Living in Rivas-Vaciamadrid

What Rivas-Vaciamadrid is like

Rivas is an anomaly on the Madrid map: in forty years it grew from a thousand residents to more than a hundred thousand, planned almost entirely from scratch, and it has the lowest average age in the region. The result is a town with lots of parks, lots of bike lanes and very few old buildings.

The Metro is what sets it apart from the rest of the eastern suburbs. Three line 9 stations within the town mean you can live here without a car, which you can't say of almost any of its neighbors.

The cost is time. Line 9 is long and reaching the centre takes a good thirty minutes, plus however long it takes to cross Madrid if your destination is in the west. For someone going three days a week to an office in the east of the city, though, it's one of the best-balanced trade-offs there is.

What works in its favor

Metro, not a bus

Three line 9 stations inside the town. It's one of the few places outside Madrid city you can reach by Metro without changing.

Sureste Regional Park

Thirty thousand hectares of steppe, lagoons and cliffs right next door, with cycling and running routes that start at your front door.

Designed to leave the car at home

Bike lanes connect the whole town and the planned layout keeps distances short. That's rare around Madrid, and here it works.

What to know before moving

• Line 9 into the centre is long: half an hour to Príncipe de Vergara and quite a bit more to west Madrid.
• The town is very new and fairly spread out; the outlying housing developments do depend on a car, despite the Metro.

Does Rivas-Vaciamadrid make sense for you?

It depends on where you need to be each week and how often. Rivas-Vaciamadrid can be an excellent decision or an expensive mistake; your routine makes the difference.

Test it in the explorer in about two minutes. Add your budget and regular destinations to see whether Rivas-Vaciamadrid reaches your shortlist and which other areas compete with it.