How we chose Portugal

The step-by-step version

People keep asking us why we left the United States, why we picked Portugal, how we decided on Lisbon.¹ The answer is simple. And complex. We don’t do simple here, so we want to let you in on our process so you can see how it fits for you.

We value community beyond everything except our marriage. We consider it central to a well-lived, happy life.

Those of you who knew us in St. Louis know what an amazing community we had around us. Six years ago, when we decided to change houses, we moved five doors down the street. Not only did we love STL, we loved our neighborhood, and our block in particular. We knew, and loved, the people in those 52 houses for 12 years. From the daily dog walks, to the stop on the street every couple of weeks and deeply catch up, to the block parties and the dinners together we had something rare, and we knew it.

We had regular board game nights in our home that brought up to 15 widely disparate and wonderful people together to laugh and play.

Our church was welcoming, inclusive, diverse and loving. If anyone in St. Louis needs a church, we heartily recommend One Family Church.

Contra dancing brought us close to an entirely new set of people.

We had deep, life-long friends, of a kind we’d never had before. We considered ourselves rich in what mattered.

And we blew it all up when we moved to Lisbon.

So there had to be a big, fat, hairy reason why, right? Well, there was. For years, say, every few election cycles, we would “joke” about leaving the country. The lack of an end to or a fix for so many problems that we see in the US (political polarization, institutional racism, an increasing atmosphere of hate, climate change denial) left us struggling. The idea that there are places in the world where you don’t have to have to have such negativity smashed in your face on a daily basis was sorely tempting. Yes, it felt like giving up. Like fleeing. And, apparently, we’re not alone. Emigration from the US has doubled in the last 5 years, according to aetainternational.com.

So, it boils down to: We’re fleeing the US.

Hang on now. That’s not the only big, fat, hairy reason.

Early fall of 2021 Scott says to Amy, hey, I want to retire early. Amy responds, uh-huh, uh-huh, tell me something new. No, really, like now, he says. WHAT???? she hyperventilates, imagining Scott at her elbow. All. Day. Long. Whatcha doin? How ‘bout now? So he goes away, and an hour later has a full page of things he Wants To Do like volunteer here, work there, learn that. Ohhhhh, she says, you want to retire in order do other things. That’s a different ball o’ wax and immediately launches Campaign Retire Scott.

It turns out the only hold up on retirement was pesky healthcare.

Thing 1 + Thing 2 = Leave the US.

A nice little article about the US imploding - putting words to how we were feeling - got this party started January 3.

The Question: Where? Well, New Zealand, obviously.

Errrk. Back up a minute or three. First, there are multiple ways to move overseas. Generally, you’re looking for a student or working visa. Some countries have some kind of retirement visa. A retirement visa can come, typically, in one of two flavors: The hand over a chunk of change (invest in our economy) and get citizenship and/or some kind of indefinite right to live there. And the plain vanilla kind: You get to live here and spend your money here but not take any of the jobs here Visa. Some countries have one, some countries have another, and some have both.² We started out looking mainly at countries with the investment type.

When we decided to move outside of the U.S., we had traveled to two places beyond our borders: Mexico and England. We loved both as tourists. As far as moving goes, we knew without even thinking about it that England would be beyond our budget. Who hasn’t heard about how expensive it is? We did still want an English speaking country, though. You’ve seen the Lord of the Rings of course. And you dreamed of moving there. Admit it. Scenery like that is move-worthy. We wondered if maybe the trilogy was just a big marketing campaign for Visit New Zealand. So New Zealand or bust. Hmmmm … did you know you have to have SCADS of money to retire to New Zealand? Yeah, they have one of the most challenging visa programs and housing there is extremely expensive.

Other options: Ireland we could swing financially. Barely. We’re sure it’s beautiful there. We had a serious flirt with Ireland. The weather though … Cold. Wet. Damp. Hmm. Not so good for either of us. Still, we had a hard time letting go of being in an English speaking country. We’re glad we realized weather is too important for us.

Language lessons, here we come! Mexico obviously got our first look. During our visit we’d fallen in love with Guanajuato, a charming small city of church bells and old buildings on the altiplano a few hours from Mexico City. Long-term water supply was a concern, and the more we read, the more we realized safety was increasingly an issue - the cartels had closed nearer since we’d visited.

Guanajuato from an overlook. Thinking about it, there are a fair number of similarities between it and Lisbon in the painted buildings, steep and narrow streets, and church bells.

Initially, we wanted to stay in our own hemisphere. There’s the time zone issue. Amy has an aunt in Alaska. When Amy calls Alaska from Portugal, she can’t do that before 9 pm. It’s only 6 hours to St. Louis. Want to call our friends there after they’re home from work? That’ll be midnight here. To start the call. Frankly, the time zone has been a bigger adjustment that we’d realized.

Also, we had some grounding in Spanish, Scott from school and Amy from the Mexican adventure. Maybe it hadn’t gone perfectly, but she didn’t get arrested. Either time!³ Plus, there aren’t any hummingbirds outside of the Western Hemisphere. We were living in a house with gardens that attracted many hummingbirds all season and it was a highlight of our summer.

Our dog Josie is a key member of our family. The more we researched Central or South America, the worst it seemed for dogs. After Mexico, we looked hard at Costa Rica. In the midst of reading about how criminals toss poisoned food into back yards to kill all the dogs before they hit a neighborhood or the poisonous toads where one lick will kill your dog (and we’ve got a licky dog) or the mobs of roving dogs who will gang up on you … well. And so it went, country by country. This one has such income inequality your heart is ripped out and that one has no medical …

It’s awkward to admit, when asked by locals why we chose Portugal, that we didn’t have a particular pull to Portugal at the start. We mumble something and scurry. We certainly don’t want to admit we’d never been here on vacation, or - let’s be honest here - considered it for vacation.

What happened next, though, is the reality: The more we did our research into countries, the more we fell in love with Portugal. By the end, we were rooting for Portugal.

We’d fallen in love without even setting foot there.

We used the list approach. What things are important to us? We’d Google question after question, read each result, go deep into reports from agencies their employees’ mothers have never even heard of. And then made a chart called Hit The Road, Jack⁴ that included where each country fell. Climate (hours of sunlight to weather to plans for future climate change), community, healthcare, cost of living, politics, how hard to get in, commute to US, pests, English books/libraries, taxes all factored into on our list, at different weights. We’ve always been quantitative people. And this made it obvious. Portugal was in the top 3 on Each. And. Every. List. It was the no-brainer choice. Plus – the more we looked into Portugal - the history, natural beauty, the food, closeness to both Europe and northern Africa - the more enamored we became.

Unexpectedly, we weren’t fleeing the US. We were running to Portugal.

The next question was Where in the Indiana-sized country did we want to live and thus … The Scouting Trip. We had planned to go to Scotland in June of 2022 to make up for a pandemic-cancelled jaunt there the year before and to visit our niece in Edinburgh. We figured we would rejigger our trip and tack on a week or two in Portugal looking for our future home. Then we would think about where, and when, and even if, and put it all in the hopper and see what came out.

The thing is, Scott’s job was contract based. In February 2022 he had to sign a contract for the next year, starting in August, and ending in June 2023. We were so jazzed by Being in Portugal and Scott being retired that it felt really hard to sign him up for another 16 months.

At the same time, the real estate market in Portugal took off like a jet engine. As more and more US citizens departed for Portugal making rentals scarce on the ground, it began to seem like waiting may not be in our best interest. Or, what we wanted to do.

On March 15, we realized we didn’t have the time we wanted and - gulp - canceled the scouting trip. Suddenly we were scrambling to simultaneously find an apartment to land in and use as base of operations for searching, applying for our visa, and selling our house.

Where, though, in Portugal? Despite being a small country, it’s as geographically and ecologically diverse as possible in such a space. We decided for the beginning we want to be in an area with as many expats as possible, as many resources as possible, to help ease the transition. We were also very excited to live without a car. For us, that meant starting out in either Porto or Lisbon.

We spent a lot of time trying (comparatively) to decide between the two. Long-term, we think Porto is the better bet, mainly from a climate perspective. But this initial stop wasn't long-term. We just couldn't choose. So we engaged realtors in both cities and said we'd land in the first city where we found an apartment. Lisbon it was, then.

We couldn’t be happier with the result.

That’s all for now,

Love,

Amy & Scott

1. Seriously. People who are trying to grapple with the concept that we would leave the Good Ole USA. (It must be Portugal’s fault they’re leaving!) People who wish they could make such a change themselves or are considering it. People who are here. The questions don’t end.

2. Portugal has both the Golden Visa (the invest in the economy visa), although they may be phasing it out, and the D-7 Passive Income Visa.

3. Tip to the wise: If you go to try on clothes and the changing booth is not staffed, it may not go well for you.
Also, if driving and there is a “parking lot” bump, you need to be travelling with native Spanish speakers. Our wonderful Airbnb hosts took us to the country to see a wonderful Mesoamerican, from the Chichimec Culture. En route we stopped at a convenience store. Where a small traffic lot incident happened. Hearts in our stomach, we were amazed as one of the couple carried out the negotiations, an autobody guy came by to look at the smudge, and we were fearing prison or worse. End damage: 50 pesos.

Our wonderful Airbnb host and his now-wife, who is one heck of a negotiator! We’re at the Zona Archeologica Plazuelas, which includes a very large ball court.

4. By request