I’m sure much of what I write over the next few months will not be very exciting or interesting.  I am just hoping to chronicle this adventure and perhaps encourage others to embark on their own big adventure whatever that might be.  I recently watched a movie about a 16-year Australian girl who set out to become the youngest person to sail around the world non-stop and unassisted.  It was a true story and took place back in 2009.  That was a big adventure!! This is certainly not on that scale.  However, it is an adventure.

Most of us get so comfortable that it is hard to contemplate embarking on any kind of big adventure that takes us way outside our comfort zone.  It would certainly be far easier to simply stay here in Montana or to move to Arizona with Barb and take a vacation once in a while and stay comfortable.  But as they say, life is short and you only live once.  Am I nervous – sure.  Am I apprehensive – sure.  Am I excited – absolutely.  Sometimes it’s just good to shake things up a bit! 

As we contemplate this adventure, my ‘to do’ list continues to grow as I think of things that need to be dealt with.  I have started to write all of these down so they don’t fall through the cracks and perhaps one of these days I will take the time to organize them into some semblance of a plan.

My situation is a tad more complicated because my overseas relocation will occur in two steps.  The plan is to be in Bozeman until the end of August at which time Barb and her two pups will drive back to Arizona while I head over to the coast to do my bicycle ride in the San Juan Islands.  I will then head to Arizona.  We hope to apply for our long-term visas before the end of the year but, even so, it will mean that I will be living in Arizona for a few months before we head over the pond for good. 

Although I intend to sell most of my worldly goods, there will be some things I hang on to.  It really doesn’t make any sense for me to put them in storage in Bozeman, so the question becomes, what do I do with everything?  In addition, I have decided to take my Harley to Arizona with the intent of riding it there until it is time to move overseas.  Since that will be some time during the winter, it will be easier to sell it in Arizona than in Bozeman (and I have already talked to a dealer in Phoenix about doing this.)

After wrestling with this for a while, I have finally narrowed in on a plan that I think makes sense which is one reason I intend to sell my truck sooner as opposed to later.  I intend to purchase an enclosed utility trailer (with a ramp) that will accommodate my Harley and the remainder of my possessions that I don’t intend to sell.  I have an appointment to have a hitch installed on my Toyota Highlander next week.  After that, I will purchase the trailer.

Using this plan, once I leave Bozeman for the coast to do my bike ride, I will simply take my Harley and everything else with me and, upon completing the bicycle ride, I will head directly for Arizona from Anacortes, WA.  I haven’t determined the exact route yet but given that I have driven the road between here and the coast many, many times, it will be nice to explore another part of the country. All part of the big adventure.

Another big issue that I’m thinking about is medical care.  Again, this will be a two-step process for me – first in Arizona and then overseas.  Given my long history of eye surgeries (six to date!), knee surgeries (three to date), and various other issues such as the aortic aneurysm that I have to have monitored annually, I will need to find a whole new suite of medical professionals and get my prescriptions transferred.  Fortunately, in Arizona, Barb has a long list of medical contacts so I’m sure we can get that handled.  However, it’s just one more thing to think about. 

There is a very robust ex-pat community in Portugal that have several websites with tons of useful information to help facilitate this process.  Perhaps one of these days I will share my ‘to do’ list so if anyone else is contemplating something like this, they can get a glimpse of what was going through my mind and what all is involved in embarking on a big adventure like this!

Stay tuned.

The reality of this move is slowly beginning to set in.  There is certainly the actual mechanics of moving which I have been through many times.  Over the years, I have lived in many different places including different countries, different cities and different residences within the same city so I’m pretty familiar with the actual mechanics of moving.  However, there is a major difference this time – I will be getting rid of almost everything I own.  That introduces an emotional and mental aspect to this move that has not really been there before.

In previous moves, I (or ‘we’ when I was married) either moved most of our ‘stuff’ with us to the new location or put a lot of things in storage if the move was temporary and we expected to return.  When I moved to Kuwait many, many years ago, I put most of my possessions in storage knowing I would return at some point to Los Angeles. On the other hand, when I moved from Los Angeles to Montana, I packed up virtually everything I owned and moved it to my new house in Montana! This time, with this move overseas, it is my intent to divest myself of almost everything I own.

Certainly, there are some things that have sentimental value that I will keep and some things that I will keep for my daughter but, other than that, it is my intention to get rid of most everything else.  I have no intention of shipping furniture, tools, etc. overseas.  First of all, there is the cost, logistics and potential customs issues to deal with.  Barb and I initially intend to lease a place which could well mean that in a year from when we initially arrive in Portugal, we will have to move again.  And lastly, Barb has a house in Arizona, and I have my house here in Montana.  It is a virtual certainty we will end up living in a place that is smaller than either of our houses so shipping a bunch of stuff overseas just doesn’t make sense.  And, the fact is, the less stuff you have, the easier it is to be flexible.

All of that said, there is still an emotional aspect to this move that I have not faced before.  For example, I have had a truck of some kind since 1994.  I am about to put my current truck on the market.  It’s a 2010 Ford Ranger that I inherited from my dad, and it only has 40,000 miles on it.  The fact is, I don’t use it that much.  I use it when I need to haul something to or from Home Depot or the dump.  Even so, it will be hard to part with my truck.  However, I just can’t justify keeping it.  That is certainly one thing a move like this does – it makes you really focus and get pragmatic about what you ‘need’ versus what you want.

Stay tuned!

I thought I would resurrect this blog to chronicle the journey Barb and I are about to undertake as we are moving closer to our plan to move to Portugal.  We have been talking about this for some time and, in fact, this is the reason we initially got together.  We met in early 2022 while attending a conference sponsored by the International Living organization.  Each of us attended to get more information about making the move to Portugal.  We met and, as they say, the rest is history.  We were originally on two different timelines but after my major knee injury/surgery last year, things started to sync up which is how we ended up going to Portugal together last October/November.

I was just down in Arizona visiting Barb for 10 days and while I was there, we finalized our travel plans for our next trip to Portugal with the objective of finding a place to lease in preparation for submitting our application for our long-term visas.  We will once again be making a trip to Portugal in November.  And while that sounds like a long way away, there is a lot that has to happen in the next 6 months.

As a side note, we also took a trip up to Sedona for a couple of days while I was in Arizona and that was a lot of fun.  It’s very pretty.  One afternoon, we rented ebikes and spent about 2 ½ hours exploring the area.  My heavily abused knees are beginning to appreciate the advantages of ebikes!

We can’t really go to Portugal much sooner than November since Barb has an employment agreement through mid-September as a result of the sale of her CPA practice last year.  In addition, I need to sell my house and I have a bicycle ride in the San Juan Islands that I am signed up to do in September.  Barb is going to work remotely from Bozeman this summer rather than me spending the summer in Phoenix where it is a bit warm for my taste.  In addition to getting the house and most of my possessions sold, we will find time to play here in the Big Sky country.

I have a very long ‘to do’ list and even though it seems like there is a lot of time, there really isn’t.  My house will go on the market in about two months (assuming the economy doesn’t crater in the meantime!) and, frankly, that seems a bit overwhelming as I sit here writing this.  I’m sure we will get through it.  I just thought it would be fun to chronicle this whole adventure. 

Let the games begin.

As they say, “All good things must come to an end,” and today was my last full day in Lagos, Portugal. Tomorrow I drive the 180 miles back to Lisbon where I will stay the night at a hotel right at the airport and then fly to London Sunday morning – hopefully. I read this morning where there is some type of strike by some of the ground crews at Heathrow so we’ll see how much of a monkey wrench that throws into my travel plans.

I scheduled a boat trip this morning and the weather gods were kind and it did not rain. It was a bit windy but, all in all, not a bad day. The view of the cliffs along the coast is even more spectacular from the water. We were in a small motorboat which was ideal for navigating the grottos and caves of the Ponta da Piedade. The boat handlers that do this have a lot of skill because the waves are coming in and some of the spaces are very tight!! If I were to do it again, I might opt for a kayak tour but the tour today was a good teaser.

Overall it has been a fantastic trip. Our objective was to scout the country from top to bottom with an eye towards moving here and I think we accomplished that objective. Some of the places that we initially thought about were stricken from the list for one reason or another and other places that we hadn’t really considered moved up the list of candidates. Right now we are focused on the Algarve, particularly the area around Lagos, but time will tell.

We have to go back and digest everything that we’ve seen and learned and come up with the next phase of the plan. The unfortunate thing is that now Portugal has been ‘discovered’ and there is a wave of people moving here. That is just something we will have to take into account as we move forward.

Thanks for tagging along. I will end with more pretty pictures.

As my time here in Portugal is coming to a close, I decided to do something a little different – at least for me. I signed up for an e-bike tour to do a little exploring off the beaten path. I have two road bikes at home and my Harley but I had never ridden an e-bike before today. When I was younger and prior to three knee surgeries, I was probably one of those bicycle ‘purists’ who looked down on those riding e-bikes. No more!! I think I’m a convert and see an e-bike in my future some time.

I met my guide not very far from our condo and found out that I was a tour group of one! Just me and the guide. It doesn’t get more personalized than that. The guide, Federico, was Italian but spoke Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French and English! (That’s pretty humbling!) His wife is French and they have lived in Portugal for a few years where they have a bicycle touring business. In the summers they are based in Peniche which is north of Lisbon up on the Silver Coast but in the winters, because of the milder climate, they move down to Lagos.

Federico gave me a quick e-bike lesson and we were off. The first part of the ride was primarily on dirt tracks and I was very thankful for the electrical assist as we were climbing up some of the hills. I haven’t really done any mountain biking since I was a kid – before they called it mountain biking, so this was a bit strange to me after thousands of miles on my road bikes. Nonetheless, a bicycle is a bicycle and I managed to keep both wheels on the ground.

Federico took me all kinds of places I would not have otherwise seen. He was a really friendly guy and we had a great time riding together. The ride was supposed to last 1 1/2 hours and we didn’t get back to his van until a little after two and one half hours had elapsed. We even stopped for coffee along the way down near the marina. Needless to say, even with the ‘e-assist’, I felt like I got a workout by the time we stopped.

Most of the people we’ve met here are warm and generous. It’s a very comfortable place. I have one more full day here before I head back to Lisbon to begin my journey to New York for Thanksgiving. I am signed up to take a boat ride in the morning to view the cliffs from the sea but that will depend a little on Mother Nature. I think there is rain in the forecast so it might be a wet boat ride! The adventure continues.

It seems like I’ve been gone a long time. I left three weeks ago today and won’t be back to snowy Montana until almost two weeks from now. That said, it has been an extremely rewarding and educational trip. Even though Portugal is a small country (you can drive top to bottom in 7 hours and across it in three hours or less) there is a lot to see and do.

Since I am here solo now that Barb had to fly back to Phoenix for work, I’m just exploring a little and enjoying just sitting on the balcony listening to the ocean. This morning I decided to seek out a large parking garage that I had read about on the edge of Old Town Lagos. I found it without much trouble and was amazed to see how large it was. It is a two story underground garage and it was huge. Had I found it earlier, we could have saved a bunch of Bolt (Uber) rides which is how we normally went to Old Town. The parking is incredibly cheap. I was there for maybe an hour and a half and it cost about $1.30. Another lesson learned.

The garage is right across from the marina and the promenade that runs along the coast so I went over there and strolled along the promenade. I walked up to the marina which has a pedestrian drawbridge that must be raised for sailboats to enter and exit. It was pretty cool to watch.

As I continued my walk, I came across the public market which is similar to the one we saw in Tavira. The first floor is fresh fish. The second floor is produce and the top floor houses a restaurant that looks out over the marina! I wish we would have found this sooner as well.

I’m now back at the condo and the weather is looking a bit ‘iffy’. I’m not sure if it will rain or not but its pretty gray out. I’ll see what other discoveries I can make this afternoon and in the next couple of days before I leave.

One of the fascinating things about spending time in a different country is to just see how they do things. I’ve talked about the roundabouts here. There are very few stop lights or stop signs. It’s primarily roundabouts and yield signs. The traffic flows pretty well and there seem to be very few accidents – at least less than you would expect. And here in Lagos, and most of the towns we’ve been in, there is no such thing as a straight street. An aerial view of most of these cities would look like a plate of spaghetti! Thank goodness for GPS and Google maps!!

The parking spaces in garages are SMALL and there is often a lot of tight maneuvering. In fact, the garage at our hotel in Coimbra had a turn at the entrance that literally required a three point turn to navigate, even with our compact SUV. It’s also interesting here how people will just stop in the middle of the street if they need to let someone in or out. In the US, you would hear a cacophony of horns honking but here its just accepted. I have rarely heard a horn here. And people here stop for people in crosswalks!!! If someone is on the side of the road at a crosswalk, traffic stops to let them cross. Even in Bozeman, if you step into a crosswalk you are sometimes taking your life in your hands.

It’s also fun to walk through the grocery stores. Peanut butter is very hard to find here – it’s not a big seller in Portugal (or Europe in general for that matter). Fresh fish, on the other hand, of almost any kind, is all over the place! Shopping carts like we normally use at the store are chained together and you have to use a 1 Euro coin to release one. When you return it, you can get your 1 Euro coin back. That said, most markets have little plastic carts that you can use for free – they are totally impractical for anything other than dragging groceries around the store.

The adventure continues.

We put a lot of mileage on the car in the last couple of days – again! Yesterday, after puttering around in the morning, Barb got all packed and we headed for Lisbon which is about 180 miles away. Barb’s flight this morning was at 7 am so we decided to just stay in Lisbon last night.

The drive was pretty easy and I’m getting pretty used to the freeways here. We have yet to see the equivalent of a highway patrol officer on the roads. The posted speed limit is usually 120 kmp (75 mph) but you routinely see people traveling well in excess of that. I have no idea how much I have racked up in tolls on the freeways but I’m sure I will find out when I turn the car in next Saturday.

If we were going to plan this again, we would probably just fly out of Faro which is about an hour drive from here or take the train to Lisbon which takes about 4 hours. Since we kind of cobbled together this itinerary after we’d both already purchased tickets, we have had to do a few things that we wouldn’t have done if we had planned this together from the start. That said, the drive to Lisbon on the freeways is pretty easy and takes about three hours.

Our hotel was just a block from Avenida da Liberdade which is a main boulevard in Lisbon which is known for being one of the most expensive shopping streets in Europe. We went for a walk after we checked in and it was like strolling along a tree lined Rodeo Drive. If you want to drop a little money on Cartier, Prada, and all of the other high end brands, this is the place. We just found a quiet little place for dinner on a side street and let that suffice for our ‘splurge.’

Barb’s flight out of Lisbon was at 7 am and since it was an international flight we wanted to make sure we got there in plenty of time so we left the hotel a little after 4 am. Needless to say, there is very little traffic in Lisbon at 4 am and we found our way to the airport in about 20 minutes. Even with that, there was already a line at the British Airways counter to check in but we got her bags dropped off and I watched her disappear into the security apparatus at Lisbon airport.

It was about 5:30 am by then and I got in our trusty little Hyundai Kauai headed back to Lagos. It was a pretty straight shot from the airport onto the freeway and I had very little company on the road as I headed south in the darkness. I encountered a few patches of rain from time to time but raced along the nice smooth freeways in the dark until it started getting light around 6:45 a.m. I made great time coming back and decided to stop at a large super market we had seen on the way into Lagos several times to get some groceries for the week before I went back to the condo.

I am here by myself now for the next few days. I head to Lisbon on Saturday, fly to London on Sunday and the fly to New York for Thanksgiving on Monday. I have scheduled a boat trip for Friday and, other than that, I will probably just continue to explore Lagos and try to talk to a couple of realtors.

This afternoon, I decided to take a short hike. There is a boardwalk running along the tops of the cliffs you can see from the balcony. I decided to hike up there and see what that was all about. It also felt good to stretch my legs after two long days of driving.

The boardwalks/stairs run all the way out to the Ponta da Piedade where we had driven earlier in our stay. When you are up there, it is easy to see why they built these. There is tremendous erosion along these cliffs and there are parts that occasionally fall into the ocean. There is even a large hole alongside the driveway to our condo (the white building in the first photo) that has eroded and I’m not sure how they are going to fix it. In any case, it was a nice hike but I think I’m finished for the day. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. The adventure continues.

It’s been a busy couple of days. Yesterday we drove over to Tavira which is about an hour east along the Algarve coast. It is an old fishing town and it was interesting but it wasn’t quite what we were looking for. We did find an interesting marketplace and the produce, fish and meat doesn’t come any fresher!

After we spent a little time in Tavira, we headed back to Lagos but decided to stop and check out Faro which is also on the coast. There is an airport in Faro with flights to Lisbon, Porto, the UK and Madrid which makes it a convenient transportation hub for the Algarve. We did find the center of town in Faro and wandered around a bit. It was interesting but again, didn’t seem to have the vibe we are looking for.

Once we parked the car, we had to wind our way through all kinds of little alleyways and streets to find the center of the city we were looking for. A while back we decided to leave an Apple Air Tag in the car and it worked like a champ to guide us back to our vehicle. Otherwise, we might still be wandering around Faro!!

This morning we decided to go out to the iconic Ponta da Piedade which is a series of caves, arches and coastal structures that are iconic to the Algarve in Portugal. The best way to see them is from the water but we just walked around the paths on top. I have scheduled a boat trip for next Friday to take a look from the sea. It is really beautiful scenery.

From there we decided to head over to the city of Portimao which is only 8 miles away as the crow flies and you can see it from our balcony but it is a 20 mile, 30 minute drive to actually get there. We found our way down to one of the marinas which was very nice and then walked a little ways into the center of town. Portimao is a very nice city and would be easily livable. It is probably on our short list.

We came back to Lagos and spent the afternoon just relaxing on our balcony, enjoying the sound of the waves and eating our lunch while watching the tourists on the beach below. We’re beginning to think that Lagos is the place we will focus our search for a place to park long term. It checks most of the boxes on our list and is truly a gorgeous place. We will just have to figure out how to deal with the hordes of tourists in the summer!!

Tomorrow I will be driving Barb back to Lisbon so she can catch her flight back to Phoenix (via London) early Monday morning. She has some work commitments so she needs to get back. I will return to Lagos Monday and remain here for another few days until I head for New York City for Thanksgiving next Saturday.

We have covered a lot of ground while we’ve been here. I’ll have to look and see what the total mileage driven is when I finally turn the car in next week. Not to mention the hundreds of roundabouts that we have navigated during this adventure. Portugal is a great country and it is easy to see why people flock here to visit and to live.

I’m a little behind but thought I would use this morning to catch up on the blog post. We finished up our short visit to the very charming town of Evora with a nice dinner at a little restaurant that we found. Octopus is very popular here so I tried it again and it was delicious.

Yesterday morning we headed for Lagos which is about a three hour drive. It was an easy drive and we saw more of the interior of Portugal. We have enjoyed seeing all of the different parts of the country. The road system here is great although sometimes in the cities it can be ‘interesting’, like when you are going down a one way street/alleyway paved with cobblestones that is barely wide enough for our Kia Kauai! But the freeways are top notch and smooth as silk.

We found our condo (rented on Airbnb) with no problem and met the host here. He gave us a quick tour, showed us our parking space, and gave us his phone number in case we needed anything and left us to get settled in. I had to take a picture of the sign in the elevator just to show the interesting use of words you sometimes run across. I loved the word ‘incarceration’ to mean ‘if you get trapped in the elevator’ rather than anything to do with the Portuguese penal system!

The condo is right off the beach and the views are spectacular. This is the off season so it was easy to book. I’m sure during summer, the price would be three or four times what we are paying and bookings would be much harder to come by. Old Town Lagos is a 15 or 20 minute walk and it is an ideal spot as a base of operations for exploring the Algarve region of Portugal.

After we got all settled in, it was lunch time and there is a rooftop restaurant in the hotel next door so we opted to just walk over there. It was another delicious lunch while sitting in the sun on the terrace overlooking the ocean. Tough to beat. Going home is getting harder and harder.

We found our way to a grocery store to pick up a few things since we will be here a while. Barb, unfortunately, has to leave on Sunday to begin her trip back to Phoenix due to some work requirements but I won’t be leaving for another week. I’m stopping in New York to spend Thanksgiving with my daughter and her mom and it is far less expensive for me to stay here in Lagos than in New York City – and I can’t hear the ocean from my hotel room in New York!

After we got stocked up, we went to Old Town Lagos to walk around. It is a really neat place with all kinds of shops and restaurants. As we were strolling around we stopped to look at some of the listings posted in the offices of various real estate offices and were surprised to see that there are still affordable places to be had. The down side of some place like Lagos is that it will be very crowded in the summertime due to the influx of tourists.

When we got back to our condo, the moon was just coming up and it was beautiful. Photo time. And then this morning when we got up, the sun was just rising. Another photo op. We feel fortunate to have booked this condo as the location can’t be beat with respect to the views.

Today we are going to drive down to Tavira and Faro which are about an hour east of here just to check out some other places along the Algarve. Tavira is a little less ‘touristy’ but still right on the water so we’ll check out the real estate and the town down there.

Today we drove down to Evora which is about a three hour drive from Coimbra. First of all, let me say that the main freeways here are top notch. They are smooth and there really isn’t that much traffic. The speed limit in most places is 120 kmp (75 mph) although people routinely exceed that and we have yet to see the equivalent of a highway patrolman on the freeways! Most of these roads are toll roads but when you are just trying to get from point A to point B, they can’t be beat.

Evora is a walled town like Obidos and is really nice. It is in the middle of the country so it is a bit off the normal tourist path, although plenty of tourists still make their way here.

We got to our hotel quite early but the staff were very accommodating and we parked in the garage, got a map of the city, a recommendation for lunch and headed off to kill a couple of hours until our room was ready. The recommended restaurant was just off the main square which was about a 10 minute walk – uphill on cobblestones – what else?

After a very nice lunch we decided to do more exploring and found a great little alleyway that had all kinds of interesting shops. A lot of the shops were selling merchandise made of cork, which is one of the main exports of Portugal, and Barb found a bag that she liked so she snagged it.

We walked a bit further and came across some old Roman ruins and a spectacular castle that looked like it was right out of Game of Thrones. We found a little park and took some pictures overlooking the city.

We decided it was time to head back to the hotel but wanted to stop at the Chapel of Bones which was on the way. The chapel is exactly as it’s name implies. The entire chapel is lined with human bones!! I have never seen anything like this before. It was a bit macabre and yet very solemn at the same time. One of the plaques said that this particular chapel was the first ‘chapel of bones’ in Portugal implying there are others! It’s worth a look if it doesn’t totally creep you out.

We kind of regret spending two nights in Coimbra and only one night here but its all part of the learning process. Although its a bit off the beaten path, Evora is well worth a visit.

We will go find another nice restaurant for dinner tonight and then head to Lagos on the coast tomorrow. It’s another three hour drive which should be pretty easy. We have an Airbnb condo in Lagos for the remainder of our time here and are looking forward to exploring the Algarve from that base of operations. The adventure continues.