Is Portugal a Good Place to Live? My 2¢ as a Canadian Expat

I'm a Canadian who moved to Portugal with my husband and our adorable house cat back in 2018. I've been living in Cascais in our semi-detached home for all this time and - to explain just how much I've been loving it - I dragged my brother into moving here a few years after I did and have been encouraging my best friends to make the move if and when they can.

There's a lot about Portugal I never expected. No country is perfect - none could ever be - but when I first moved here I thought that maybe this might not be a good fit.

There were circumstances around us moving that initially scared me. Parts of the culture that I couldn't wrap my head around and made life here so hard. I'm happy to say that all of these issues have essentially been eliminated, and the longer time goes on the more I quite literally cannot imagine myself moving anyplace else.

It's not that Portugal has become more perfect over time. Although it's been quite a ride, it's still much the same place it was when I moved here.

The difference? I understand this country better - how to make due with the difficult aspects of life here.

The key element however is something a lot of newcomers are completely without - a network of people you can trust to help you along the way.

My answer to whether or not Portugal is a good place to live, thus, depends on if you can make it a good place to live by building up a network of your own - or finding someone who can let you tap into their own network, which is usually how things go in Portugal. You meet someone who knows someone who can put you in touch with someone else, and the more resources you have, the better your quality of life is and the less headache and hassle there is. Because yes, there was so much of that when we first arrived here.

But I'll get into that in other articles. For now I'd like to discuss exactly why I think this is a good place to live, and why it's not - and how to get around the problems that make Portugal not such a nice place to live. Which, as I said, every country has - the difference, I find, is that here, you can find easy workarounds that make it so much better, nicer to live here than anywhere else I can so far imagine.

Is Portugal a Nice Place to Live as a Foreigner? Why I Think It Is as a Canadian Expat Living Here Since 2018

1. The quality if life in Portugal is incredible...

There are so many things I could list as my favourite things about Portugal, and it's hard to choose which are the top ones because they're all so important to me.

So instead I'll just list all the things I love about living in this country that are practically forgotten in my day to day life because I'm so spoiled by them...

2. The food is A++

Goodness, the food here - it's sooo good. And I'm a foodie, so this is massively important to me.

Whether you're a carnivore like I am, a pescetarian or vegan or vegetarian - no matter what your diet's like, there's great food to be had here. And it's so much healthier as a baseline than in any other country I've been in so far. This is almost certainly just a Western Europe thing, but it's still worth noting.

3. The incredible weather is something you'll be spoiled wrotten with.

The weather - 10/10. Especially where I live, in Cascais, which has the perfect microclimate and gets even better weather than Lisbon, which is a 20 minute drive away from my city. We get more mild temperatures, warmer winters, and cooler summers than Lisbon, due to that incredible ocean breeze.

There are places with better weather in Portugal, like the Algarve, and places with worse weather, like Porto, but I'm a Canadian so I'll take any and all weather that spans across Portugal over Toronto weather - hands down, any day.

4. It's so safe.

I am from Canada, and growing up in Toronto in the 90s, I couldn't imagine what it meant to not feel safe.

Having travelled to other countries over the years and lived abroad in the UK for a short while, I have to say that I started to understand how important this was to me.

Safety and security is something you really cannot put a price on, and you really only feel it when it's not there.

I'm happy to say that - living in Portugal - I feel even more safe somehow than I did growing up in Toronto in the 90's. I really didn't think this level of security was possible to feel, especially in our everchanging world where more and more cities start feeling like they're tipping into the realm of being less and less safe over time.

It's so nice. I cannot imagine being without this feeling of security again.

5. The people here are so kind and nice and helpful.

The Portuguese, in my opinion, are incredibly kind.

Now let me get this out of the way here because I'm from Canada and I know the stereotypes, "Canadians are nice." Yes, they are nice - insofar as they are polite and try to do what they can to not step on each other's toes. But kindness is a different ballgame all together.

And helpfulness? My goodness is it crazy just how much the Portuguese are happy to come to someone's aid. And this isn't people you know - friends and family members bend over backwards to help, yes - but strangers do, too.

The best little story I have to describe this - my brother wasn't feeling well and felt quite dizzy for a moment, so sat down in the shade for a moment, and an elderly man who was walking by started speaking to him in Portuguese. When he explained he didn't speak Portuguese (just saying the prase "Não falo Português" - phonetically said something "now fall-o portuguese"), the man immediately switched to English and asked if he was alright.

A stranger just checking in on someone like that is incredibly uncommon in Canada, let alone the only person who happened to be passing him by because the streets were empty. I just couldn't imagine a place where this would happen - and yet here I live.

Random people on the street will help by answering your questions. Anyone who knows anything is willing to help find the answer - even if they don't know it. It's not just people who work in the stores, it's not just people who have a vested interest in helping you, and it's not just friends or family. This is the baseline here, and it's - well inexplicably lovely.

This adds to the security element, in my opinion. It's so nice to feel like if something is wrong, even if you have no one, the Portuguese are so gosh darn helpful and willing to help strangers because of how much kindness is a part of their culture.

6. The healthcare is phenomenal...

I have a great deal of anxiety over dealing with healthcare professionals and getting things done in hospitals and clinics, probably because in Canada, while yes, our healthcare is free, the walk-in hospitals often look at you like you're crazy when you come in with a concern and send you off before they even investigate what you're concerned about.

Yes, the healthcare in Portugal that I've accessed is private, but based on my limited experience with private healthcare in the UK, and explanations of what friends here in Portugal describe the free healthcare to be like - there is really no difference between the free and paid healthcare besides the speed at which you get your appointments.

I have never felt - even for a second - that I would not be believed or that my concerns were being dismissed here in Portugal. And considering just how proactive and responsive the doctors have been in my experience here, I'm finally starting to lose my anxiety around healthcare providers.

7. It costs so little to have such a nice life in Portugal...

The cost of living in Portugal relative to anywhere else I've lived is far lower, yes. Everything is cheaper - from grocery bills to restaurants to going out. Healthcare is cheap as a baseline (even if you just walk in off the street), and if you get a private healthcare plan, it's ridiculously affordable - I think because so many people in Portugal have private health coverage, so it makes the rates cheaper for individuals overall.

Utilities aren't the cheapest, but aren't bad at all. Gas is more expensive, and buying a car is ridiculously expensive in comparison to many countries, but overall, Portugal takes the cake.

Did I come to a country that's much poorer than others I've lived in before and thus have a skewed impression? Somewhat. But honestly, the cost of having a good life being affodable goes so much further than just having more bang to my buck.

I would rather be poor in Portugal than pretty much anywhere else I can imagine. Not because the social services/welfare program is good. It's not, it's pretty awful. But those who have little money can still have a very nice quality of life here, and that isn't true of nearly any place I've lived or even travelled to before.

8. Almost all of the issues you could or will face if you move to and live in Portugal can be remedied by knowing the right people.

This is the thing about Portugal that took me so long to understand - it's not about money. The people are not driven by commerce and paycheques and earning the way they are everywhere else I've lived.

This can sometimes lead to complications (it's almost impossible to get things done fast, reasonably quickly, or even on time in Portugal). But this is just something I've had to come to accept living here - nothing will be done as quickly as you hoped or expected. 

If the country and the people are not driven by money, what is the main drive? Connections. People, connectivity, and social networks. Not in a social media kind of way but in a very human, person-to-person sort of way. And because the Portuguese are kind and helpful and so, so happy to come to the aid of another, everything in Portugual ends up being about finding the right person.

There are plenty of "right people" out there - many people know other people because a friend or a family member put them in contact with a person who knows a person, and every local has their own web of networks that allow the Portuguese to get things they want and need done.

But until you find the right people, find your footing and start creating your own social network, it can feel like Portugal is not a good place to live. It is so hard without  your own contacts that can help you create and pull together a support system that make your life easier and better.

Finding your own network is far harder than tapping into somebody else's so, if you're thinking of making a move, be sure to reach out to someone who already has a base and contacts of their own.

If you're thinking of moving here, but don't know anyone in Portugal yet, I'd be happy to help you get your footing, because I've been without a network before and know how frightening, isolating, impossible, and downright scary it feels. I don't want any other expats to go through what I had to go through, because they don't have to. So please feel free to reach out to me - with absolutely any question or needs you have - if you're looking to make the move.