Getting to Andorra - a new adventure

September 1, 2025 - Today we started our 4 month odyssey away from home to continue our non-tax UK residency. For the month of September 2025 we will be renting an AirBnB in Canillo, Andorra.

First, some geography and geopolitics:

Andorra (or the Principality of Andorra) is a small, landlocked sovereign nation located in the Pyrenees between France and Spain. It's main language is Catalan, but many people also speak Spanish and Portuguese. England and French are less frequent. It is part of the European Monetary Union - so it's currency is Euro - but it is NOT part of the EU. It is a parliamentary co-principality jointly run by the Bishop of Urgell and the President of France, in conjunction with a uni-cameral parliament that has between 36-42 Andoran Councillors. It's population is about 80,000 people and it's main economy is tourism. There are about 10 million tourists annually where skiing is one of the most popular activities. Income tax is about 10% annually.

We were up before dawn to catch our 8:30 flight to Barcelona (Andorra doesn't have an airport).

There were bad storms, so we were a bit delayed. Chris had to wait about 30 minutes to get to the Hertz counter, but we finally got to the car and drove the 3 hours to Andorra.

The drive was very pretty, through mountainous passes and by a dam

Until we finally got to the border. There is no stop at the border, so we will probably return tomorrow to get a stamp in my passport, so there are no possible issues with exceeding my EU visa.

Christof is our host. He is originally from Brussels, but has lived here for 20 years. Soon he hopes to relocate to Indonesia because Andorra is slowly decreasing it's numbers of AirBnBs as they are increasing costs for the locals. Not sure where all the tourists will stay if they get rid of the AirBnBs.... Here is a walk through of our digs for the next month

We ate out at Blot - a viking restaurant. There were many interesting things to choose from on the menu, but, in the end, I settled on a hamburger and a not-very-tasty non-alcoholic beer.