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Retire To Algarve, Portugal, Coastal Europe’s Best Bargain

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Jul 06, 2015
in Portugal, Travel
0
Retire To Algarve Portugal, Coastal Europe’s Best Bargain
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Europe’s Best Bargain Coast

Arriving from the colonies to the point where explorers took off to discover them, we’re met by big numbers of Old World tourists. This is peak season in southern Europe, and Lisbon airport, when we passed through, was packed with holiday-makers, most from the British Isles.

Lisbon airport was crowded and also uber-modern, with technology that puts Newark, from whence we’d come, to shame. Passports are scanned and facial recognition shots are taken of every arriving traveler using equipment I’d not encountered before. After passing my passport through the auto-scanner, I stepped forward to the next point in the queue and stood waiting, waiting… until Lief pointed out that I needed to look up so the auto-camera could see me clearly. Still, no photo… until I removed my sunglasses. As soon as I showed my face fully, the camera snapped and the gate opened for me to continue on.

We connected with our 30-minute flight from Lisbon to Faro without incident. Portugal has gotten very efficient at shuttling sun-seekers to her coast.

The drive on the motorway from Faro west to Carvoeiro, our ultimate destination, is unimpressive. But, as soon as the coastline comes into view, you remember why you’ve come. Above is the view from the balcony of the hotel where we’re staying, and similar coastal snapshots are never far away. Here on Portugal’s Algarve, the seafood is fresh, the people are pleasant, the service is friendly, and the wine is affordable on every menu. What more could you ask of a summer holiday?

To keep ourselves from succumbing too soon to jet lag, Lief and I wandered down to our hotel’s beach after we’d checked into our room. It’s what I’d call a keyhole beach—not a lot of sand but what sandy bit there is is framed by coral cliffs. We climbed the stairs up inside the coral formations to watch five young boys playing soccer in the surf and a fellow hotel guest in full wet gear who dove in just offshore with a spear gun. In fewer than five minutes, the guy had speared two fish! We wanted to wait around for him to return to shore to ask if he intended to deliver his catch to the chef for the dinner menu, but the shade of the ocean-view hotel bar beckoned. We retreated to watch the afternoon fade from under cover.

We talk about places where you could live or retire overseas without having to learn a new language. Most everyone you’d encounter in Panama City or Puerto Vallarta, we say, for example, speaks English well enough that you could get by in those places without speaking Spanish if you wanted.

That’s not the case in the Algarve. Here it’s not that you can get by without speaking Portuguese; it’s that there’s no reason to try. Everyone you meet everywhere speaks English. There must be exceptions, but we’ve yet to encounter one. Staff in the gas station shop, in the corner grocery, in restaurants where we’ve eaten, and every staff member at our hotel… they all speak English well enough to tease and joke with us. I practiced my “bom dia” and “obrigado” before arriving, but even those standards are unnecessary here (though appreciated, I’m sure).

You have the British to thank for this. Their long presence in this part of the world means that everyone here speaks the language of the queen and that tea is served always with milk.

Checking in at the Tivoli Hotel, we met two other guests, readers, it turns out, in town for this week’s Live and Invest in Portugal Conference.

“We’ve been traveling for more than two years,” they told us, “first in Central and South America and the Caribbean and now in Europe.

“We’ve been reading your blog, Kathleen, all along the way, since before we left the States,” they explained, “and we’ve been to all the places you recommend, checking them systematically off our list. We’ve been looking around Portugal for two weeks already and are excited for your conference this week. We think Portugal is it for us.

“We liked Las Terrenas in the Dominican Republic, but we realized we don’t really like islands in general. They’re limiting. We liked Granada, Nicaragua, too, but, again, it’s small… limited.

“Bottom line, we think we just prefer Europe!”

Hard to argue with that point of view here in the Algarve where the best of coastal Europe is a bona-fide bargain. Lief and I are off to see just how big a bargain this place can be. We’re touring apartments and houses for sale this afternoon. I’ll report back on our impressions tomorrow…

Kathleen Peddicord

Continue Reading: U.S. Versus Canadian Tax Obligations Living Overseas

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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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