Why I Chose a Homestay and Why You Should Too

Before I left for Madrid, people gave me a lot of advice about what to pack, what neighborhoods to explore, and which classes to take. Almost nobody talked about the single decision that has shaped my experience more than anything else: where I sleep at night. I chose a homestay, and it is the best choice I made before getting on that plane.

When I landed in Madrid after a long overnight flight, a taxi dropped me off at Ana's apartment. I had no idea what to expect. I had read a few reviews and talked to a couple of past students, but walking up to a stranger's front door in a foreign country with all your luggage is a different feeling from anything you can prepare for. Ana opened the door and the nerves went away fast. She was warm from the first minute, and her dog Greta came over to say hello before I even put my bags down. Within an hour she was taking me on a walk around the neighborhood and pointing out the nearest metro stop, the best bakery, and where to buy a phone charger if I needed one. I felt like I was being shown around by a neighbor, not managed by a program coordinator.

The rhythm of living with Ana is the part of this experience I did not expect to write home about but ended up being the thing I talk about most. Breakfast is on the table every morning before Peter (my roommate) and I leave for class. It is usually toast with jam and cream cheese, a croissant, sometimes an apple. It is a small thing, but starting every single day with a real meal made by someone who lives here and knows this city sets a different tone than grabbing something from a vending machine or skipping it entirely. Dinner runs late by American standards, usually around 9 or 9:30 P.M., and that is also something Ana makes. One night it was a potato and egg quiche that I am still thinking about. Another night she made pasta with a salad, and we sat at the table and talked for a while after finishing. Our house cleaner Dulany, who is Sri Lankan, also cooked for us a few times, and the food she made was some of the most memorable of the whole trip.

That routine, breakfast together, dinner together, the small check-ins during the day, gives you something a dorm cannot. You stop feeling like a visitor. You feel like you actually live somewhere, and the city outside starts to feel less foreign because you have a real home base inside it.

The language piece is also worth talking about. I came to Madrid with a specific goal: to get good enough at Spanish that I can use it professionally when I go back to South Florida. A dorm or an apartment with other American students would have made that nearly impossible, because the default is always English when everyone around you speaks it. Living with Ana means I have to use Spanish every day in real situations, not just in class. I ask about the laundry, I talk about my day over dinner, I figure out what she needs from the store and write it down in Spanish on my phone before I leave. None of that sounds dramatic, but it adds up faster than any amount of classroom practice.

Ana has also gone out of her way in ways I was not expecting. She drove Peter and me to meet other host families during the first week. She bought us gelato one evening after we came back from a long day in the city. She took us to a family picnic outside the city and introduced us to people she has known for years. These are not things a host is required to do. They are things a person does when they actually want you to have a good time in their city.

If you are deciding between a homestay and an apartment for your study abroad program, I would tell you to pick the homestay without much debate. You will eat better, speak the language more, and feel grounded in a way that makes everything else about being abroad easier. The city becomes less of a place you are visiting and more of a place you are living in, and that difference matters more than I can explain in a single blog post.