia, Madrid, and Barcelona. Here's the top 20 list:

  1. Malaga, Spain

  2. Alicante, Spain

  3. Valencia, Spain

  4. Ras Al Khaimah, UAE

  5. Abu Dhabi, UAE

  6. Madrid, Spain

  7. Mexico City, Mexico

  8. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

  9. Bangkok, Thailand

  10. Muscat, Oman

  11. Dubai, UAE

  12. Lisbon, Portugal

  13. Barcelona, Spain

  14. Amsterdam, the Netherlands

  15. Nairobi, Kenya

  16. Zurich, Switzerland

  17. Athens, Greece

  18. Stockholm, Sweden

  19. Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

  20. The Hague, the Netherlands


Should You Visit These Places?

Does this mean that that these cities are great places for leisure travelers to visit? That we can't say with a blanket statement. We can say that we really enjoyed visiting the ones we have visited, Madrid being the one we have visited most. We have visited the ones highlighted in green at least once, the ones highlighted in orange are in our current plans for 2024, and the two highlighted in yellow have been on our list of places to visit. Let's see which ones we have the pleasure of visiting! Clearly we need to get to Asia, the Middle East, and Africa (we have had the pleasure of visiting Morocco but nowhere else in Africa). You can read the whole article here.


Our Valencia Experience

Valencia was #1 on last year's ranking. This does not surprise us at all! You can read more about Valencia in our previous post where we provided an overview of the Fallas Festival that we witnessed during our first visit to the beautiful city. In the article, we also share the experiences we had there on a much more recent visit and we wrap things up with our recipe for Paella (we make it at home several times a year) and what we plan to do on our next visit (see things we couldn't fit into our agenda last time).


We'll be sure to write about many of these places in the future.


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