Porto Portugal Live Cheap Retire Early

Porto Portugal Live Cheap Retire Early
Porto Portugal Best Food and History
Porto Portugal Exclusive Port Wine Tour
Porto Portugal Nightlife (Bar Hopping) Tour
Porto Portugal Old Town Walking Tour
Porto Portugal Best Area to Stay
Best Travel or Retire Cheap in Paradise Locations in the World

This is Dan from Vagabond Buddha. This is my Porto Portugal Live Cheap Retire Early Guide.

 

Digital: I left the USA in 2007. I work over the internet on my laptop so I can live anywhere.

Nomad: I like to stay in places that are beautiful and cheap. That allows me to live a great life with less pressure in my life about money. Most people just travel for a few weeks so they maintain things at home while they travel. I don’t maintain an empty house or automobile in the USA when I travel. So I have only my cheap living expenses. When I visit family at home, I stay on their couch or empty bedroom if they have one.

Those two ideas are what I call digital nomad. There is one other concept that saves a bunch of money–I slow travel.

Slow Travel: That means I try not to take more than about 4 expensive flights per year. Let me give you an example. In the first 6 months of this year, I was traveling around South America. I spent a month or more in Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru. The ticket to South America was about $400 one way. But I flew to South America last year, so I am not counting that expense for this year.

This year, my first actual flight was from South America to Mexico. My ticket was $375. I stayed in Mexico for about 5 months and then flew to Europe. My ticket to Europe was about $400. Since being in Europe, I have stayed for about a month each in Scotland, Hungary, and Portugal. Those two short flights were less than $100 each. On Friday, I am flying to Morocco for $125. That means I will have lived in 8 countries, 4 continents, and spent less than $1100 on flights. That is less than $140 per country for flights. I save money by being a slow traveler.

Consider whether Porto Portugal Live Cheap Retire Early is right for you.

It might surprise you to learn how little traveling costs when it is a lifestyle. Grab a free copy of my ebook if you are curious about what it takes to be a slow traveling digital nomad. I have been traveling the world since 2007. 65 countries so far.

Porto Livability Factors

While in Portugal, we stayed in Lisbon, Sintra, Evora, Coimbra, Aveiro, and Porto. As I travel, I document the best places to live or retire cheaply. I have to love a place also before I would consider living there. Living cheap is only the first part of the story. You have to figure out how to do it while living a full life. That is why I created my livability factors. Each below factor is rated high, medium, or low.

Walkability: High. Porto has a high walkability factor. Best case is inside the area I show below under “Best Area to Stay.” But even outside that area, Porto has an amazing public transportation system of buses and Metro.

Internet: High. Porto has great Internet speeds. Speed Test. Many of the buildings in Portugal are made of stone. If you stay in the old town areas, wifi troubles occur if you are too far from the Wifi router. So you may want to specifically inquire about the distance from the router before you book a potential place.

Food: High. There is not as much food diversity as Lisbon, but it is almost all here. You just may need to walk a little further or take the metro or bus.

Weather: Medium. I like it slightly warmer than this. August is the warmest month with an average high of 78F, 26C, However, it cools down at night in August to an average low of 61F, 16C. The moderate temperature and cool breezes from the Atlantic Ocean often mean you may not need your AC for much of the year. January is the coldest month with an average low at night of 41F, 5C but often warms in the day to an average of 57F, 14C. The rainy season is October through January when it rains more than 6 inches per month on average.

Things to Do: High. There are beaches, wine tours, symphony, many food choices, hiking, biking, great day trips, weekend getaways, sports stadiums, sailing, water sports, cruising, parks, nature, etc.

Social Considerations: It seems like many of the people we meet here in Porto speak English. But you should learn the language if you decide to move here. That should open up more doors for you. The people in Porto are very nice and helpful. I don’t believe you will face any additional challenges here just because you are a foreigner.

Expat Penetration: High. There are Facebook groups, web pages, meetups, etc. Just Google “Porto expats” and you will see.

Real Estate: Buying: At the time of this post, you could buy a 700 square foot, 1 bedroom apartment in Porto starting at about $150,000 USD. Outside the city center that same apartment would start around $92,000 USD. But I do not recommend buying until you have been here for at least 2 years. The rents on that same apartment would be about $625 USD per month or $550 outside the city center. Utilities and Internet would be about $100 USD per month. The daily rate if you rent in central is about $25 USD ((625+100)/30).

Porto Desirability Score: High. I could see myself living in Portugal. Porto is my favorite of the 6 places we have visited so far–Lisbon, Sintra, Evora, Coimbra, Aveiro, and Porto. It is a little cooler than I normally like but it reminds me of San Francisco weather and I love that place too. It has a beautiful landscape and a romantic yet safe feeling to it. It is like living in a storybook. Plus, like San Francisco, it has very warm weather you can retreat to if the feeling strikes along with nearby wineries and everything else Portugal has to offer. I should say that Lisbon is only slightly behind Porto in my mind in terms of livability. I could live in either.

Next, I will speak about the costs of living in Porto Portugal. But first, please subscribe to Vagabond Buddha or our Youtube Channel to find out all the best places to live or visit around the world. I have been to 65 countries so far. I started in 2007.

Porto Cost of Living

I am here now. The below cost of living numbers are an integration of my own research and Numbeo. However, significant inflation since the date of this post would render this table inaccurate.

Monthly Cost of Living, Porto, Portugal ($USD)

Expense	Cost	Low	Medium	High
Airbnb/per day	$30.00	0	14	30
1 Br Apt w/lease	$25.00	0	12	0
Hostel/per day	$15.00	30	3	0
High-End Restaurant	$15.00	1	4	8
Neighborhood Restaurant	$9.00	30	44	48
Food Cart	$7.00	30	12	4
Subway/Train/Metro	$1.35	20	26	8
Bus	$1.35	20	10	0
Taxi/Uber	$5.00	6	10	20
Total	Per Month	$1,029.00	$1,403.60	$1,590.80
Total	Per Day	$34.30	$46.79	$53.03

The above numbers are for one person and do not include alcohol, tours, or extras. The table only includes the big three, rent food, and local transportation.  You will need to visit Numbeo and add anything else you spend money other than the big three.  I do not guarantee these prices for anyone. Here is a link explaining how the table works.

Warning: I am not offering you these prices.  These are just my notes and estimates from the time of my visit and this post.  Your costs will likely be drastically different.  You will need to do a site visit to verify what your cost of living will be here.