Finding Her Peace in the Algarve

[Music] hello and welcome my emerging expat you're tuned in to let's move to Portugal I'm producer Dan and I have the distinct honor of bringing you YouTube Travelers and our resident Portugal experts expats everywhere's Josh and Kaylee each week they'll Inspire they'll educate and they'll accompany you on your journey to Portuguese resid [Music] this week on let's move to Portugal Kaye is joined by Nancy who shares her fascinating Journey from the sunny shores of California to the Charming Landscapes of Portugal exploring the realities and joys of the expat life [Music] hey xats and travelers welcome back to the xats everywhere presents let's move to Portugal podcast Kaye how you doing typical question I'm doing well yes um I guess not much to report the weather's been good here but there's rain in the forecast which is kind of a bummer other than that I'm doing well what about you it's nice and sunny outside right now I'm doing well uh I'm not doing well necessarily because your parents left yesterday but oh you're so sad that they've left I think their trip was really fast this time I mean they were here for essentially six nights and it was just too fast that's very sweet of you yes they're not going to hear this so I'm not I'm not trying to say it for them butter them up no well I guess for you listener my parents come every you know two times a year I guess every spring every fall cuz they like to cruise over or back one of the legs one of the legs is the transatlantic because my dad's just kind of done with flying so they do that so for them they were already on the ship for almost 2 weeks anyway so they're only here they're only here a week this time and then back cuz my mom had to get back to work I think although she works remotely she had to get into the office to deal with some stuff so it was a shorter visit than normal yeah yeah but just being able to see the way our our daughter their granddaughter loves them and spends time with them is great also gives us a little break yes yes some late night babysitting which was helpful and uh sleepovers for them so yeah they had a good time it was quick though was quick yes and if you're not familiar with the format of this podcast we have a opening message then we kind of talk a little bit about what's happening in the world of xats everywhere both per personally and professionally and then we jump into the interview so we're kind of Midway through that right now I just want to give you a little update on what's happening on the channel so this past month has been a lot of comparing and contrasting Spain and Portugal and it will kind of continue to be like that on the YouTube channel maybe not as much moving forward with the podcast but we will have another Portugal video out on the um the second Channel yes on xats everywhere explores yes so we do have a second channel that dives I think more into different countries different cities xats everywhere has gotten a lot into the details of Portugal but we do know that there are other places that people want to visit that you want to visit or possibly move to so we have xats everywhere explorers which is a smaller Channel but we're starting to build it up a little bit and we are getting ready to put out like a country guide we do different Guides of cities and countries there so we're going to put out a Portugal country guide on that channel if you want a more of an overview of the country but then we'll also have other countries there as well yep big day today big week really this past week uh and moving forward with our project so when I refer to our project we're talking about our real estate development here in Porto where we have personally purchased a property that's a lot peas here in Portugal here in PTO Portugal PTO Portugal yeah um so we we bought a property um and it's under Redevelopment we've kind of gotten through all of the licensing phases at least that I know at least that I know of um but essentially we've poured concrete for the Crane Foundation footing and that has been curing over the weekends and then tomorrow is when they're going to construct the crane erect the crane can I say that by piece put it up I don't know just say put it up put it together and then today this morning um I met with the project leader from the company that we're using and then a third-party engineer that's going to be doing the kind of third party project management so he's going to make sure that what the company we're using says they've done and are doing that they're doing no corners being cut with either work or materials so finally connected those pieces today and I'm feeling really good about it like everybody seems to be on the same page things seem to be Amic amicable not in a um not in a in a in a bad way cuz sometimes like when things get amicable amicable I can't even say that word uh it it's like in a bad way well it could be like not well it could be like are they in cahoots with each other like do you know what I mean but it's not like that at all generally no but it's generally a positive word I would say so I think you're using it when you use it means in a positive way I am okay so all seems to be going well there and I think we've been saying it for weeks but we should have a video out on another on let's get building and Josh and Kaye should be soon right this should be it should be this week is the Hope well that's the hope I mean I'm working through the footage now but here's the funny thing and I thought about this as I was on the site today like I'm capturing footage already for the next episode MH the crane right that's got and it's just like all sorts of like files and stuff that I'm I'm having a hard time keeping it organized not only in in physical drives but also in my head I think the good thing though is the first video will come out soon and the second one will come out soon after that because we've we've had so long where we've been trying to wait on certain things and we've had delays so we've been picking up small footage here and there now stuff's kind of really rolling right we have a lot more movement and especially with the crane going up that could I don't know if you're going to do a whole episode on that that could be uh and at some point we get to go up the crane is what we've been told well that I mean that that should all be in the same episode I think so that could come out very quickly as well it could so we might hopefully have them rolling right yeah it definitely could uh last update is that over the weekend we had our Patron only Skype chat which was great because we got to do a deep dive into what things should people bring like what things do they arrive here and they realize they miss it's like we had a f- minute conversation on what your favorite peanut butter everybody showing their jars it was really funny but um it was a you know the first half of it was a little more Technical and the and then the second half the other 30 minutes was more light-hearted and and jovial sharing different personal experiences here uh in Portugal so that was cool had a lot of fun doing that I think what's fun about that is we have patrons who are in all different stages so some were patrons before and they now have moved here and they've lived here for a while and they continue to support us which is great we thank you for that so then they have a lot of insight and experience as well and they come at you know different angles different stages of Life different financial backgrounds uh what they're looking for where they're living so it's fun for us all to get on there and get a whole mix of some people who are just thinking about moving all the way to people who have been here for years so it was nice to get a good mix and although we facilitate the calls it's not like the Josh and Kaylee show like this is we can't actually have a conversation exactly but um yeah it's great it's good conversation two way okay so let's segue then into I spoke with Nancy and well and speaking about our project she also they they had a project as well where they bought a place and went through Renovations and and she kind of you know tracked it herself but before that when they moved they landed in the Lisbon region and they were in cash kage for a little bit so she has some great comparisons of what life was like in cash kage for a little bit and how it wasn't actually for them too big um they loved it they say it's beautiful but too big for them not what they're looking for and so they ended up moving and buying a property in Algarve nice in a smaller town so she's got a lot of good insight into what that was like she's been here for a few years she has a stack so you can follow her on that and follow her journey so she's a wealth of knowledge as well a different stage of life has been here for a couple years so it was a good conversation yeah I was sitting on the other side of the computer so I only heard like one side of the conversation I heard your questions being asked but I didn't get to hear her responses so I'm looking forward to listening to it shall we let's go let's do it Nancy thanks so much for joining me I'm really excited to talk to you because you're down in Algarve you've bought a place you've been here for several years so I'm really looking forward to jumping in and talking about why you chose Portugal and how it's going for you so let's go ahead and back up there why did you choose Portugal um there was nothing scientific about it it was uh it was covid in the United States we had talked about leaving the United States since 2016 um but uh I had a aging mother and and it didn't really become a possibility until 2020 in 2020 we kind of got serious about it um and we had a lot of time to think about it with covid lockdowns and and such we lived in California at the time and um so we had never been to Portugal um it was not on our radar but as we read you know all the magazines you know best places to retire Fortune international living all those kinds of magazines Portugal kept coming high on the list of uh European destinations and Europe was high on our list so um we just decided to come and about we started in I guess August and in October we uh had our visas and uh we flew over in December and did you cut all ties with things in California you sold everything and full on moved over here and you had never been here before correct and but I know that sounds crazy but that's not difficult for us um we've been married 27 years and we we've own seven houses actually this is house number eight um so we're we're used to picking up and moving after a few years either for business reasons or just because we want a different environment all of the prior moves for me had been within the United States um but um we had sold five of our seven houses turn keep over the years so we were used to just starting fresh and um so that was easy for us okay so you were really looking forward to the adventure and just something different yeah yeah we wanted to um we knew once we got into Europe it would be much easier to traveled throughout Europe we had traveled some but we had vacationed in Europe we hadn't lived in Europe we hadn't really experience many of the places that we had visited so we wanted the opportunity to come over live in a place you know travel at a more leisurely Pace spend time more time in places that we wanted to explore um and so that's why we came over when we did and you came over on the D7 Visa yes it was and it was for us it was really easy we did hire a relocation company u based out of Porto but um they they basically held our hands the the biggest benefit of them is at the time San Francisco was closed and they said and we lived in California and they said you know anybody in the South and we said yeah we just move from Florida did any of those people want you to use their address and we said sure So we we acted like we were in Florida okay and work through the DC consulate and so that was the biggest benefit we got from the relocation company was that little piece of advice yeah I remember that 2020 because uh San Francisco they stayed closed a lot longer than DC because that's around the time that we we had to apply as well but we were in Florida so we had access to the DC VFS office which was nice cuz it opened up much faster than the San Francisco one did okay great so then where have you landed in Portugal our first stop which was only for five or six weeks was in steril um outside of Lisbon um and that we found over the Internet sight unseen nobody looked at it then um it was a very traditional multifam Portuguese house um but it was much older uh without central heat and central air conditioning so we kind of drugg a electric heater from room to room and we looked at the owner of the apartment whose apartment we could see into from ours where her puffy coat in the house all the time so we felt this is not where we want to stay so um we um had only paid 3 months rent of truck for that apartment so we left and just said keep your money Mone and we'll go and we found a beautiful beautiful apartment in KES K three bedrooms two bath third floor beautiful view um got renovated by the owners that were planning to move there in two years so they gave us a lease unfortunately the day before we were supposed to move in the dishwasher which was new was turned on to test it and whoever turned it on didn't stay around to see it tested and so the entire part flooded yeah so God bless our real estate agent she scurried and found us another Airbnb nearby and we stayed there for six weeks until the apartment was dried out and new floors were installed and then we lived in FL cash KES apartment oh that's so unfortunate for the owners that's missed so but that was our first that was the first place that we really landed and felt like we were in Portugal and around was it may of that year 2021 or actually the end of April 2021 the the um lockdown got lifted um and we were able to start experiencing Portugal but at that time cash kashish was very different than it is today because tourism hadn't come back yet yeah and so when we go to we were just in kashkash last weekend and when we go there now we barely recognize it because it's so different than the place we live and do you think it's better worse just different like what do you think about a couple years on how it is now I think cash K is a phenomenal place to land if you have the resources cash Kash is a very very easy place to land because you have easy ACC access to Lisbon the public transportation is exceptional the health care in that area is really really good you don't need to speak a word of Portuguese and you'll never want for something to do I mean in the sum time there is something happening every single weekend so it's a really easy place if you're you know going through the process to land um and but for us we wanted a more real Portuguese experience as opposed to a what what often felt like San Diego does okay um and so I mean there were so many non-portuguese there that it sometimes didn't feel like Portugal and so we wanted a more Portuguese experience um we had done some traveling and and in our travels we had visited like little towns of you know 300 people 800 people and though we had never lived in a place like that um and we still don't we wanted something a little smaller Villa roale filled that fill for us okay and we'll get there um but before that for someone who's thinking about cash cash either for a short term or long term what would be a good bud budget you would recommend someone has monthly just to be able to enjoy all the things going on there well okay so when we we were like I said we were there 2021 our rent for a three-bedroom two bath apartment was 2300 a month plus all utilities I'm told after we moved out they were able to rent that apartment for $3500 what a big difference yeah so so um so you're going to need to spend somewhere in the high 2,000 to 3,000 euro if you want a nice central air you know heat modern appliances American style um apartment the um like I said public transportation is great since we were over 65 we could utilize the Via Verde card that got us into Lisbon and and provided us all public transportation for20 EUR a month so that was a great bargain I don't find groceries that different between the Lisbon KES K area and Algarve but um I I would think to live comfortably you would need at least 4,000 a month and and we may not be a good judge of that because we may have an unrealistic budget compared to some other people well I get asked this question a lot and it just depends on lifestyle what you want to do what you want to spend your money on how locally you want you know do you need certain Comforts from back in the US it might be more expensive so yeah it just depends that gives our listener a ballpark idea um can you explain the transportation that you just did and how does someone get that so there's a so first of all I believe now if you are a resident of Lisbon and you're over 65 you get free public transportation you just go to the transportation off and in in one of the metro stops show a lease or a purchase agreement for where you live and they'll give you a card and kind of like the card that you use that gets recharged at the Metro stop um it just gives you free public transportation all over Lisbon we had um a car called Viva Lisboa and um we went to the local Metro station they took our picture we filled out a form you had to have a nith um and um show them where you live and then for then you would go back each month and recharge it for €20 and that got you on Metro buses trains berries and trams in the entire Lisbon metropolitan area so we could get to satal without paying anything we could get anywhere in that nearly 100 kilometer area for um that 20 Euros a month yeah that's great and that's great for those who who are over 65 to be able to access that we have something similar in Porto but it is different you can't use the same one El Lisbon as you can in Porto but right but same thing good so you were in cash Kash but before that you were in stal what's what did you think about uh those two compared to each other uh what were some differences of so someone's looking in that region what are some pros and cons of those two places um steril is a little quieter it's more residential meaning traditional residential as opposed to highrises I mean there are highrises in strill but not as many um um but it's a little quieter I would say that's the major difference and um I mean there's good restaurants in steril there's plenty of um grocery shopping in steril just like there is in kashk um the I don't think the Mercado is good the kashk Marcado is just exceptional um and um but it's just a little quieter and if you don't want to be in the crazy hustle and bustle of July and August in KES K it's a great place to live because literally you jump on the train and within 10 minutes you're there okay or if you're like us you walk and you can easily walk on the prominade from steril to Kash K and it's a lovely lovely walk so about how long about 20 minutes 20 minutes we walk yeah good so very doable without a car as well oh exceptionally doable without a car I um I had an electric bicycle at one point and um coming home from golf one day I fell on my bike and broke my arm oh no and um walked to K hospital that was just you know a kilometer and a half away um so it's it's very easy to do without a car yeah so do you still have that bike or no more oh no I sold the bike after that accident or was it I I never felt comfortable on that bike again so yeah that happens but it it it it was it was the glass of champagne that I had had after the round them sclf before I got on my bike that was the culprit but ah I I blame it on the bike okay good yeah definitely not on the champagne of course uh okay so then you eventually decided this isn't for us we want something smaller maybe a bit more local so then did you start searching around places or you already had idea of place well we we thought algar because we're both very big golfers my wife's you know very talented golfer very very good amateur and um and I'm relatively reasonable golf was golf was really important to us uh we had friends that had moved to Tavira so we had had an opportunity to visit T Vera uh which is lovely um but in visiting T Vera we took a drive over to Bal de San Antonio one day and as soon as we saw the river and the ocean come together we went oh this is where we should be and um it was a little less touristy than T was a little more local than you know a little more local Portuguese than T more working class kind of Portuguese than T and so um we decided to land here okay and when did you move there we um got an apartment so we could oversee the renovations of our house in uh February of 22 okay so we moved a little more than a year after we moved to KES K we M into this into an apartment we bought a building in November of 21 that was an old Union Hall wow and and converted it started working through the process of converting it into a home okay so it's just a single family home yeah well yes yeah I mean it's it's in the of town so we have neighbors attached to us on either side but yeah it's a single family home okay so it's all yours so you started you bought that you said in November of 21 and you started Renovations uh what was that process like it it wasn't as bad as everybody had told us okay first of all we had a brand new mayor and he had um run on a plat platform of um improving efficiency in town hall you know the kind of thing so um we worked with an architect and by the end of December she had submitted the first set of plans um it took literally three weeks for them to approve those plans wow which is lightning yes um even by American Standards that's lightninging and we didn't pay anybody and and you know um we didn't invite anybody over for dinner um and then and then after that we had the engineers come through there were seven engineering plans that that needed to be done so they got done um and that took about a month six weeks they got submitted two weeks after they were submitted they were approved um and then you package everything together the architectural plans and the engineering plans and package them together and they become your um application for your building permit so um that went in in April and we got it in May and uh May 30th the um the Builder started breaking things up okay so all right and then and when did you move in August of 23 okay yes right so the Builder had promised that it would take no more than a month um he was wrong it it took all of 14 months which everybody tells me he's really good um and then when I moved in on the 14 after 14 months I noticed that we didn't have air conditioning and I asked the heating and air conditioning guy how to turn on the air conditioning and he told me oh I haven't brought the compressor yet I'll be bringing it soon oh gosh so so um so we really moved in a few weeks later okay yeah you definitely needed that right yeah well well I guess around summertime like what what is the weather like there um it gets into the 90s but um you have to realize we came from the desert we came from outside po Springs so anything below 122 to us is bearable that's not the norm for a lot of people I'd say yeah I know so but so for us it's not bad you were okay but yeah but it does it does and and there's a lot more humidity here than there is in the desert so um it can be a little sticky okay yeah did the habitation license take a while or was that pretty quick cuz sometimes people get held up with that uh we don't have it yet okay okay Ah that's funny so that one is taking a long time yeah I I think I'm not 100% sure because our architect is handling this so that I don't kill someone um uh I think we're still waiting on the gas and what I find interesting about that is there's no gas on our street so there is no gas but according to the current building standards and I don't know if theyve vary from Porto to Algarve or whatever but our building standards are that the house has to be built to support gas even though there isn't gas so by our front door there's a little hidden door that has what would be the hookup for the gas behind it if there was such a thing and in our kitchen there is this really annoying knob um that does nothing yeah but if we had gas it would turn the gas off so as soon as the gas man was here and he did the inspection but I'm still waiting for the certificate and then once we have that certificate I believe that's the last one then that'll get packaged up and become our habitation license we're fortunate we didn't owe any money bought the building for cash we funded the renovations for cash so because of all that there's not a bank holding up us getting a loan because we don't have a habitation license otherwise we wouldn't be able to live here right and and I'm not sure we're living here legally but nobody seems to care it's Portugal yeah uh okay well any advice for someone who is looking to buy an alar or just really in Portugal um the process the feelings about it any advice you want to give um so I think if you're an American and you're used to the American process you you just need to be aware that the Portuguese process is very different um though there are rules related to disclosure in Portugal they're not nearly as onerous as the disclosure rules in the United States and um so because of that a lot of stuff doesn't get disclosed um I I went to look at a property with a friend cuz he wanted my help and um I looked at the woman and I said is this a um bottle gas ovens and she said yes and I said to him well you'll probably want to change that and she said well you'll have to change it anyway it doesn't work so if I there was nowhere on any of the documents that said that the water heater didn't work that the oven didn't work that the stove top didn't work um and had we not asked is there hot water currently in this apart in this apartment I'm not sure anybody would have told us right so you have to be really careful about disclosure inspections are very different than in the United States you're not going to get a 40 page Report with photographs and all that kind of stuff if it's an apartment the owner of the apartment or the house may not be willing to turn on the utilities so what are you inspecting if you don't turn on the utility ities I'm not sure what exactly you're expecting other than holdes in a wall yeah so um you know the process is very different I think you need a very good lawyer that represents you throughout the process um who does the search to make sure that the seller who's selling you the property in fact owns it and has the right to sell it that's an important one I mean there's no title insurance here yeah um um we asked our lawyer to act as an es agent because I wasn't about to give money to the seller and then try to chase them down in court if the deal didn't go through everybody agreed to have our attorney act as an escrow agent and hold all funds until closing um so but if you don't know to ask that you probably won't be provided that service yeah so there's I think you just need to you know go into it a bit cautious um right because it will be different it's great advice though uh with the escro cuz that's such a common thing when you sign the promisory note or the cpcv generally you just give the money to the seller but it is nerve-wracking because yeah I mean of course you have a contract but what if they run off with that so to have uh your lawyer kind of be the go- between for escrow is is good advice yeah I think I mean I think in general the the Portuguese legal system doesn't work very quickly um um right now the American legal system doesn't seem to work quickly either but I the um the um you I mean you don't want to be suing somebody in a foreign country I mean it's just just dealing with that I mean even in your own country right like it's just a hassle and a headache and takes time and money and yeah you just don't want to have to deal with that so if you can prevent any sort of you know possibility of that happening then might as well so yeah it's great advice so then how are you finding it there compared to cash cash oh much different much much different we have um well first of all when we moved here I think there were 12 Americans living in will Roy Al day San Antonio now they're about 50 okay Veronica's video has brought a bunch of people and um she does a great job of introducing everyone to one another so there's a a much larger more diverse group of people here now than when we moved but you can't assume that you're going to be best friends with every American that lives in in the town so you know you kind of pick your tribe and you kind of figure it out um but yeah it's very different see we now know local Portuguese people who have become our friends who invite us into their homes we invite them into our homes they always look at us funny the first time we invite them into our homes but they get over it um and um so it's nice I mean you walk down the street and you see somebody and you stop and kiss each cheek and ask about each other's family before you go on and do whatever you were out on the street to do so it's a very different kind of environment in the hustle and bustle of of a of a city and are you doing this in Portuguese or English yes hand signals well we we're we're in B we're in B1 B2 right now great um so using the you know the Portuguese system that's done at our local school and we've been very fortunate we've had exceptional teachers um both of the years I know it can be hit and this and I've talked to people that have had really great teachers and other people that have been less than satisfied but um and Denise is much better at it than I am she studies every day she's so annoying you have to right I mean it's tough but the language is wof yeah so my comprehension is still terrible I can read anything you know give me something to read and I can I can do that but my veral comprehension is still really bad yeah um I can communicate what I need to communicate the tents may not be correct the grammar may not be 100% correct but um I always tell people when we lived in California our gardener was was born in Mexico he knew this much English I knew this much Spanish the you know the gardening always got done fine yeah that's true so I didn't care that he didn't know the past perfect tense of some verb the key is to communicate right right right right yeah so um do a lot of people speak English there or is it a mix or it's like a low lower level of English or like if someone knew yeah much lower mix a much lower level of of English than um in KES Kish or Lisbon um a lot of the shop owners do not speak English or say they don't speak English um like because like us they're uncomfortable with their English just as we're uncomfortable speaking their language um so um it is more necessary to either carry a translator with you or or learn at least enough Portuguese to be able to shop and do whatever because we're on the coast of Spain and because there are many similarities between the words in Spanish and Portuguese almost all the shop owners here speak Spanish okay that come over oh every every day every weekend this town becomes probably twice its normal size on Saturday and Sunday from the Spaniards coming over they come over on big buses for tours they come over on the furry they just drive over for the day there are things supposedly we're known for our Linens and there's a mist or a fable that if you sleep on fale sheets the first night of your wedding you'll have a happy wedding so people come over here in okay so so uh yeah we have a lot of Spanish here on the weekends and the Spanish will not speak Portuguese yeah so Portuguese speak Spanish so true and then do you pop over easily then to Spain do you have a car down there now or yeah yeah we have we have a car because the golfers you can't rely on public transportation not as often as we play golf so uh yes we have a car um but if we're going over to ion we just jump on the furry cuz it's just easier we're there in 15 minutes and I don't know I think it's like a EUR 60 cents to go on the furry over there and it's a nice ride so and you don't have to find parking yeah a one uh how far is the the closest golf course the or the golf course that you go to from where you're living now um there's a the the next town is called Castro marine and it's um 5 kilm to Castro marine and there are two golf courses in Castro Marines Castro Marine Golf Course um and Vel I mean Kint Deval golf course and we belong to Kint Deval so okay is it your favorite one down in algar or is there another one that you like that's just a little further away that you don't go to regularly or what would be your favorite one our sister our sister course um that meaning it's owned by the same management company and we can join all three courses if we wanted to is a club called Kint DEA Kint Dara so two golf courses is attached um and they're both exceptional golf courses um and we like them a lot the challenge with that for us is they will not store our trolleys and our golf clubs for us and when you're 70 the last thing you want to do is schlep your clubs in and out of your car three or four times a week yeah okay so so K kinded I mean yeah K Deval works much better for us okay yep that makes sense all right and how do you find traveling you said you want wanted to travel around Europe uh how are you finding traveling especially being based there do you just uh go to the faru airport to travel or what's travel look like now that you're base in algar uh far or Sevilla um are both options Sevilla takes us an hour and 30 minutes to get to and if we if I'm stupid enough to book a six o'clock flight the night before then you go the night before please tell me no no we get up early but six o'clock in Seville is 5:00 in Portugal so it means we have to get up at 3:00 and it's just whole thing but um but so um no it's great we so what while we were having the house built um I was trying to oversee construction because I kind of like that we had flipped a couple houses in the United States I've done a lot of Renovations myself though the process here is entirely different and the only thing I did was paint but you did a great job of that thanks but um um the U what was oh so during that year that our house was under construction we did not work we did not travel nearly as much as we wanted so we kind of set a goal of traveling every month this year which I don't think we're going to do uh uh Denise went back to the States for a wedding in January so I'm counting that February went to madiva and fusa which was lovely we were there for six days uh we just came back from my Orca this summer we're driving to Denmark and back wow yeah so that's a big trip and we're taking uh 18 days to get there and 18 days to get home and spending 10 days in Denmark um that that's a big road trip with the dog and um so that's a big trip and then in oh I'm sorry in June we're going to Croatia and then in December we're going to Vietnam and Cambodia oh exciting so yeah so we're going to have our fill of travel and then we have of course now now everybody who's figured out that we live in Portugal is also coming to visit when we're not moving so we just had friends here from San Francisco and went up to Lisbon and showed them Lisbon and obidos and evah so so we're doing quite a bit of traveling right now so you don't think you'll make every month just cuz it'll end up being too much yeah and I and we have like there's one month that I think almost every day of the month we have a visitor a different visitor um so I don't think we'll make June or no no prob is June I don't think we'll make July okay but you can kind of make it work because you're like well people are coming here so at least it's something right yeah well that's exciting a lot of fun you know for for a listener who wants to move to portol and one of the things they want to do is travel of course it's it's much more accessible obviously once you're already over here to to travel like that right yeah I mean last year we went we did take one vacation last year in August because you know nobody works in August so there wasn't any there wasn't any construction nothing overse yeah so we went to Italy and Switzerland last August and it's just you know it's nice to be able to take a relatively short flight well first of all the airport experience is better because nobody's taking off their shoes um you scan your ticket to go through security you know to get through the first stop of security then nobody's taking off your shoes then um you get on the the plane by showing your resident ID I mean we carry our passports just in case but I've never been asked to use one um and when you get off the plane you just get off the plane there's no passport control there's none of that craziness that if you're coming from the States you would go through and then um and then you jump on a a train and and very comfortably take a train to Switzerland so so that the travel here is just so much easier it's less stressful yeah traveling within the shenen like you said is easy because you have your residency card and a couple other countries like have recently joined the shangan so it's becoming even more so so yeah so that's uh makes it much easier for sure and then train travel too which is always great uh you can comfortably get around if you don't want to rent a car right you can definitely use train travel which is com great yeah do you know has has Croatia joined the shangan region now they have you know that's they have okay okay yep they have and then Romania and Bulgaria were just uh even more recently too so yep so that's exciting more places to visit and easier right not have to deal with just you know passport control so being in Algarve uh what are some pros and cons and like I guess who is Algarve not for and who do you think it is for um I think I think there it tends to attract people my age as opposed to people your age um I was going to say um if you're gay you probably want to go to Porto or Lisbon but there is there's now a large gay population in tavier oddly enough well I shouldn't say large there's 50 or 60 people that get together once a month in tavier but um I think it attracts an older population I think next to lisban algar and cashk Algarve is is relatively expensive compared to the rest of Portugal um particularly if you're in central uh algar or you're Ina that area is you know more Lisbon prices than it is um everra or obidos for silver Coast prices um so you know you have to take that into consideration yeah that's good advice uh because you know budget and where people want to live generally it's budget it's weather you know location so if if you want to you know maybe live on a more fixed income with a lower budget alar might not be for you because prices have risen a lot right yeah they we've seen it just since we've got in here right now we're we're starting to see some contraction I mean in the last since January we've seen prices come back a little bit and I think we'll continue to see that for a little while but um but it's it's it's not it's funny you know I I get readers that send me questions I I literally had a reader send me a question can I afford to live here oh I get that too well there's a lot of variables here this is a loaded question well first of all tell me how much income you have helpful exactly Minor Detail right so um you know you have to you have to take into consideration when when we moved here I subscribed to International Living magazine I I think International Living magazine kind of glorifies and oversimplifies and and and kind of makes you know you can move to this country for 1,200 Euros a month and you'll be happy as a pagan [ __ ] and um I think you know sometimes their their data is either out of date or they're not they're not the types of apartments that most Americans would want to live in so you just if you're coming from a certain standard of living you expect that same standard of living where you move I think most people do and so you you need to budget for that and algar is not not cheap it's I think it's second to Lisbon in terms of the most expensive place in in Portugal and you mentioned a reader uh wrote you how how can people follow you or get in touch with you if they want um I I started a Blog in January of 2020 uh oh no I'm sorry January of 2021 so a few weeks after we got here we were in lockdown I had nothing to do um my friend said we'd like to know what's going on so I started a Blog called expad in pugal it's on the substack athlet app and um and so I started it with like two dozen friends and there's now about 4,000 people that read it on a weekly basis which I totally crazy and absurd great must be interesting stuff then huh so well I'm very direct and honest I like that people need that so that's very helpful well lastly at ATF we believe that living abroad transforms lives so how has living abroad transformed your life I think travel is essential to living I think it's I I worry about people that have never left the state that they live in or I I mean I realize America's large comp country so you don't necessarily need to leave the United States but I think there is so much that can be learned from other cultures and um other people we recently turned 70 and if I've been retired already for 11 years so what was I going to do with the next you know 25 years of my life uhuh um hanging out and playing golf I mean I love to play golf but there's more to life in playing golf so um we learned so much when we travel we we develop New Perspectives when we travel we realize that the education system that we were brought up in is not the only education system in the world that the you know the religion that we were brought up with is not the only religion in the world and it just gives us a different perspective on life and I I just think it's essential to um continuing to live otherwise it's very boring very I agree Josh and I are the same well man thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today well was fun being here thanks kayy hi listener it's me producer Dan and I just wanted to say thank you so much for listening this episode wraps up season two of xats everywhere presents let's move to Portugal and season 3 is going to start in just a few weeks but season two is going to be my last season working on this show with Josh and Kaylee and I want to thank you guys for listening and making the show a success it has been a lot of fun to do and I really appreciate all of you listening and watching it means a ton to us Josh and Kaylee have been fantastic to work with uh they are tireless in getting this out every week and I couldn't have asked for better Partners in a show Josh and Kaylee really are as nice as they seem to be online and uh yeah they're fantastic to work with so thank thank you both to Josh and Kaylee as well if you want to keep tabs on me uh I'll continue to be working on my other show called positively terrible where we interview people about the tough times in their lives and all the learning and growing that they've done since then it's really a fun show and we'd love it if you checked it out too so in conclusion one more time thank you to Josh thank you to Kaylee and most importantly thank you to all of you for listening uh it has been a lot of fun being here with you so thank you

Channel: ExpatsEverywhere Podcast

Views: 2,086

Keywords: expatseverywhere, expats, podcast, move to portugal, live in portugal, moving to portugal, living in portugal, portugal, expats in portugal, expatseverywhere podcast, algarve, buy and renovate in portugal, vrsa, Vila Real de Santo António

Id: mLq50M9WrbM

Length: 49min 26sec (2966 seconds)

Published: Tue May 07 2024