Two friends, one sea, and the idea that luxury should be for more people

It was 2005. Two students, José Manuel Ruiz and Raúl Yáñez Alonso, met between shelves and silence, each one focused on their degree. That single encounter was enough to make them inseparable — the kind of friendship you stop measuring in years and start treating as family.

Neither of them knew it at the time, but that quiet study corner would be the first port of a journey that's still under way.

José Manuel started his career as an interbank broker, in the world of numbers and split-second decisions. Raúl, restless by nature, became an entrepreneur early: he founded his first company, the marketing agency Comunicare, which is still running today.

Different worlds — finance and business — driven by the same itch and joined by the same escape route: the sea. Whenever routine tightened, both of them looked in the same direction.

For years they roamed the planet as “flashpackers”: backpackers who allowed themselves to sleep in beautiful places. They touched every country in Southeast Asia, crossed the Atacama desert in 4x4, the Atlantic by catamaran and chained together dozens of trips to Ibiza, Mallorca, Menorca, Mykonos, Miami, Polynesia and many more.

And there, almost as a game, they specialised in something very specific: renting the best boats and the best villas at the lowest possible price. What was a headache for others became an art for them. That obsession, without their realising it, was already writing the future.

Around 2010, Raúl sold Comunicare — years later he would buy it back — and, with the proceeds and a burning desire to start a path closer to the sea, did what many only dream of: he bought a sailboat, a catamaran and four yachts to launch his first nautical charter company, molokocharter. He partnered with José Manuel to share the adventure.

For more than a decade they ran it shoulder to shoulder, living off the sea they loved. Until the success of Raúl's other ventures pulled him away from the water and back into the office. The company was eventually sold along with every boat. That chapter closed… but the sea never really let go.

Something curious happened all those years. Every time a friend planned a getaway to the Mediterranean's most coveted spots, they picked up the phone and called the same two people. Which villa? Which boat? Where without overspending?

Without noticing, José Manuel and Raúl had been building a concept for years: a way of finding villas and boats to enjoy a luxury holiday at a fair price. After so many recommendations they understood an uncomfortable truth: for most people, finding the right villa and the right boat is genuinely hard. What began as a favour among friends turned out to be a path.

In 2024 they decided to turn that generosity into a company and launched the first MVP of charterandvillas.com. The answer was clear: it worked. Shortly after, they expanded destinations to the entire world. They were starting over together, like in that library — only this time with fifteen years of craft behind them and a mission that felt at once oversized and just right: to make accessible what seemed reserved for a few.

2025 was their first full year. The result speaks for itself: 9,327 bookings in twelve months, split between the Mediterranean (40%), the Americas (40%) and the Pacific (20%).

Behind every one of those bookings is a group of friends, a family or a celebration that chose to trust them. And that trust isn't bought — it's earned, booking by booking.