Portugal, a warm h(e)aven for expats

Thousands of people flood the Algarve seaside every summer, Lisbon also receives thousands of visitors every month, but there are also those who come here to stay. Portugal, a warm h(e)aven for expats, provides the fifth best life quality for foreigners who decide to relocate in the entire world.

This result was revealed by the InterNations organization, which seeks to help expats adjust to relocating to a new country. Their survey had over 14.000 people living abroad interviewed and questioned about their new circumstances and life quality. Being one of the most comprehensive such survey, the result showed that Portugal is more than generous to its expats.

In this 2015 assessment, Portugal came in among the first of 64 countries in terms of ease of settling and life quality. In terms of safety, health issues and general well-being, Portugal ranks even higher, being the third on the list.

It’s rather hard to say what that means for everyone, but Portugal comes 7^th in terms of happiness and 13^th when it comes to leisure. That might be a bit biased, we do feel there is a wealth of activities to consider in Portugal and it deserves a higher ranking, but alas, these are the results.

Portugal did get a disappointing 27^th place when it came to languages. Apparently this barrier is still quite strong for foreigners foreseeing moving to the country of Fado. However, the most humiliating result was personal finance, Portugal coming in on the 48^th place.

Nevertheless, Portugal remains an ever increasingly appealing tourist destination and expat target and since the quality of life is so high, it has become a coveted heaven for Middle-Eastern migrants fleeing the unrest in their home countries. Right now, the government is making arrangements to accommodate some 1500 refugees coming from conflict zones in this recent event described as a “humanitarian catastrophe”.