How we ended up here…
From travelling the world, to raising a family in the UK, to buying an old finca in the Spanish Pyrenees... get to know us and our story down below!
Hi! We’re Lucy, Tom, Betty, and Mila
Nice to meet you! We find ourselves here in the Spanish Pyrenees after years of trying to find a new home that felt like ‘us’. Somewhere that we could feel a sense of adventure without moving around. Somewhere we could feel free. Somewhere we could raise our children in a way we were proud of. And now here we are, living a life we weren’t sure would be possible. It’s been a long road… get to know us before you come on the journey of renovating this old Spanish finca.
The boss of the House.
Lucy is organised and passionate.
But messy. She drives Tom mad by not putting tools away and leaving jobs half done. But she takes her job as mother extremely seriously. She is in charge of the finances, planning and marketing of the project. Plus acts as Tom’s apprentice / labourer on occasion; a job she doesn’t often enjoy due to the lack of praise and abundance of what Tom calls ‘banter’.
The boss of the Build.
Tom has the know-how to get sh*t done. When it comes to building and DIY, there’s little he can’t do. It means his to-do list is endless and a lot of sentences directed at him start with “can you just…”. Without his trade skills, this project would be physically impossible on our budget. He is very particular about how he likes things done, loves a routine, and is extremely anal about tidying up.
The boss of Emotions.
If Betty is having a bad day, so are you. She is 6 years old and full of life, loud and fun, and the attention must be on her at all times. Don’t expect to get any work done when she’s around. She can normally be found clopping around the Finca in plastic heels doing some kind of ‘show’. She couldn’t really care less about the animals, unless a visiting child wants to feed or pet them in which case they’re her favourite thing in the world.
Her own Boss.
The littlest Baraona, three-year-old Mila knows how to take care of herself. Miss independent, you’ll find her on the trampoline, sneaking into Betty’s room to play with barbies, or snuggling / terrorising the kittens, goats or chickens. She doesn’t like Norton the dog as he tends to bowl her over whenever he comes near. She idolises her big sister and copies her every move, which is often problematic for all involved.
Before Finca Baraona…
New Zealand → Australia → Central & South America → UK → Europe → UK → Spain! ...
New Zealand → Australia → Central & South America → UK → Europe → UK → Spain! ...
We rode through 17 countries in Central & South America on a 1970 BSA!
We've always been drawn to adventure.
This wasn’t always the plan.
Tom and I met back in 2013 in Queenstown, New Zealand, and clicked over a shared ideal of making the most out of life.
We’ve visited 52 countries together, 17 of which we did two-up on a knackered old motorbike in Central/South America, and the majority of the rest in three different campervans across Europe.
After living in New Zealand and Australia, living in the UK came as a bit of a shock and we really struggled to feel content. Struggled to re-find that feeling that we were making the most out of life, out of the youth and the health that we were so lucky to have.
We thought that with each ‘life stage’, we would feel more settled; more content. But after each ‘adulting’ check box (buy the house, get engaged, get married, have a baby, have another baby…etc.) the contentedness failed to come. We realised we needed to do something different to find our joy again. Something ‘out-of-the-box’
Read the full story in the first instalment of the Finca Diaries - The Backstory!
Life in Sheffield was comfortable but we yearned for something ‘more’
“To feel more free”
There was nothing wrong with our life in England. We had jobs, had enough money to live off without too much financial stress, the kids were happy, we had family around.
But we had a constant feeling of “is this it?”
The daily grind, the work/life balance, the struggling to come up with things to do in English weather. Working hard for the success of other people’s businesses. We had a feeling of being ‘trapped’, like we weren’t living life on our terms. We were struggling to find the joy in day-to-day life.
This wasn’t a new feeling - we’d had it ever since we arrived back from travelling and living abroad. But it was after having Betty that we realised this feeling wasn’t going to change - in fact having children had made our urge for a different life even stronger. We wanted to raise them somewhere they could be free and safe, surrounded by nature, learning real life skills in a community that respected and supported them.
And so we started to think of all the places we’d been, and whether any could make a good future home for our family…
Why Spain?
Then we saw this place…
Journey to our Finca dream
On one of our Eurotrips in the campervan (our second one, with 2-year old Betty in tow) we revisited the Aragonese Pyrenees. We remembered this region fondly as a spectacular place with ideal climate, incredible scenery and so much to do. Our idea to live somewhere in Europe had fully taken hold by now, so we booked some house viewings just to get an idea of the kind of properties that were around.
We saw Finca Baraona on our first ever day of house viewings. And named it such on that day. It became the benchmark for all future ideas:
“If we had somewhere like Finca Baraona, we could do xxx”
“If we lived somewhere like Finca Baraona, we’d need to…”
“This place has nothing on Finca Baraona!”
We wanted a property big enough that we could generate income from it. The idea was to be able to live and work simultaneously, together as a family. We wanted land so that we could have animals and grow our own food.
After four and a half years, we had the visas, and just enough money to make the move. Someone or something must’ve really been routing for us, because after all that time, our dream property was still on the market…
Making the Move
Moving from the UK to Spain after Brexit is no small feat.
It took literally years of preparation. We needed visas and a lot of money. There was weeks of paperwork and mind-boggling bureaucracy to secure these visas. And to get the money required for said visas and the purchase of the house we of course had to sell our home in the UK. We also had to sell, throw away or relocate all of our possessions. We had to uproot our children from family and friends, to a country where they couldn’t understand a word.
All the while constantly wondering, are we doing the right thing?
It was probably the most stressful year of our life. From the other side, we can safely say it was worth it, but back then the only reason we didn’t give up is because we were too far in!
The First 18 months
MAKING IT OUR HOME
Having not been lived in for five years, the house was a state when we arrived. We moved into a caravan and spent the first months cleaning and clearing, to try and make it comfortable enough to move into.
BUILDING A LIFE IN SPAIN
We had a lot to get used to. We were riding a total high the first few months, and everything was exciting. But when the dust settled and we realised how much work we had to do whilst getting our family settled in a new country, it wasn’t always plain sailing.
THE FINCA GETS BUSY
Anyone with any sense would have got the renovation underway and under control long before filling the property with a menagerie of animals. But we’d got this far into the chaos already, so why not chuck in a few chickens?
Well, it started with six chickens, but within four months we had chickens, ducks, quails, rabbits, cats and dogs. Oops.
BRINGING PEOPLE INTO IT
As the months rolled on we started having our first visitors, which really helped bridge the gap between our old life and our new. It felt less like we had left everyone behind, when they came to our new home.
It soon became clear that with family routine and so much to do, nothing was going to happen fast. We accepted our first volunteers in may 2025 and have never looked back - we love sharing the project and local area with the fascinating people that pass through here.
18 months later… we're still figuring it out.
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![Old stone buildings with tiled roofs, one building partially collapsed, a blue cloth hanging from a wooden beam, a tree on the right side, and a grassy area with rocks and debris in the foreground under a clear blue sky.]()
Finca Baraona Today
Working hard to turn the little barn into a holiday cottage, which keeping the animals, veggie garden and children in check!
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![A man and a young girl riding a small orange tractor through a grassy field, with hills and a blue sky with clouds in the background.]()
What we are most proud of so far...
How well the kids have adapted to this new life, and how it feels like a gift we are giving them.
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![A landscape view of mountains in the distance with a partly cloudy sky and the sun setting or rising, casting a glow over the hills and trees in the foreground.]()
Our biggest challenge
Being away from friends and family; trying not to get overwhelmed by the scope of the project!
