This is our story. We’ve lived in Lanzarote since the turn of the century. On this part of the website you’ll find out all about us and our lives on the island, why we set up Lanzarote Information years ago, what our business philosophy is, and whether or not we’re the right fit to help you have better holidays in Lanzarote or anywhere else in the world.
And we think that last part is important, so we’ll say it again: “….whether or not we’re the right fit to help you have better holidays in Lanzarote or anywhere else in the world.”
Because: We’d much rather look after a few hundred clients who we can cater for properly, make a fair profit from, work hard for and ultimately become friends with, than try to attract thousands of clients who become numbers in a huge machine.
That’s why when you do business with us, it will only be with us – Julie and Mike.
Early Years
We moved to Lanzarote in 2001. At the time, we were both working hard on the corporate ladder in the UK. We’d visited the island for the first time a few months beforehand and we had fallen in love with the place.
We arrived just before Christmas, with our children Josh and Lucy, who were aged 8 and 10 at the time, our old English Sheepdog, Tia, and four very large suitcases. In those days, the rest of our goods had to come by sea, and we managed without them for a couple of months.
For the first year we lived in Puerto del Carmen, but we realised if we wanted to really integrate in our new lives in Spain, we needed to move out of the holiday resort. So we moved in to Arrecife and spent a very enjoyable year in the island’s capital. At the same time, the kids moved from English to Spanish schools and they were ultimately to conclude their education at school and college in the local system.
Initially we both worked hard at several jobs each, in order to build our income up and save so we could buy a property.
The first home we purchased here was in Punta Mujeres and we loved our house there, 50 metres from the ocean.
Business
While working hard for other people, we realised we wanted to start our own business, and we spotted a gap in the market – long term rentals for local residents.
We set up Estupendo Lanzarote, initially as a rental agency, but we soon moved into property and business sales. Over the years, Estupendo grew to become the largest estate agency on the island, with offices in each of the resorts and a sizeable staff. Our head office was in Costa Teguise and was known as Esinfo – it was the island’s first remote working area, with high speed internet, computers for anyone to use, and even a full bar service.
We sold the business in the late 2000’s and Estupendo is still trading on the island. Some years before, we had bought the domain Lanzarote Information, and our aim had always been to provide the best quality information about the island, to help people have the best possible holidays here.
Lanzarote Information was born in December 2008, and has since grown to be one of the largest websites in Spain, with thousands of articles, tens of thousands of photos and millions of readers.
In 2015, we set up Camel Travel, an ABTA travel agency, so as well as advising our readers on where to stay on the island, we could actually book their holidays for them.
We now run both businesses from our office in Haria, and we’ve kept true to our original objective to run them ourselves. Apart from a couple of writers based here and admin support in the UK for the travel agency, we’re the face of the businesses and when you deal with us, you deal with us!
Today
In 2005, we bought a big old ruin in Haria, which we restored and eventually moved into a couple of years later. We love our home, which has plenty of land, and is right in the village centre.
The children both moved out some years ago – our daughter lives in Asturias in northern Spain, and our son lives in the UK.
We’d always planned to start travelling the world in our later years and those travels began in 2016. Apart from the interruption of the pandemic, we’ve spent several months each year travelling the world, while running our businesses remotely.
But we always come home to Lanzarote, our forever home, and where our hearts will remain until they no longer beat in our chests.
Things we love
We both love cooking, eating excellent food, growing as much of our own produce as we can, and we’re very partial to excellent wine.
We get involved in island life whole heartedly – you’ll always find us at Carnival, Verbenas and fiestas, and we both trained for and completed the fearsome Ironman triathlon.
So that’s us…..
We’d love to get to know you and your experience of Lanzarote, and above all, we’d love to help you have the best possible holidays here.
Just let us know how we can help……..
Julie and Mike.