Ibiza has this magical aura to it, and it’s like nowhere else I’ve ever traveled. Ibiza is like this mythical land that throws legendary parties, full of A-list celebrities and normal people alike. No matter who you are, you can come to Ibiza and truly let loose – as long as you can afford it! After having the opportunity to live on this island for the past year, I’ve learned that the reality of life in Ibiza does not match the myth. Here, I will delve into what it’s really like to live in Ibiza, what the locals and people who live there are like, how un-glamourous life looks for the average person.
Life in Ibiza in the Summer vs Winter
Ibiza is a summer destination. Summer is when every shop and restaurant is open, and the island is full of life! From May to September, you are in another world, filled with the most elite clubs in the world, top notch restaurants, and the most stunning Mediterranean beaches.
Ibiza in the winter is not at all the same, but still enjoyable. It’s much more quiet and peaceful, but many restaurants and shops are closed. You can still have fun on vacation and go out or party, but it’s nowhere near the same experience. Life in Ibiza during the winter gets difficult. Everyone is wearing a winter puffer jacket when it’s 55 degrees out. If you want to travel anywhere, you first have to book a flight from the Ibiza airport to Barcelona or Madrid, then a flight from there to where you want to go.
The “Hippie” Aesthetic is Fake
Ibiza is known for its hippie, bo-ho vibe, and while there is some truth behind it, it isn’t generally how the island looks or dresses. Under the dictatorship of Franco, all of the Spanish islands were safe havens for those looking to free themselves from strict laws. Ibiza, being the closest of the Balearic Islands to Spain, became filled with anti-fascist, anti-violence, peace loving hippies. While there are definitely people today who sing kumbaya and dress in flowy linens with dreads, this is not what life in Ibiza looks like for most people.
The people who dress in this way are typically the rich white English, German, or Dutch people. They wear the most picture perfect outfits and live in villas in the country-side, bought from the money of their cushy corporate job back in London or Berlin, then moved to Ibiza to cosplay this lifestyle.
I have never met a local from Ibiza who dressed or lived this way. The locals unfortunately dress like any other Spanish person, with the tightest of skinny jeans and an adidas tee shirt. The hippie lifestyle is for the most part, a marketing tactic used by hotels, restaurants, and gift shops! If you visit Ibiza town and check out the gift shops, you’ll notice they really stick with what they know. A lot of the items feel very early 2000s, like spray painted t-shirts and using the converse logo in fashion.
Just know, unless you are paying thousands and thousands of dollars to go to the most aesthetic hotels and beach clubs, it will look like a regular city in most places!
Anti-Immigrant Sentiments
From being an immigrant to the island for about a year, I quickly found out that Ibizans typically do not like immigrants! I found this odd, because most of the people working on the island are from other countries, and are immigrants themselves.
I learned that in Ibiza, housing is expensive! The housing costs are similar to what you’d pay in a major city, like Barcelona or Madrid, but the hourly pay is lower here. In addition to high housing costs and lower pay, there are those “hippies” coming over from England as well as tons of Moroccan immigrants. The local government helps out the Moroccan immigrants, by giving them assistance and helping them with housing. Finding housing is difficult for the average person, so Ibizans see this as unfair. In Ibiza, it’s difficult to find housing in general, so for the locals, the rich people come and buy whatever they want, then the government only helps the poorest people who just showed up!
As you might have realized, Ibizans feel like no one is helping them, or is on their side!
Overworked and International
The Ibiza economy thrives off of tourism. The busy season is typically May through September, and thousands of people come just to live and work here for those few months. Typically, the people working in tourism or the restaurant business get 1 to 2 days off each month during the party season.
1 to 2 days off a month. Let that sink in! Some people are able to live off this money from the summer and not work the rest of the year, from October to April. Others cannot. This island is filled with hard working people, Spanish and not Spanish. So if you are visiting Ibiza, don’t be a Karen and be kind to all of the hardworking people!
Subpar English Education
I worked and lived in Ibiza as a classroom Language and Culture Assistant, through a program called NALCAP, where I helped teach English and about American culture for a school year. Quickly, I learned that the level of English education was not great. I wasn’t sure if this was an Ibiza thing, or a Spain in general thing.
The teacher I was paired with was from Valencia, but could get her point across in English. She had decent knowledge, but there were many times I would talk in English and she would have no clue what I said. I also made it a point to talk in the simplest way possible to increase the odds that someone would understand me! She also would teach things that were plain wrong to the students. For someone who has never lived in an English speaking country, I don’t assume they’ll speak perfect English, but I thought she would know a little more! I speak decent Spanish, but was not allowed to speak in Spanish while at work. It was an interesting experience. If you’re interested in doing the NALCAP program with Ibiza like I did, check out this post for more focused thoughts on it.
Ibiza vs Other Cities
When I started traveling to other bigger Spanish cities and talked with more people my own age, it seemed that more people spoke better English outside the island. Definitely the richness of an area influences the level of education, but also the person’s proximity to pop culture impacted how much they knew. Some people also just want to know, and they taught themselves.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some Spanish people who speak great English in Ibiza, but they just probably didn’t go to the public schools. Students in Ibiza also learn Catalan, so I wondered if teaching kids three languages at once was too much, or just slower language development since their brain is processing all three! For an island that generates so much revenue, I hoped they would invest more into the local education system!
Catalan vs Castellano
Life in Ibiza, or being in Ibiza in general, you hear many languages in a day. Over the summer, you’ll hear almost any language since people come from all over!
During the winter, you’ll mostly hear either Castellano or Catalan. Castellano is what you as a non Spanish person would call, Spanish. Catalan, is also a language spoken in Spain, but mostly in the northeast region of the country. The area where Barcelona is located is called Catalonia, where the language originated, but dialects of it are spoken also in Valencia and all of the Balearic Islands. You’ll hear either of these two languages spoken in Ibiza on any given day. The Ibizan dialect of Catalan is called Eivsenc, which older generations prefer to speak in.
Public Transportation + Getting Around
The main ways to get around Ibiza are walking, public transportation, or, if you are balling with lots of money/or planning to stay long term, a car.
For life in Ibiza Town, walking is no problem at all. I loved being able to walk everywhere I needed to go. If I wanted to get somewhere faster (sometimes) or needed to go farther than I wanted to talk, the public transportation works well. As a resident, I got a free bus card (not sure if this is still happening but last I saw they kept expanding the date). With Apple Maps, if you pick public transportation as the way you are going to your destination, it will tell you where to get picked up by the bus. The bus was quite timely for some routes, like going to the airport, or came whenever it felt like it, for other routes.
Some buses would regularly come an hour late, or with no regularity, so it’s a bit difficult to depend on public transportation depending on where you are going. There are also tons of smaller towns that the public transportation won’t take you to. Thankfully, Uber just got introduced to the island. Before, you’d take a taxi and wait to see what the cost was at the end (and it was always more expensive than you’d want). Now with Uber, you can see what you’re being charged beforehand which is super helpful.
do you need a Car?
Having a car was my personal last choice for life in Ibiza. If I was on vacation or came with money to blow, I would definitely rent a car. It’s fun to explore the island and go where you want. I came with money to spend over 10 months, and I would have had to go on half the amount of trips! Plus, the parking in Ibiza is terrible. There’s not enough spots for all the drivers, so it takes lots of time to drive around the same few blocks looking for a spot.
Fortunately, both walking and public transportation are not at all expensive for getting around Ibiza. Short term car rentals can be very inexpensive as well if you aren’t too picky!
Homelessness
As I mentioned earlier with high rent prices and relatively low wages, there’s a big homelessness problem in Ibiza. You’ll get to know the ones in the city pretty well, because you’ll see them everywhere, every day. They’ll be yelling about who knows what, but for the most part are pretty harmless.
There are tons of homeless people who will live in literally any kind of open space or land. Across from Mercadona, there’s a large plot of land with nothing on it. In the middle between the bushes and trees, people have set up tents and live there full time. There’s an open plot of land by the beach over in Talamanca that homeless people live in as well. People want to develop it, but they can’t get the homeless people out of it. It’s sad how expensive this island is, for those who come for vacation, but still also for the locals who live here.
Drugs
This category should not come as a surprise, since so many people come to Ibiza to party. Drugs in the US are scary – you never know what’s exactly in them or if they’re laced. This doesn’t seem to be the same sentiment in Spain as well as other parts of Europe that I’ve visited. With Ibiza being a place where people come to, more or less, do drugs, there is a large and active drug ring on the island.
My experience
One of my first weeks of my life in Ibiza, my roommate and I got to talking on the ferry to Formentera with these guys who worked catamarans all summer. They invited us to their house to party, but they were a little sketchy, so we declined. We walked home, laughing about how strange the guys were, to see them pull up a few houses down from ours as we walked onto our street.
These were our neighbors, we realized. We thought maybe it would be good to get to know them. We went inside to see people a decade older than us, all doing lines of coke. Our neighbors told us we had to go say hi to their boss as soon as we entered. They walked us up to the boss, who had a shaved head and tear drop tattoos on his face, and said hello. We got to talking with our neighbors, and they told us how all of them are from South America. Before the season starts, they load up with “the good stuff”, and sail to Ibiza for the season. As soon as we stepped into the house, we quickly realized we probably should have trusted our judgement. We made up excuses that we had to get home, and booked it, hoping they wouldn’t see where we lived.
Under the Surface
Tons of drugs are smuggled over from all over to Ibiza. There was also a strip club nearby, that we thought we should check out once, and learned that was where the escorts hang out. We slowly pieced together why the locals told us we lived in a “bad” part of town, called Figueretas. Apart from the interesting neighbors, we loved living near the beach and never had any other weird experiences. Just know, there are many things going on behind the scenes in Ibiza. Stay safe!
Conclusion
Ibiza is an AMAZING party and wellness destination. There are so many fun things to do, it was hard for me to make one list with them all. There’s always a difference between what life is like on vacation, vs what life is like living at that same destination. This massive myth and aura around Ibiza holds some truth, but also so much more. Regardless of how it measures up to the hype, I loved life in Ibiza! Ibiza will always hold a special place in my heart and I can’t wait to go back!
