Why Most Americans Leave Lisbon Within 2 Years

What I learned, and what you should know before moving.

The problem with dreams is their nemesis: Reality

You build up this wondrous idea in your head, and you decorate it nicely, and you spend months, maybe years nourishing it. And then one day, your dream comes true.

And reality arrives like a snarky interloper to laugh at what you thought your life would look like.

All of which is to say: Welcome to Lisbon… you probably won’t be here long.

Just recently, a story popped up in my newsfeed bearing this headline: Why 59% of Americans Who Move to Lisbon Relocate to Porto Within 2 Years.

“Well, ain’t that interesting,” I thought. “I lived in Lisbon for two years, and then I moved to Braga, just 30 minutes north of Porto. Let us read, El Jefe…”

I’ll tell you up front the 59% is a bogus number. As the author himself noted, “instead of treating ‘59%’ as gospel, treat this as a practical breakdown of why the pivot happens and what you should actually measure in your own life over the first 18 to 24 months.”

And that’s really what today’s dispatch is about: Why that pivot happened in my life, and what you might learn from it—not just relative to Portugal, but to any foreign escape you might be planning in your own life.

I want to preface this idea by first saying that I love living in Portugal. This is truly a sublime country filled with inspiring landscapes, fantastic food, and friendly locals once you get to know them.

But to be blunt, Lisbon simply isn’t the dream Americans think it is when they first catch romantic feelings about the idea of rebuilding a new and more affordable life in Portugal.

Of course, Lisbon is beautiful. I love walking the city’s alleys and streets, popping into random little shops selling the most interesting stuff, like the one I found that sells handmade brass stills for distilling your own liquor. Who doesn’t need a personal still? I can’t comprehend why my wife, Yulia, said no.

I love the ancient ambiance and turning a corner to see one of the famous yellow trams trundling up a cobblestone street, the light of the day just perfect.

Moseying around without a plan, my wife and I have found cool flea markets and some amazing restaurants such as the joint inside an Asian supermarket where you can watch as a noodle-puller makes homemade la mian hand-pulled Chinese noodles.

But by about Year Two, you realize that the interesting restaurants, flea markets, picturesque trams, and a maker of stills isn’t enough to make you overlook the unbearable weight of Lisbon.

First and foremost: Lisbon is not cheap.

A narrative is circulating all over the media, particularly social media, insisting that Lisbon is super-cool and super-affordable. If all you’ve ever known is New York, San Francisco, and Boston, well then I imagine Lisbon does feel like you’ve won the lifestyle lottery.

Compared to the rest of America, however, Lisbon is not Walmart’s Everyday Low Pricing.

It’s actually one of the most expensive capitals in Europe now.

Sure, you’ll absolutely find affordable groceries and low-cost meals at the small eateries where locals frequent. Health and auto insurance is substantially cheaper than in the US. Mobile and internet plans are more affordable too.

But then comes rent—the biggest expense for pretty much everyone.

Rents are so big in Lisbon these days that most Portuguese can no longer afford to live in the city and must move out into the ‘burbs and beyond to find affordable shelter… which is why the locals are increasingly miffed about all these wealthy foreign immigrants snarfing up the apartments where they and their families used to live.

I was paying €2,280 in monthly rent ($2,650) for an 1,100-square-foot apartment in a neighborhood called Arroios, hovering on the northern edge of the city center. Two true bedrooms and what was marketed as a third bedroom but was really just a narrow, interior room with no windows that I turned into an office that was much too small for comfort.

I can assure you that there are one- and two-bedroom apartments for under €1,000 ($1,160) in Lisbon. But as the pitchmen always say, “You get what’cha pay for.”

Which means that I can equally assure you that those are apartments that the vast majority of Americans over the age of 30 are not going find comfortable in the slightest: cramped rooms; a kitchen that barely qualifies as something from the industrial age; dark and small bathrooms; every room closed off along a dark, central hallway; windows so drafty that the temperature inside is colder than outside (I mean that literally), and panes so thin that street noises from summertime revelers invade your sleep at 2 and 3 a.m.; no central heating; rarely any air conditioning.

You might get a washing machine, but you’ll need to dry your clothes on a line outside the kitchen, which is pointless in winter when it’s colder and wetter than you probably know to expect.

And if you want to live in the core of the city, well then I suggest you rob a bank or convince yourself that it’s a cultural experience to live in the tiniest of loud, damp, and cold apartments that makes you feel like you’re sharing a life with Portugal’s famous tinned fish.

My wife and I grew exceedingly tired of spending more than $2,650 per month for a cold, loud apartment with a shower so tiny that when I turned, my shoulders rubbed the sides of the stall (I’m 6’2”; 195 pounds).

And I grew increasingly annoyed by traffic so irksome that even the Portuguese who have returned home after years abroad told me they were shocked at how overcrowded local roads are now.

After two years of that life, we became a statistic that helped shape that headline I mentioned at the top.

We moved to Braga.

And, to steal from Robert Frost, “that has made all the difference.”

Life up in northern Portugal is quieter, cleaner, saner. Far more affordable. Much, much happier.

I want for nothing, relative to Lisbon. I still order everything off Amazon, just as I did in Lisbon, only the mail works better up north. If I’m hankering for a particular kind of cuisine I can’t find in Braga, I can find it in Porto—and the 30-minute drive is little different than driving to various restaurants in Lisbon traffic and then hunting for parking.

Locals up north aren’t nearly as hurried and harried as are their countrymates in Lisbon.

Traffic is much more tolerable (though Porto roads can be gnarly; the metro area holds more than 1.7 million people). In Braga, I arrive wherever I’m going in 15 minutes or less.

Food and restaurants are equally affordable as Lisbon. A breakfast of a pastel de nata egg-custard tart and the local equivalent of a latte (a meia de leite) sets me back about €2.20 ($2.55). Utilities, WiFi, mobile, insurance, and whatnot are generally the same.

But rent is so much more wallet-friendly.

Our rent here did go up by €220 every month… but that’s because we opted to upgrade our lifestyle to a modern house built in 2023, not a drafty and loud apartment built in the 1930s.

We now have more than 3,000 square feet across three floors. We have a plunge-pool on the roof overlooking the mountains, the city, and the famous Bom Jesus Sanctuary up the mountain just across from us. The back wall on the main two floors is floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall sliding-glass doors overlooking the mountains.

We have three full bedrooms, one of which is a spacious office overlooking a sunken garden… and three full baths and two half baths. A garage. A small patch of yard. A deck with a grill.

It’s a proper American life, just in northern Portugal.

If you want apartment living in the city center, you can find truly lovely one-bedroom apartments for under €900 per month ($1,045). Equally lovely and uber-modern two-bedroom apartments that Americans would be happy to call home are readily available for €1,100 to €1,400 ($1,280 to $1,630).

So, if you are dreaming of life in Portugal, take my advice and check out Porto and northern Portugal before you rush to build your life in Lisbon. I might just save you two years of frustration.

I mean, statistically speaking, you’re going to move up north anyway…