{"id":25970,"date":"2026-05-18T22:09:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T22:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/25970\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T22:09:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T22:09:14","slug":"i-ditched-uk-for-spain-and-theres-been-1-unexpected-benefit-to-life-travel-news-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/25970\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I ditched UK for Spain and there’s been 1 unexpected benefit to life’ | Travel News | Travel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Traffic<\/p>\n

She shared the unexpected benefit of moving to Spain (Stock Image) (Image: Getty)<\/p>\n

A woman has shared the unexpected benefit she found when moving to Spain<\/a>, and it\u2019s something she notices every time she takes a long drive on the country\u2019s motorways.<\/p>\n

Susie, who uses her platform to show \u201creal life in Spain,\u201d complained that when you\u2019re driving for a while in the UK, service stations are boring. You can\u2019t really spend more than 20 minutes there before you\u2019ve exhausted all you need to do, aka grab some food<\/a> in Burger King and use the toilet in a drab-looking grey-ish building.<\/p>\n

She shared a video of herself driving, saying that \u201cmotorway<\/a> stops in Spain are different\u201d. And they really are!<\/p>\n

As part of her Instagram<\/a> caption, she wrote: \u201cI still can\u2019t decide what surprises me more\u2026 the fact this was a motorway service station\u2026 or the fact that people here seem perfectly happy having wine and a three-course lunch halfway through a drive.”<\/p>\n

Susie said that she was going to get some lunch, and she took her followers along for the ride so they could see what it was actually like compared to the UK.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Not Labradors, boxers or pugs \u2013 dog trainer names three ‘calmest’ breeds <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMotorway stops in Spain still surprise me. It\u2019s like walking into a regular bar. There\u2019s beer on tap and jamon legs hanging on the wall,\u201d Susie said, a bit like a restaurant you\u2019d see in a European country.<\/p>\n

She continued: \u201cThere\u2019s even a proper restaurant where you sit down with a tablecloth, have several courses, and fresh bread. There\u2019s even water on the table.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what surprises me most is that this isn\u2019t even considered unusual here. It\u2019s just a normal stop on a long drive. Meanwhile, in the UK, most service stations feel basically identical. The same chains, the same shops, the same food.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the UK, I would never normally stop for more than 20 minutes, but here, we stayed for around an hour and a half.”<\/p>\n

She said that in Spain, it\u2019s easier to take things slowly and just enjoy your nice meal, rather than feeling the pressure to get back on the road again quickly.<\/p>\n

In the comments, someone wrote: \u201cWe used to drive to a specific stop by the highway to get stew because it was really nice hahaha, sad they’ve been disappearing where I’m from.”<\/p>\n

Another said: \u201cLove these, they\u2019re all over Europe! But the ones in Spain and Italy are the best, rouiter they\u2019re called. My favourite was a pizza bar just as you enter Italy through the Fr\u00e9jus tunnel in a town called Bruzzalo.”<\/p>\n

A man penned: \u201cWhen friends come to visit me in my house in Spain I take them to the local truck stop. The food is epic and my friends always leave flabbergasted by how good it is.”<\/p>\n

While a fourth shared: \u201cThe best part about travelling from one city to another by car in Spain is stopping by in a ‘venta’ (roadside restaurant). The food is usually delicious and huge amounts.”<\/p>\n

A fifth said: \u201cIt depends… if travelling just for the weekend… 2,3 days… something quick to get to the destination as soon as possible. If it is a week… longer… just choose the best stop with the best traditional food and enjoy vacations since the first moment!!!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She shared the unexpected benefit of moving to Spain (Stock Image) (Image: Getty) A woman has shared the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13498,17,1443],"class_list":["post-25970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-motorway","tag-spain","tag-tiktok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}