Located 27 KM in the south of Alicante, La marina is an urbanization divided in 2 part one is typically called La marina village and he is near the sea. The second part is just called La marina , this is where most expat live, located to 3 KM from La marina village and the sea.

La marina population is mostly expats with a large ratio of Brits and Germans. Most shops are either owned by Brits or Germans, I do not remember a shop owned by a Spaniard in this part of La marina except the supermarket chains. La marina is a sort of England under the sun.
You can go to a newsagent and buy your regular british magazines or newspapers. If you rent a house there, chance is that the house will be furnished with at TV and a subscription to the BskyB sat tv network. Most people seem over 50 and retired, they are virtually no job opportunity unless the possibility to start your own shop or pub. Most jobs are in the city near by such as Elche (16 km) and Alicante (27 Km), it is recommend to have a car to live in La marina with one bus every 1h30, it is difficult to count on that transport mean. But taxi are available in abundance at the price of 1 euro per kilometer.
La marina enjoy all facilities to make the life of his inhabitants easier, they are hospitals, shopping mall, brit takeaway, supermarkets (with brits products), banks, car hire services. They are a few restaurants. The atmosphere in La marina is calm and peaceful. La marina village near the sea is also very quiet and calm, in the village you have a school and more shops owned by Spaniard this time.
They are a few ceramics business in the area. Near La marina beach there is a camping. One of particularity of La marina beach is to have dunes. It is nice to have a walk there and listen to the sound of locusts.

They are one school in La marina village and it is also the place where you can take the bus for Alicante or Torrevieja. They are 25 to 30 minutes of walk between La marina village and the other side la Urbanization La marina. In the Urbanization you can take bus for Elche and the near by villages such as San Fulgencio.

CATRAL

More inland located a few kilometer away from la Urbanisation is Catral a small Spanish village in real spain with almost no expat. Catral is very peaceful place surrounded by hills and deserts, you can feel an energy from the place. At least it raises some emotions , some people will not support such closeness to the nature, but then if you want to buy a very cheap house in the Alicante area, Catral is may be the the place not to miss.