Why Portugal?
I remember exactly when my retirement planning spree started. A financial planner offered to manage my investments.
He told me that I needed at least 80% of my current salary in retirement, that I shouldn’t retire until I was 70, and that I had to live on 4% interest to leave all my money to my son. And I needed to buy an expensive life insurance policy because my son would surely throw my ashes in a shoebox if I didn’t.
WHAT? I thought I had maybe five years left before retirement and this clown tells me I have 15 years left? I want to spend my last dollar on a martini as I slide into the grave. But the only one who could understand how I wanted to live, and therefore when I could retire, was me.
I like to travel. I traveled for work and explored the world on brief vacations. I read a post called International life. They’ve put together an annual Global Retirement Index, a fabulous spreadsheet ranking the best places to retire around the world. I went over the 10 different variables they rank each country on — everything from cost of housing and climate to health care and ease of integration. Great ! (A new British term I learned here).
I noticed that a few countries were still in the top 10 and suggested five countries I wanted to test as possible retirement destinations. Let the games begin!
My son was in medical school all year back then, with his only Christmas off. We had been on a crazy mother/son trip every year for many years, from piranha fishing on the Amazon to rafting through flooded caves (guano-yuck), to almost being eaten by a leopard in Botswana. Retreat trial trips seemed relaxing by comparison, and hey, I was getting a little old for sleeping on a tarp with tarantulas in the rainforest.
Off we went to Panama, number one on the Retirement Index. It was presented as having modern infrastructures, a fabulous climate, welcoming people… and then we arrived. We were in our rental car heading to our AirBnB when we noticed many trash bags along the road. A garbage truck overturned? Did a tsunami wash away all the garbage from a landfill? That’s when an arm reached out from the car in front of us and “plop” went another trash bag along the side of the highway. Wait a minute, there was no clue for “the amount of garbage eaten by hungry dogs along the road”.
It was the start of a disastrous journey, only redeemed by hugging a rescued sloth. We discovered the Panama described in the magazine when we stayed in a pristine, gated and guarded expat community. As one guard waved us through the door with a big welcoming smile, other guards strip searched a few locals trying to get in to clean up their streets. All they needed was a ditch and a few crocodiles. Maybe perfect for some people, but scratch Panama for me.
Second Christmas, second country – we went to Malta. What a truly beautiful place. The sun, the food, the hillside villa we rented with sparkling ocean views. Wow, could this be it? It was truly a wonderful place to visit. But the first three days we literally couldn’t go out without being stuck against the wall of the villa. The wind was so bad.
And driving there was an adrenaline rush. These huge buses would race around the blind corners of the narrow streets. They didn’t bother to check those big mirrors to see if anyone was coming. Malta was fun, we loved the people and once the wind died down we had a great time. But at the end of the trip, I realized that living for years on a small island would drive me crazy. Nix island life.
Let’s move on to Christmas three and the amazing Costa del Sol in Spain. I’m sure many of you have been there. It’s wonderful, isn’t it? I speak enough Spanish to get by and everyone was nice. Food was great, weather was good – check, check, check. We’ve stayed in lovely AirBnBs all along the coast. We ate 12 raisins at midnight in a festive town square filled with happy locals. My son approved it for the “hot girls” variable. I may have noticed a few sexy men. I came home thinking that Spain could be it! Did I even need to test the last two countries?
Last on the list were Costa Rica and Portugal. My son and I had been to Costa Rica on a memorable trip that involved boa constrictors and giant spiders, but we hadn’t been to the more civilized areas. I had never been to the Algarve, but had loved a houseboat trip I had done with friends in the Alentejo, so I thought, why not try the southern coast of Portugal? We could always go to Spain if we didn’t like it.
And you can guess the rest. We stayed in Vilamoura Marina, skipped a New Years beach jam in Albufeira and simply fell in love with Lagos. The people, the weather, the food, the wine… the answers we all give to people who ask “why Portugal?”. My son remembers it as his favorite Christmas day because a seagull dropped a HUGE load on the back of my hair on the beach. I was so enchanted by Portugal that even that evil seagull (who, come to think of it, looked like my old boss) couldn’t stop me from living my storybook life here in the Algarve.
By Glenda Cole
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Glenda Cole retired as vice president of marketing at a luxury mall developer. She and her partner, Glenn Ellison, created a YouTube channel about their experiences in Portugal called The Glenn and Glenda Show. Check out the first episode below:
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