My Portugal Adventure Finally Begins!

Ola! Bom dia amigos! This Monday I finally moved to Portugal after several months of preparations, getting rid of almost everything I owned, quitting my rental apartment and making sure all administrative things were sorted…

A few months ago I wrote a blog post about my plans to move to Portugal, something I was dreaming about already for a while and was finally going to put into motion and this past Monday I finally took that big leap and got on a plane to Faro!

The last 3 months

You may have noticed it has been quiet on the blog here in the last 3 months and that was because I had to get organised and prepare before I could get on that plane. And it was pretty intense! I had to get everything in order administratively, to figure out how I would get to Portugal and what to do with all my stuff…

At times I simply didn’t know how I was going to get it all done in time. It used up all my mental space and I found it very hard to get any creative work (including writing new blog posts or posting on social media) done during this time and wasn’t the most social person either (sorry dear friends!). But it was also amazing because step by step it was as if the path became clear and I got it done, even the things I thought would be very hard and that stressed me out actually went pretty well.

Getting rid of all my stuff was a lot of work but I must say it feels incredibly liberating and it is just wonderful knowing that everything found a great new home! And I just wish I had done it much sooner.

The last weekend was a total scramble though to get my apartment completely empty and cleaned in time. But I managed to get it done and while I was utterly exhausted afterwards it felt so good to return the keys, to say my goodbyes and finally take off on my journey!

Portimão

On Monday I traveled to Portimão. I chose Portimão in the Algarve as a starting point for my journey because the weather will be pretty mild here during the winter months, the beach there is amazing and it will be a good enough location to get accustomed with the Portuguese culture, learn the language a bit and figure out what I’ll do next.

It is not the sort of place I see myself living longterm but it’s perfect as a first stepping stone in my journey! I’m renting a lovely apartment here for 10 weeks, so I have some time to figure out what will be next.

My Arrival

After my arrival Monday evening in Portimão I was very hungry and faced with no food at my apartment so I found a restaurant close-by the apartment which turned out to be something rather special! Numa Restaurant is still a relatively new restaurant with an amazing chef. They take care using quality local ingredients and serve some very creative dishes! Definitely worth checking out. Super friendly people too, the chef came to say hello and clearly is very passionate about his cooking.

This week I’m just decompressing and relaxing a bit after all the craziness of the last week. I’m starting with online Portuguese lessons and I’m exploring the town. I’m also getting back into a regular meditation and yoga practice too, which I had completely neglected in recent months.

The Next Few Weeks

And I hope in the next weeks I’ll be able to research and take action for possible next steps in my journey. During my final months in Belgium I really didn’t have any headspace left to even think about what would be next once I was in Portugal but now it’s time to redirect myself and focus on the next phase of the journey!

And of course amidst all of this it’s also high time I get back to my creative work cause I do need to make sure my income doesn’t completely dwindle away. I’m actually feeling the itch to get creating again and I haven’t felt that in a long while so that is great! I have a few different personal projects I’d like to work on in the near future but I will start with some greeting cards for my favourite client!

Transport

One of the main things I need to figure out while I’m in Portimão is my transport situation. In my earlier blog post I wrote that I was going to buy a car and drive to Portugal. But in the end that idea stressed me out too much. I’ve never owned a car before, I haven’t driven one in 3 years (and didn’t drive much before that either) and everything involved, budget, maintenance, tax, insurance, gasoline,… felt too much. And of course there’s also still the matter than a car isn’t great for the environment either and the whole point of this journey is to live more sustainably. So I scrapped the idea of buying a car and decided to simply fly to Portugal and look for alternatives for local transport while I’m here. 

The Options

I did some research and I’m still not a 100% sure what I’ll do for my local transport here in Portugal. Ideally I’d like to find some mode of transport that is environmentally and budget friendly and gives me freedom enough to get away from the cities. I do not need it to be super fast or have the ability to carry lots of luggage (I managed to fly here with a backpack of 16,4kg).

I’ve looked into electric bikes, which I thought could be perfect if they can be used in combination with long distance trains. But while it’s very common and easy to do so in Belgium in Portugal it’s apparently very difficult to take electric bikes on trains. They have lots of rules for different types of trains and it seems that the rule for the trains I would mostly use is that a bike can weigh 15kg max. Many regular bikes already weigh more than that and good electric bikes made for cycling big distances definitely weigh more than that. 

My current idea is to get a vespa style scooter (probably a different brand – maybe a SYM Fiddle). I’ll have to rent one first to see if I find it practical to ride one here. But so far I like this idea! It would give me lots of freedom, would be a great way to ‘slow travel’. And while it would still need to be registered, insured, maintained and need gas, this would be at a much lower level than if you own a car.

Another option is to simply use public transport and rent a car or scooter locally for short amounts of time to explore more remote locations. But this idea gives me the least freedom and it means I would have to find accommodations in towns with decent public transport so it would definitely limit my options significantly.

Anyhow, lots of things to learn, research, discover and try in the upcoming weeks! I will definitely try to write regular blog posts to keep you up to date, though I expect the truly interesting part of this journey will start once I have these initial practicalities sorted!

Be sure to follow me on Instagram and/or Facebook too as I will be posting pictures and videos in my stories and newsfeed much more regularly there!

Portugal