“Are you two crazy?”

Well, if you people that we consider friends & family did not say it out loud, you certainly were thinking it, right?

How could we sell the condo on the lake that we had remodeled top to bottom to suit our tastes? How could we give up this view? How could we sell our business and have no jobs? How could we decide to move to a country we have never even visited? How could we choose to live so far from our family and friends?

After so many years of jobs that included 6-7 day work weeks and very little down time, we were dreaming of retiring before getting too decrepit to enjoy it. We’d tried to imagine what retirement would look like.  My endless spreadsheets and number crunching told us we’d need to scale back significantly to enable us to live on social security plus modest savings. We wouldn’t be able to afford the current condo with the high HOA fees and taxes. And we’d have to keep working at least 5 more years before we could even think about retiring. We’d have to give up nice vacations. The idea of moving to a cheap condo with no view and spending our days counting our pennies hoping we didn’t outlive our money was not appealing. So we just pushed the thought of retirement to the back of our minds and kept working.

Then, one day while thinking about where to go on our next vacation, Wayne suggested Portugal. He was reading something online with pretty pictures of the charming town of Sintra. We had never really considered a trip to this tiny country but we had enjoyed trips to Spain, France and Italy, so why not? As always, if you give me a crumb, I am like a bulldog on research and planning. I started studying all I could find.

In researching a visit, I kept coming across stories touting what a great place Portugal is to retire to; ranking #1 in a recent International Living list of “Best Places to Retire To.” It is extremely popular with the Brits but only a few thousand Americans have made the move. 

Everything we read appealed to us. They said the lower cost of living and especially health care meant an average couple could live comfortably for significantly less than in the US. My spreadsheet calculations showed that our savings would go much farther there. The country is gorgeous with varying terrain in a manageable package the size of Indiana. The locals are known as some of the friendliest, most welcoming anywhere. It ranks as the 3rd (2017) safest country in the world. The climate is moderate with sub-regions for all preferences. They have a great infrastructure of public transportation making it possible to live without a car in many areas.  It makes a great base for exploring all of Europe with affordable flights. Plus, the country has a plan that allows ExPat pensioners to pay no Portuguese taxes for the first 10 years.

So, instead of moving to a no frills condo and living cautiously, here was an opportunity to have another grand adventure. Maybe for a year, or 10 years – or forever. Over sixteen years earlier we made the decision to move to North Carolina from Wisconsin knowing no one and changing careers. It turned out to be a great move. We decided to take the leap of faith again.