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Home Retirement/Living

Retire To Algarve, Portugal

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Mar 16, 2015
in Retirement/Living
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sail boat in the water approaching the iconic Algarve cliffs
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Your Top Retirement Option In Europe

Portugal’s Algarve, located at Europe’s westernmost tip and boasting 100 miles of Atlantic coastline, could be Europe’s most famous secret. This region boasts Europe’s best beaches, Europe’s best golf courses, some of Europe’s friendliest folk, and Western Europe’s lowest cost of living. It’s also Europe’s newest tax haven.

European retirees have recognized all that the Algarve has to offer for a long time, and this sunny coastal region is the chosen destination for more than 100,000 of them. Beyond Europe, the Algarve is largely ignored as a retirement haven. If you’re looking for a Continental lifestyle and don’t have the budget for France, Italy, or Spain, however, it could be an appealing alternative.

Specifically, I’d suggest taking a look at Silves and Lagoa, two municipalities that offer history, Old World charm, and spectacular beaches.

Silves, nestled in verdant valleys on the banks of the Arade River and surrounded by fields of citrus, offers a warm microclimate. It’s like summertime all year long. In addition to orange and lemon trees, all around are the olive, carob, and fig trees the region is also known for. Silves’ coastal town is Armação de Pêra, with an expansive white sandy beach.

Lagoa, with a capital town of the same name, is a much smaller municipality located close to the ocean and boasting 17 top beaches, specifically around the fishing towns of Carvoeiro and Ferragudo.

Lagoa’s history is linked to the sea. Carvoeiro and Ferragudo, in particular, are important to the country’s seafood and fish-preserves industries. The villages of Estômbar and Porches were important centers in the Islamic and Medieval periods, and Porches is today the center of the region’s pottery tradition.

Silves’ history is long, extending back to the Bronze and Iron ages. Its Arade River was a favored route of the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians, who came in search of copper and iron. In the fourth century B.C., Silves boasted a strong defensive wall. In the ensuing centuries both the Romans and the Moors occupied the area. Today, again, Silves is best known for its citrus; it’s the largest producing region in Portugal.

Silves’ two beaches, Armação de Pera and Praia Grande, boast coveted Blue Flag designation from the European Blue Flag Association. Lagoa, again, has 17 spectacular beaches, some of which you access via flights of stairs into cliff-enclosed coves bathed by azure waters.

Portugal was named Europe’s “Best Golf Destination” for 2014, and 40 of its top courses are in the Algarve. The Pinta and Gramacho courses in Lagoa and the Silves Golf Course are especially spectacular; you play against backdrops of ancient carob and olive trees, natural stone walls, and water features.

Lagoa is also an artistic hub, home to a musical academy, a cultural academy, an arts center, and Portugal’s principal foreign newspaper, The Portugal News. The musical academy has an active orchestra with musicians ages 8 to 65.

What else could you do with yourself, retired to this part of the world?

Fatacil, the large fairgrounds in the province, hosts the International Algarve Fair every June. This unites the local and expatriate communities, as does the annual summer fair in August, with daily live concerts. Admission is a few euros a ticket per day, and you won’t find better value for money on a sultry summer night.

The Medieval Fair in Silves is a celebration of the city’s roots and features dancers, jugglers, flame-throwers, fire-eaters, and snake charmers, along with a feast of regional cuisine. Many attend in period costume.

In Lagoa, the annual sweets festival showcases delicacies produced from local ingredients, including fig, orange, almond, and carob. And once a year in June the municipality celebrates the start of sardine season with more festivals and grilled sardines on every restaurant menu. Order by the half-dozen.

Throughout the year there are open-air jazz and classical concerts, most free. Experience jazz at Lagoa’s Sitio das Fontes and local youth concerts at the Lagoa Auditorium. The Arade Congress Centre is the place to come for special events, from a motorcar launch to a performance by the Russian ballet or the finals of the World Dance Championships.

If you’re looking for sporting and outdoors activities, try kayaking, paddling, or cave fishing on the Arade River. The sailing schools at the river mouth are very affordable by international standards.

If you play tennis, you could join fellow expats at the Carvoeiro Tennis Club. This town also has a well-stocked book exchange where you can donate and borrow books in English.

Bottom line, Portugal in general and the Algarve in particular offer an opportunity to savor the best of an old-school, Old World lifestyle at a very affordable cost. A couple of retirees could live well here on a budget of as little as 1,500 euros per month.

Right now, that’s very nearly US$1,500, a truly bargain budget for embracing a fully appointed Continental lifestyle.

Kathleen Peddicord

P.S. A friend in Portugal provided some video footage of this colorful corner of the world. Take a look.

 

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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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