10 Amazing Reasons to Relocate to Lisbon
Below are the top 10 reasons to relocate to Lisbon, Portugal as an immigrant or expat.
Photo by Liam McKay on Unsplash
10 Amazing Reasons to Relocate to Lisbon
I moved from the United States to Lisbon, Portugal in August of 2023. I chose Portugal for a number of reasons that are listed below, but have also found other reasons to choose Portugal since moving. I believe that there is a cultural richness which can be experienced by visiting other countries and exposing yourself to their way of life. That has been proven in my move to Portugal. As I prepare to return home for three weeks in the upcoming months, I want to reflect on the impact my life in Portugal has had on myself and my family.
Cost of Living
The number one reason we chose to relocate to Lisbon was cost of living. My family of three is spending roughly $4000 per month living in Lisbon. We rent a modest 2 bedroom / 1.5 bath in the freguesia of Benfica for $1600/month. School for our child in a private Portuguese school is another $600/month. Public pre-school is difficult to find availability for and we decided to go the private route. Transit passes are $80/month, and utilities are another $200/month. Health Insurance is $120/month. After all these expenses, our family of three subsists on about $1350/month for food and leisure and we aren’t lacking there. If purchasing a place and using public school, or being without children, the cost of living, even in Lisbon, can be about $2000/month, which is affordable to many. We do cook most of our meals, which I’ll expand on below. Most importantly, good wine can be had for less than $5 a bottle.
City Life
I was nervous that we had decided to live in the city. I grew up in the suburbs, my whole life has been there. I enjoy my space. We decided to move to Lisbon because we thought it would be the easiest entry place, but I was certain that we would ultimately move out of the city to a town at some point. I’m less sure about this now. I’ve found that I love having close amenities. I walk my son to school. On the way home I stop at the local mercado and come home with the fresh fruit/vegetables/meat for the next couple days. We hop on any of the nearby buses that connect us to the city center. We live a ten minute walk from a major mall.
We chose to relocate to Lisbson in part because we do not need a car. Driving, as it tunrns out, is something I do not miss at all. I have rented a car once since moving here, and that was to explore Portugal with some friends who were visiting. Uber, or Bolt, are extremely affordable (probably because the local taxi companies haven’t been destroyed yet) for those instances when I need to hire a car. Restaurants are plentiful, and cafes are ubiquitous. I can grab a Portuguese breakfast of bread, juice, and an espresso for $2.50. Everything is convenient and I’ve grown to be extremely surprised at the love I have for city life.
If you have children, there is a lot to do! Check out this article I wrote about three annual passes you need to have in Lisbon to entertain your children and reduce costs!
Relocate to Lisbon for Pace of Life
The first couple months of being here, I would get so irritated in the grocery stores. People just take SO LONG to checkout and no one cares. Except me, the American who is used to everything being as fast and efficient as possible. In the months since, I’ve learned to accept that this is just how the Portuguese are. They walk at a measured pace to their destinations. They often walk together, talking to each other.
I’ve come to realize that no one expects me to move quickly, no one is going to be irritated if I am less than efficient in my bag packing at the grocery checkout. It is fine, and encouraged, to engage in some small talk with a cashier or storekeeper. I can take moments for myself, even in public, and it took me months here to realize that I could let go of the anxiety of having to move quickly.
New Community
We had hoped, moving here, that we would find integration into our community more than we have. I have found, like many immigrants do I suspect, that it just isn’t that easy to integrate yourself into a new community and culture. This does not mean that the Portuguese aren’t welcoming, but our son helps us meet new people. The Portuguese love children, and so we get lots of waves and small talk from store owners and random passers-by when our son is doing something silly (as children always do). The local cafe owner and the local florist both adore seeing our son in the mornings and afternoons when we take and pick him up from school.
We have also met a vibrant community of others who have chosen to relocate to Lisbon. Throwing ourselves into the unknown of a new country, where we knew very few people, we were nervous about finding new friends. This was easier than we could have believed. Eight months in, we have as many friends in Lisbon as we did back home. Turns out that starting with a common experience of choosing to relocate to Lisbon, no matter from where you moved, is a pretty good basis for a new friendship. Also, it is nice that most people that move here are also looking for new friends.
Photo by Matteo Stroppaghetti on Unsplash
Diversity
This one is not so much for myself, but for my young son. In Lisbon, people are not so homogenous. All races are well-represented and while Catholicism is the major religion, we see representatives of many religious communities. In the suburbs we moved from this diversity was lacking. It would be wrong to say that there is no racism, currently the Chega political party is running on a enough immigration platform (specifically targeting Bangladeshi immigrants), but I find that the interaction between people is more natural than where we moved from in the United States.
This, I must admit, is likely due to the fact that we previously lived in a very non-diverse state. Regardless, I’m happy that our son will be exposed to more at an early age since we chose to relocate to Lisbon.
Relocate to Lisbon for Cultural History
The Portuguese golden age was centuries ago, but it left a lasting legacy. Its overseas colonies are well represented in Lisbon. While traditional Portuguese cooking is relatively bland in spicing, bay leaves (Louro) and parsley (Salsa) feature heavily, one does not have to look far to find Indian, Chinese, or Brazillian markets.
At the Carmo Convent, you can visit exhibits that show that the Lisbon area has been inhabited for thousands of years. Roman ruins are present here. The national maritime museum keeps a fantastic history of the boats and routes used by Portuguese explorers, and the uniqueness of Portuguese tiling is celebrated at the National Tile Museum. Pena Palace, the Moorish Castle, and the Castle of Saint George are all remnants of Portugal’s long history. Many of these monuments and museums are free to residents of Lisbon on Sunday, or in the case of Castle of Saint George, all the time.
New Experiences
Our Freguesia, or neighborhood, has an active Instagram page. Most of the neighborhoods around Lisbon do. There, they alert us to new events happening weekly. As of writing this, there is a street market that has popped up for the next few days. Around holidays, they get together all the local schools and do parades down the main avenue. Christmas was a blast. The mayor of the neighborhood rode around on a large trailer blasting Christmas music and dressed up as Santa. While these types of events were available on and off in the States, it takes much more planning to go to them. Here, we walk down to the event and walk home.
Food has been a massive new experience. Being from a non-coastal state, I didn’t eat much fresh fish. Here, fish is a massive part of the cuisine. Bacalau, or codfish, is the national Portuguese dish. They cook it a hundred different ways. I’ve also tried snails, called caracois, and dozens of different Portuguese sausages. If you choose to relocate to Lisbon, and are brave enough to try, there are a bunch of new experiences available to you.
Feeling of Safety
Once I was returning home around midnight on a local bus from an event I had attended alone. The bus was nearly empty, and it was moving faster than I had anticipated. I missed my stop by a good margin and had to jump off and walk home. It was about a mile, in the middle of the night, in a relatively major city. I walked streets I had never walked before, and had to go under a freeway underpass. I loved it. The city was beautiful at night. There were plenty of others on the streets as well, but at no point did I feel threatened or endangered.
When there is a sudden loud noise, no one looks around in fear. Crime exists, but violent crime is rare here, even in the capital city. A recent police sting that netted a relatively minor amount of drugs and guns made national news. I had always seen Portugal ranking high on the international safety indices, I don’t think I really knew what that meant until moving here.
Relocate to Lisbon for Fresh Produce & Meats
I wrote about fish above, so I’ll just mention that the local market, mercado in Portuguese, has a whole section for fishmongers. I usually prefer to eat my fish at a restaurant as I’m not practiced in cooking it. The fruit and veg, however, are incredible. Most of what we, as Americans, were familiar with can be found, but there are also additional local offerings.
Lettuce, for example, isn’t just Romaine or Iceberg. There are half a dozen different alfaces at any given stall. You can find bell peppers, zucchini, carrots, and broccoli, just as you would expect to find in the states, but I promise that the flavor of each of these is so much more intense. Most of these foods are grown locally, and do not have to ship far to come to the mercado. Since choosing to relocate to Lisbon we have taken to cooking many vegetarian dishes because the flavor of the vegetables is so good.
If you want something more exotic, especially on the fruit side, you will find it here. Tropical fruits that don’t make much appearance in America, such as Dragon Fruit and Passion Fruit, are here all the time (they are grown in the Azores). Depending on the season you may have access to half a dozen varieties of melons. Currently, in early March, Loquats are becoming available. These, tart before ripe, grow to an incredible sweet flavor and are easy to eat. Cherimoya, in Portuguese anona, is a fruit that is loved locally. It tastes a bit like a sweeter pear, but I find it difficult to eat because of the number of seeds and interior texture of the fruit.
Meat, which we get at a butcher shop, talho in Portuguese, is about as fresh as you can get it. Overly popular cuts, such as chicken breast or the very nice cuts of beef, can be about as expensive as in the United States. Less popular cuts, here in Lisbon at least, such as chicken wings or even beef short ribs, are dirt cheap in comparison.
Welcoming Children
We had visited Portugal with our son prior to moving here, but it had been a short trip. We had recognized that people were so interested in engaging with him at the time, from waiters at restaurants to older people on the streets. This has been made so much more clear since living here, however. As everyone knows, children can be loud, and rambunctious. The Portuguese just don’t seem to care. I’ve never once felt judged by other adults for having a child that was, frankly, being a child. People smile, wave, say hello, ask how he is doing or simply say, “Que giro,” how cute in English.
People are happy to see children. Every restaurant we go to brings out something to keep him entertained, even the small shop owners or pop up stall workers give him a little treat when we have him with us and we stop. It is such a different experience than in the United States. Additionally, people are affectionate with children. It isn’t uncommon for teachers to kiss the kids on the cheek or for parents to hold their children’s hands, even for children that are teenagers.
My son loves his school, and he loves his teachers. And they love him. People engage with children as if they are children, and not as if they are expected to be adults. It is something that I am working on for myself as well.
Given that we chose to relocate to Lisbon in large part to give more opportunities to our son in the future, this has been the most welcome reason to move to Portugal of all.
