Finding A New Home in Portugal

Our Little House on Lake Wildwood

This will be an introduction to our journey to find a new home in Portugal. After spending 8 lovely years in Uruguay, and returning to the United States we moved to Macon, GA, found a house on a small private lake and made this house everything we could ever want, planning on staying here for the rest of our lives. What could ever cause us to want to move from here?

Another look at the lake

It turns out that fully retiring here might be impossible. That realization was brought about because the company that I work for (a national home improvement store) eliminated my position, leaving me jobless. This caused us to re-evaluate whether we could survive where we lived on Social Security and some other small income. It was going to be close, and would depend on being able to find part time work, and Denise's health insurance remaining at the current rate, two things would could change in an instant.

The lake as seen from the deck

So, several months ago we began exploring our options (again) and after looking at several countries, found that Portugal seemed to suit our needs, and yes, even our desires. In keeping with our usual manner of doing things, the decision to leave our home in Georgia and travel to another country and start all over.... took less than 3 months. Prior to that time, before I was fired, we were set to stay in Macon.

But Portugal was not our first choice. In fact, Ecuador came up on our radar, and for several months, that was our prime destination. It has a pleasant climate (in the highlands), a dollar economy and a very economical way of life. We searched and planned and Denise was about to go on a "fishing" expedition, when the government changed some of its gas subsidy policies, and an indigenous population rose up in protest, shutting off all major roads in the country. The government was forced to leave the capital and the protests continued for weeks until the changes were rescinded. Life went back to normal, and I am sure Ecuador is a great place to retire. But we had glimpsed that a portion of the population that was not happy about foreign intervention, and decided we didn't need that. So the search continued.

France, Spain and Italy were on our list of places we would like to live, but eventually we found that the income requirements were too stringent for us to qualify, leaving us with Portugal, which was more reasonable in its guidelines for residency. And we were looking for a permanent place to live. After all, you can't wander all your life. You have to settle down at some point... and this is the point for us.

Just in case you didn't know Portugal's location

So now we get to Portugal. We read and studied and read some more. We had spent about 3 months in Portugal about 40 years ago. Of course, things would have changed a lot, but we did have good memories of that time. The more we read, the more we liked. We viewed YouTube videos and joined several faceBook groups, and about 3 months after deciding to leave, settled on Portugal.

But where in Portugal. While it is a small country, it offers many different exciting destinations and a wide variety of opportunities. When we moved to Uruguay in 2008, we just up and moved, lock stock and barrel, without ever visiting the country and found a home there. We decided to be a little more responsible, this time. We planned on having Denise travel there, find a house for us, before moving. Admittedly, this is still only a few months after deciding to move, but for us this was responsible.

In January of this year, Denise left for Portugal, leaving me to take care of the house and animals. She would be traveling all over Portugal looking for a place to live. I am not sure I got the best of that deal.

Our new house in Ilhavo, Portugal

So here is where it gets a little crazy. Denise flies into Porto, the 2nd largest city in Portugal. She stays a few days, there, to get herself situated. Four days later, she takes a train to Aveiro, a cute little town near the coast, with a huge lagoon on one side and little canals running through the town. She arrives on Sunday night. Monday morning she contacts a real estate agent to look at a house that we had viewed online. It was located within walking distance of services, 15 minutes from beautiful beaches and 15 minutes from Aveiro. It was a house that caught our eye, since we had decided that we should get a house closer to town. After all we are getting older.

That day, Denise saw the house and stayed around to look at the little town. She went home, called me and told me that she thinks that she found the house for us. I agreed and the next day she called the agent, had him present an offer, and within a week, she had signed a contract of sale made a deposit on the house, to be concluded in 30 days.

Our neighborhood

I told you it was a little crazy. She is in the country less than a week, makes an offer on the one and only house she looked at, and at this moment, we own that house. So I guess that our efforts to appear responsible are out the door. Now, I would not ever recommend this way of doing things. You should visit a country over time. Several visits. You should then, if you so decide, come and rent for a year or two and then possibly, just possibly buy a place, if you are so inclined. Anyway, that is the way you should do it.

During the 30 days, while Denise was waiting for the house to close, she traveled around Portugal, staying for a week, each in Coimbra, Tomar and Lisbon. I will share some of her experiences and photos in the next few posts. But for now, our time in Macon is limited. Onwards to Portugal.