We decided to move to live in Portugal from England. Yes, you read everything correctly.
I am starting to write a series of articles dedicated to our life in Portugal. I hope you enjoy reading them.
Why Portugal? My husband conducted his own research, where the climate is more pleasant, the price of real estate and products are better — a more affordable price for living.
So, the country is selected. Next question. Where do we want to move to? We thought for a long time, searched and filtered information on the Internet. We decided that if we move, then closer to the ocean. Our choice was stop on the southern region of Portugal — the Algarve, the town of Olhão. This is a small town — a port and, based on Wikipedia, the population is a little over 31000 people. Yes, there is another nice bonus that we took into account, Olhão is located 10 km. from Faro International Airport. It’s easy and convenient. It is convenient to get to us our relatives and friends.
We moved at the end of June, but we started looking for an apartment for long-term rent in March, and found a suitable option in April. Why so early, you can ask? As it turned out, Portugal is very attractive for investment and an increasing number of people from Scandinavia, England, Western Europe are buying property here. Some, like us, for housing, and some — for renting to tourists. It’s profitable. Later I will explain why.
We found an apartment in a modern 5-storey building with a swimming pool on the roof. There are 10 apartments at the entrance, our apartment is on the 1st floor with a huge balcony. As it turned out, the apartment is furnished. In England, our apartment was also fully furnished. And this became our 1 problem when we moved.
We survived after sale of things!
How to transport an almost new bed, a comfortable sofa and a wardrobe. And all other nice things in the kitchen and the living room. Starting with your favourite cups and ending with frying pans.
As it turned out, carrier companies do not transport large items between countries cheaply. Shipping the same cargo that can be packed in a box of 1m cube would cost us about £500. And it’s just a huge amount. For the same amount, we could buy new kitchen equipment in Portugal.
Therefore, after consulting, we decided to sell everything we can. We have placed on the platform of free ads offers for the sale of our furniture and kitchen equipment at very low prices. Successfully? Unfortunately, no. I still cannot understand why in England, where charity shops are very popular, we could not sell almost anything. We donated a lot of clothes to charity. And a lot ended up in the garbage cans.
Yes, I confess, it was very difficult for me to throw away kitchen utensils in almost perfect condition. But it has already happened. As a result, our lives were packed into suitcases and bags, which you can see in the short video below.
Taxi — London Stansted Airport Hotel – early morning flight. There are a lot of people at the airport. Vacation season is in full swing. Flight 2 hours 50 minutes — and we are at Faro International Airport. Towards our new life.
Have we stepped out of our comfort zone? And what do you think? Of course!!! We moved to live in Portugal!!!
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I invite you to visit my page on Patreon and become my patron. You can choose a comfortable level of financial contribution. Here I will share my experience of living in Olhão. You can ask me questions that interest you. Here I will post my photos so that you can more vividly feel the atmosphere of hot, beautiful and friendly Portugal.
What’s in the next articles? About renting a car and buying a personal car, the experience of communicating with compatriots, a fantastic fish market and more. My new hairstyle is from a master who only speaks Portuguese. And much more.