Portugal

upthecats

I am thinking of emigrating to Portugal in 2010, probably Lisbon.

I have been to Portugal a few times and always liked it. My Portuguese is pretty basic but I plan to work on that over the coming months before I intend moving.

I am attracted to the lifetyle, people, making new Portuguese friends and even a few Brazilians, getting away from the materialistic/money obsessed culture in Ireland, the weather/beaches and communicating in a foreign language!:)

I know I will have to take a decent hit on salary etc... as am on c €80k a year and am not really interested in trade or bar work.

Does anybody have any advice on the following:

Cost of living?
How easy it is to get work?
Areas to live?
Standard of pay?
Which companies are employing?
Tax?
Personal experiences?
Where to go to get more information?
Pros and cons etc....?

I really aprreciate any advice no matter how small or positive/negative as have not 100% made up my mind and want to gather more information before I do.

Thanks!

Irish_Nomad

You should really invest in a book on the subject. Google 'living and working in Portugal' and you will find a few.

It's 10 years since I lived there so a lot of my info. would be out of date.

The weather is much better, there's a good nightlife (although it runs on much later than Ireland so that takes a bit of getting used to), no shortage of decent restaurants, plenty of places to visit, and of course the coffee is great.

On the other hand, parking can be a nightmare in many parts of the city (I often had to drive around for 20 minutes trying to find a space near my apartment), some work practices are very different (trying to organise meetings was extremely frustrating), and it isn't easy to break into local social circles.

Also if you are single be warned that romance can be hard to find. At times it seemed as if all Portuguese women were issued with a boyfriend in school and that was that. Of course you may be a girl yourself in which case you should have no problem meeting men there.

Best of luck with it anyway.

upthecats

Thanks Irish Nomad - your feedback is much appreciated!

If anyone else has anything to add please do.