From Vegas to Portugal

Hi, I’m Natasha! I recently moved to Tavira, Portugal from Las Vegas, Nevada. I’m 38 years old, I don’t have a job, I haven’t worked in almost a year, and I am living my dream life in a beautiful town in Europe. I’m not rich, but I live comfortably and am figuring out my new path in life so I figured I would let people come along on my journey. So how did I, a 38 year old with a regular life, no savings and some debt uproot my life and live my dream? Read on for my story.

Early July 2020, while the whole world was shut down for Covid we had started to re-evaluate our lives. The original scare had started to die down, but there were still so many unknowns about the state of the world and how long we would be in quarantine. I had been working at a casino, a job that made me miserable, for 13 years, so at the time I welcomed the break. We were staying safe in our little bubble and thanks to unemployment, my husband and I were doing ok financially. We hadn’t gotten sick yet, it got us hard right after this. We got a dog, Bodhi, and a kitten, Wednesday. We took long walks every day, had time for our hobbies, and just generally made the best out of this horrible situation. I knew that eventually things would have to go back to normal and I dreaded that. We started talking about how we really needed a change to get out of the rat race and how to live a life we were actually happy with. We had talked about living in a different country since we had met, but life had taken over and in the blink of an eye, 14 years had passed. We decided we didn’t want to blink again, be 70, and regret never doing it.

Wednesday, 8 weeks old, Gotcha Day

Bodhi, choosing his bed, right after adoption

We started researching countries. Where could we go? The world was our oyster. We knew we wanted warm weather, hopefully close to the beach, somewhere affordable, and definitely somewhere safe. I researched visa requirements and what it would cost financially to make it happen. I told my bestie our plan and told her some of the places we were looking at in Europe, Asia, South America, but there were so many options. She told me to look at Portugal because it ticked all our boxes. So I got to searching. 

Portugal looked beautiful, it was safe (its currently the 6th safest country in the world,) it was comparatively affordable, it had gorgeous beaches and moderate weather. The more I learned, the more I loved. I researched the visa requirements, and they were far more attainable than a lot of other places we were considering, we would qualify for the D7. Within a few days, our minds were made up, Portugal won. 

We set our deadline for my 38th birthday, November 2022. We had just over 2 years to make this happen. It would be hard, but we knew we could do it. We didn’t know how hard it would be, or what the next 2 years would throw at us, Covid, Long haulers, not working, losing a job, losing loved ones, and saying good-bye to the lives we had. But with lots of hard work, so much stress and times of freaking out, we made it happen and I am happy to say that on September 14, 2022, we arrived in Portugal, sight unseen with Bodhi and Wednesday in tow, to make a new life. 

With this blog I will delve more into this journey. Everything from how we made this happen to what our lives are like here. I’ll share about our travels and adventures through this amazing country. I’ll talk about our experience with trying to assimilate to a new life in this new country and learn a new language. I’ll show the restaurants and bars we visit, I love food and love to try new stuff, I also have celiac disease so I plan on sharing lots of gluten free food info. 

I hope you enjoy my story, Follow along as I explore this new chapter,  and maybe, hopefully, it will inspire you to follow your dreams too. 

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