Who are you?
I’m Joe Cawley, originally from Bolton in the north of England, now living in the Canary Islands hills with my family and an assortment of other wildlife.
Where, when and why did you move abroad?
In 1991, following a career in drumming and an over-long stint working on Bolton fish market, an opportunity to buy a bar/restaurant in Tenerife presented itself. My girlfriend Joy and I weighed up the pros of both staying in Bolton – grumpy customers, smelling of haddock 24/7, minimum wage – against moving to Tenerife – happy holidaymakers, sunshine on tap, our own business. No contest.
So, with a spectacular lack of business acumen and a mortgage/loan for £165,000, we upped sticks and moved to the sub-tropics. We ran the bar for 8 years, then I followed the natural career progression of going from bar ownership to travel writer. I’m now an author, of the More Ketchup than Salsa memoirs, sharing my experiences of expat life in Tenerife. Based on these books, I am launching my expat sitcom project, Ketchup, at the Marbella International Film Festival on October 4th, 2025. It’s a ménage à trois of Benidorm, Cheers and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
What challenges did you face during the move?
What challenges didn’t we face?! Aside from never having run a business, let alone a bar/restaurant, we also overlooked the fact that day-to-day business dealings would have to be conducted in Spanish. And did we speak Spanish? Not a word – until we inadvertently ordered 500 barrels of beer instead of 15. We learned pretty sharpish after that.
The bureaucracy was even more challenging. All paperwork had to be submitted in triplicate, accompanied by a letter from your mother explaining why you hadn’t attended PE class on that rainy Tuesday in 1971. Plus, to submit said papers, you were expected to close your business, pack three meals and a sleeping bag, and join the queue of other bewildered expats at a soul-less building in the capital, Santa Cruz, where you were treated only slightly better than a piece of toilet roll that had stuck to your shoe.
What do you enjoy most about life in your new country?
It took a while to adapt, but the laid-back lifestyle makes so much more sense than the non-stop trolley dash of life in the UK. Once you learn to accept that when someone responds with ‘mañana’ to a question of ‘when?’, they don’t mean tomorrow, they just mean ‘whenever’.
And naturally, it goes without saying that waking up to sunshine almost every day has such a positive effect on people’s moods. Whereas dull days in Blighty seem to be washed in two-tone grey, the Technicolour tones of the Canary Islands are saturated to the max.
What is the hardest part of expat life for you / your family?
The hardest part of expat life has definitely been having that physical distance between family, especially when starting a family. Whereas Canarian families have multi-generational helpers, when Joy and I had our two kids, it was just them, us and a very unhelpful cat.
What is your relationship like with locals and other expats?
Expats do tend to flock together due to common traits, characteristics and humour, so for at least the first decade of life abroad, our circle of friends was predominantly British. Now I’d like to say we have a cosmopolitan mix of amigos, not just from the UK and the Canaries, but from other countries too.
What advice would you give to someone thinking of making a similar move?
Don’t be as ignorant and naïve as we were. Learn at least a little bit of the language before you come, not just for conversational interaction, but also so you can enjoy some cultural entertainment too, like theatre, cinema and local events. It will help you feel more connected and involved in the destination, which helps alleviate any homesickness you might feel at first.
And if you’re thinking of buying a British bar/restaurant in a tourist resort… don’t. Not until you’ve read my book, More Ketchup than Salsa. If you still go ahead after that, you’ve nobody to blame but yourself!
Contact Details
You can find out more about Joe’s latest project, the new British sitcom Ketchup, on social media. This new sitcom, based on Joe’s memoirs, will be following a hapless British couple who attempt to run a bar on the Costa del Sol, with colourful expats and locals thrown into the mix.
Find Ketchup on socials –
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/KetchupTheSitcom/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/ketchupsitcom/