(CNN) — Thinking back to her decision to relocate to Portugal on her own five years ago, Paula Dreyfuss jokes that many people questioned her state of mind, as she’d never even visited the European country before.
But the mother of two, now based in the coastal city of Porto, famous for its Port wine and spectacular bridges, has no regrets today, as her life is much richer in many ways.
“I have a lot more life here,” Dreyfuss, who is originally from Texas, tells CNN Travel, before blissfully describing her frequent trips to local museums, movie theaters, and pop-up wineries in the Douro Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage region in northern Portugal.
“My daughter came to visit one time, and asked, “Well, what do you guys do all day?” she recalls. “And my friend holds up a glass of Champagne and goes, “You’re looking at it.”
Better life
Dreyfuss loves the local food and usually eats out at least three times a week, something she simply couldn’t have afforded to do when she was based in San Diego, California, where she lived and worked as a teacher previously.
When she began teaching after working in corporate finance for years, Dreyfuss thought she’d end up with a retirement income that would provide her with a comfortable lifestyle.
But as the years went by and the cost of living increased, she realized that this was unlikely to be the case.
Dreyfuss considered moving within the United States, and recalls driving up to Seattle and “stopping at a bunch of places,” but says she couldn’t find anywhere affordable enough to tempt her away.
She’d always dreamed of traveling around Europe extensively, but Dreyfuss knew that this would likely never happen if she stayed where she was. So what better way to explore the continent than actually moving there?
After doing some research into European countries, Dreyfuss found that the only visa that she qualified for at the time was the Portugal D7 visa, which allows non-EU nationals with a stable passive income to reside in the country.
“I’d never been to Portugal. So I had no way of doing a scouting trip or anything,” she says. “I thought, ‘I’m going to go over there. And If I don’t like Portugal, then I’ll move to Spain or France.’”
While she put her plans on the back burner for a while, Dreyfuss says that the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 ultimately prompted her to finally leave the US permanently.
“I was really ready to get away from the political situation in the United States,” she admits.
New chapter
Dreyfuss reached out to an online group who specialized in helping foreigners move to Portugal and began the visa application process, which took slightly longer as the Portuguese embassy was shut at the time due to the pandemic.
Once her D7 visa was approved in 2021, Dreyfuss had just a few months to pack up her life in California and move to Portugal.
She then sold her townhouse and got rid of a large amount of her belongings.
In May 2021, Dreyfuss arrived in Portugal with four suitcases and her dog Charlie.
She spent just under a week in Lisbon before realizing that it felt too big for her and “just like living in the United States” due to the large crowds, and constant traffic.
Dreyfuss promptly hired a car and drove up the coastline, before paying a visit to the city of Porto. She was immediately struck by the beauty of the destination, as well as its diversity and welcoming feel.
While she had planned to keep on traveling and see more of Europe, Dreyfuss fell in love with Portugal’s second city and decided to stay put. Fortunately, she happened to meet a real estate agent within hours of arriving there and was able to find an unfurnished apartment in Porto within a few days.
As time went on, Dreyfuss was completely won over by the city. She particularly loved the residents, who were always “so warm and so nice,” along with the sunny weather and felt that this was a place that she could be happy.
“Every time I’d be in a situation where I’d think. ‘I’m just going to sit here on the curb and cry,’ somebody would say, “Can I help you? Are you lost?’” she recounts. “So that was part of the trigger, and then I just started making friends here.”
Her social life filled up quickly and Dreyfuss soon found that she was constantly meeting with her new friends for games, dinner, wine and coffee.
Dreyfuss loved that she was able to live comfortably in the city on an “adequate income” and could afford to go on vacations several times a year, including taking road trips to Spain or France, as well as return to the US to visit her family.
Safety factor
However, one of the biggest benefits for her was the fact that she felt comfortable walking around alone in the evening, something that wasn’t the case in San Diego; Portugal is the seventh safest country in the world, according to the Global Peace Index.
“I just feel so safe here,” she says, adding that she loves how walkable Porto is and the fact that it “feels like a village.”
Although she has a car, Dreyfuss says she doesn’t use it often and notes that drivers seem to go much slower in the city.
“People say to me, “How can you drive in Porto?’” she says. “And I’m like, ‘I drove for 35 years in Los Angeles. It’s not that bad.’”
She also finds the health care to be “astronomically” better in Portugal than the US, “not just because of the cost, but the quality of the care.” Portugal has a mainly tax-based health system with universal coverage.
However, Dreyfuss admits that getting to grips with the banking system has been “a little bit of a challenge” along with buying real estate, particularly as Portugal doesn’t have a statutory seller’s property disclosure statement, where sellers are required to inform buyers of issues with the property.
She bought her first home in Porto in 2022, but sold the two-bedroom apartment in the Bombarda Art District after two years and went on to buy a top-floor apartment in the Marques neighborhood with a veranda on both sides, where she currently lives. Dreyfuss has since bought a second apartment, which she rents out to a friend.
“Nothing is perfect. I mean, the bureaucracy here is a pain in the ass sometimes,” she says. “There’s some things that are almost exactly alike. There’s some things that are better. There’s some things that are worse.”
Comfortable lifestyle
While the cost of living in Portugal has gone up in the years since she moved there, it’s still “probably about 40% to 50% less” than in the US, says Dreyfuss, adding that it’s a “much better life day to day” for her.
As for the language, Dreyfuss admits that this has been one of her biggest struggles, recounting how she’s always asking locals to “slow down” because they “they talk really fast, and drop whole words out of sentences.”
“I can make myself understood,” she says. “But I sound like a three- or four-year-old.”
When it comes to cultural differences, Dreyfuss jokes that it’s really hard to hang up the phone when speaking to a Portuguese person, and she’s had to learn not to walk into a shop and “just start talking” without exchanging pleasantries first.
“You have to say, ‘Hello. How are you? Are you ok?’” she says, adding that anything less is considered bad manners. “But it just comes naturally now because I’ve been here five years.”
Since arriving in 2021, Dreyfuss has traveled to London four times, Paris three times and the Spanish city of Seville twice. She’s also visited the Austrian capital Vienna, as well as France’s Marseille and Toulouse.
In the coming months and years, she hopes to explore Italy and Europe’s Atlantic coast.
“That’s something I would not be able to do if I didn’t live here,” she adds.
Dreyfuss currently has temporary citizenship, which is renewed every two to three years, and recently began the process of applying for Portuguese citizenship.
She feels very much at home in Portugal today and can’t imagine ever returning to the US permanently.
“They’d have to fix an awful lot of stuff before I’d want to move back,” she says.
Dreyfuss is returning to the US later this year for her daughter’s wedding and is very much looking forward to seeing her loved ones. However, she always feels a huge sense of relief when she returns to Portugal, which lets her know that she’s where she’s meant to be.
Aside from her friends and family, Dreyfuss says the thing she misses most about living in California is actually US grocery chain Trader Joe’s, as well as the familiarity that she had there.
“When I get back here, I feel like, ‘Oh it’s so good to be home,’” she says. “That’s how you know.”
“But I really don’t miss the fear,” she says. “That’s what makes me happier here. My kids miss me and I miss my kids. But I always tell them, ‘You guys can come see me.’”
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