Her mother was English, her father came from mainland Spain near Madrid, and although she has no family roots on the island, Ibiza is the only place she has ever truly known. It is where she grew up, where she raised her daughters, where she built her business, and where she has watched the island transform around her. Growing up here in the eighties and nineties felt very different to the Ibiza of today. Her memories are filled with freedom. 

“My mum used to be on the beach topless and we used to go naked on the beach. It was fantastic. Peaceful, relaxing and wild all at the same time.”

Long days at the beach, wandering barefoot through summers that seemed endless, and a sense that everyone belonged in the same places regardless of who they were. 

“You’d have the wealthiest of people sat next to true hippies, and nobody thought anything of it.” 

Ibiza felt open then. Less divided. Less curated. She remembers walking through the port as a child, mesmerised by the club parades, performers and dancers passing through town. She remembers being surrounded by people from every background imaginable. 

“I grew up surrounded by gay people, trans people, different cultures, different languages. It showed me there are all types of people in the world, and that’s okay.”

That openness remains one of the things she values most about the island today. Although Ibiza has changed enormously during her lifetime, she still believes there is something here that encourages people to see beyond the boundaries they might carry elsewhere. 

“As soon as people arrive, it’s like a mind opener. The island opens your mind to different levels of consciousness.” 

Having lived here all her life, she finds it difficult to describe the island’s energy because she has never known anything different. Yet time and time again she has watched friends arrive from elsewhere and experience the same feeling. There is something intangible beneath the surface of the island that continues to draw people in.

Today, much of her life revolves around her daughters and the business she has built teaching English to local children, Smart Kids Ibiza. Her eldest daughter is nineteen and already creating her own path in the world. Her youngest is sixteen and still needs much more of her time and attention. “She’s very sensitive,” Maite says. “We’re going through a funny phase right now.” There is a tenderness in the way she speaks about motherhood, a recognition that parenting teenagers requires a different kind of presence. Between supporting her daughters and growing her business, her days are full, but she still feels grateful that Ibiza gave her the opportunity to build something aligned with who she is. 

“I think this island gives you opportunities to achieve whatever you dream of. There are enough people, opportunities and possibilities here. It’s about finding the right path”

“I found what I wanted to do,” she says. “And I think being on the island helps me dream.” Her approach to teaching reflects many of the values she associates with Ibiza itself. Creative, open-minded and less focused on rigid structures. She works with local families rather than tourists and has built her business around helping children learn through imagination and experience. Looking back, she feels the island’s culture of openness has shaped that approach. 

“The people here are looking for something different. Not everything has to be so systematic.”

Like many people who stay on Ibiza for decades, Maite speaks about the island as somewhere that both wounds and heals. She has watched friendships come and go, experienced the transience that island life can bring and felt the sadness that comes when people leave. “I’ve been hurt and healed here all my life,” she says. At the same time, she acknowledges that few places offer the same range of healing practices, therapies and spiritual communities. “If you’re open to it, there is a lot in Ibiza that can heal you.” For Maite, both realities exist side by side.

When it comes to raising children, she believes Ibiza remains an extraordinary place to grow up. 

“You can go to the beach and they can run wild. There’s no harm, no problem, no worries.”

Safety, freedom and nature still shape childhood here in ways that feel increasingly rare elsewhere. She remembers giving her own daughters the same freedom she experienced growing up, spending long days outdoors and moving easily between beaches, countryside and village life. At the same time, she recognises the limitations too. As her daughters grew older, she often found herself travelling to larger cities in search of museums, exhibitions and cultural activities that Ibiza sometimes lacks. Yet what the island offers in return is something she feels is just as valuable. One of the greatest gifts, she believes, is the multicultural environment children grow up within. 

“They’re surrounded by English, German, Dutch, Italian, Moroccan… all kinds of different cultures and religions.” 

For Maite, that exposure teaches children something that cannot easily be learned in a classroom. It encourages curiosity, acceptance and an understanding that there are many different ways to live a life. “I think that’s one of the best things about Ibiza.”

The beaches remain woven into both her childhood memories and her experience of motherhood. Cala Llonga is one she has always loved for families, with its calm, sheltered bay and sense of safety. Salinas holds a different kind of magic, its wide stretch of sand offering space to roam beneath the trees. Cala Llenya remains another favourite. These places have accompanied different chapters of her life, first as a child and later as a mother watching her own daughters grow up beside the sea.

“Cala Llonga is one of the safest beaches for children,” she says. “Salinas is huge and has some lovely shade beneath the trees. And I like Cala Llenya very much too for kids.”

Yet alongside her love for the island sits a growing concern about how much it has changed. What she misses most is not necessarily the old businesses or even the old faces, but the feeling of space. The rhythm of an island that used to breathe differently. 

“When summer finished, you got your island back. You could go and see the sunset with no people around.”

She remembers winters when you could walk through the forest without seeing another person, when sunsets belonged to whoever happened to be there and when the island felt quiet again after the intensity of the season. Today, she feels that distinction has begun to disappear. “Now it feels busy all year round.”

“I just hope all these big businesses trying to make a lot of money don’t ruin the innocence of the old Ibiza.”

It is this loss of simplicity that worries her most. Not because she wants Ibiza to remain frozen in time, but because she hopes it can hold onto the qualities that made it special in the first place. The openness. The innocence. The feeling that everyone belonged here. “I just hope we don’t lose the essence of Ibiza,” she says. 

“The old Ibiza is already disappearing and I think that’s a real shame.”

Even with all the changes she has witnessed, there are still things she hopes her daughters carry with them from growing up here.

“I think one of the biggest things children can learn from Ibiza is that you can dream something and make it happen.”

“If you have a dream and you put some effort into it, you can make it come true.” For Maite, that’s always been part of the island too. Not that anything comes easily, but that possibilities seem to exist here in a way they don’t everywhere else. People arrive with ideas, businesses, projects and dreams, and somehow find a way to build them.

“Ibiza is a place where possibilities are offered to everyone if they’re willing to work for them. That’s what I would love my daughters to learn from Ibiza, because not all places are like that.”

For Maite, Ibiza is not a place she chose. It is simply the place that raised her. The beaches, the languages, the freedom, the people who arrived and left again, the summers and winters that shaped her understanding of the world. Now, as she watches her daughters grow up on the same island, she finds herself holding both gratitude and concern at once. Gratitude for everything Ibiza continues to offer, and hope that future generations will still be able to experience some of the magic she remembers from her own childhood.