From Brooklyn to Deià, Tara Huber on finding her home in Mallorca

A warm, thoughtful conversation with Tara Huber, creator of Deia Unpacked, about life in Deià, the stories that shape a village, and what happens when a place changes from holiday fantasy to real home.

This week’s guest is Tara Huber, host of Deia Unpacked, a podcast devoted to the characters, ideas and voices that give Deià its identity. Tara first came to Mallorca in 1989 and, after years of returning, eventually began spending much more of her life in the village during Covid. Out of that period came Deia Unpacked, a podcast she created in 2021, built around long-form, lightly edited conversations with people connected to Deià and the wider island.

In this episode, Tara reflects on the shock of arriving in Mallorca from late-80s Brooklyn, the beauty of the drive through Valldemossa into the mountains, and the complexity of moving from visitor to resident. She talks honestly about small-village life, the value and danger of gossip, the international make-up of Deià, and the sense that even in a place often caricatured from the outside, there is a very real and supportive community underneath it all.

She also shares how the podcast grew out of grief and reinvention after Covid disrupted her long career in fitness and personal training in Washington DC. What began as a project became a grounding force, and a way of understanding not just the village, but herself.

The conversation also explores the differences between life in America and life in Mallorca, from food culture and healthcare to entrepreneurship, politics and pace of life. Tara speaks with real passion about women’s health, ageing, the freedom that can come after fifty, and why art, conversation and curiosity matter more than ever.

There is also a fascinating section on Regenera Deià, a regeneration project looking at how the village can restore terraces, reduce fire risk, support local agriculture and create an economy that helps people stay rooted in the community.

It is a wide-ranging, funny, thoughtful episode about place, identity, creativity and what it really means to belong somewhere.

You can see more about Tara and her podcast here https://www.deiaunpacked.com/

00:00 Intro to Tara Huber and Deia Unpacked

02:05 First arriving in Deià in 1989

05:19 Holiday Mallorca versus living here

10:21 What village life in Deià is really like

13:45 Brooklyn, New York, and parallels with Deià

15:05 Living between the US and Mallorca

16:54 Tara’s work in fitness and how Covid changed things

17:55 Why she started Deia Unpacked

20:17 Food culture, health and America versus Mallorca

28:52 Washington DC compared with island life

31:50 Politics, entrepreneurship and life in Spain

37:24 Women’s health, HRT and getting older

43:38 Starting the podcast and learning through it

45:44 How Tara chooses her guests

48:46 Who listens to the podcast and where

52:43 Favourite episodes and where to start

54:36 Advice for Americans moving to Mallorca

57:31 “If Deià is Manhattan, Sóller is Brooklyn”

01:00:49 Regenera Deià explained

01:07:03 Why art matters and whether artists should be funded

01:13:26 What’s next for Tara