Portugal has a warm and welcoming vibe. It feels like it’s one big happy village — even the big cities like Lisbon and Porto are a comfortable fit. The people are as chill as anywhere I have ever been. A couple of times, when I was cranked up and a bit stressed out, the strangers I talked to seemed genuinely concerned and gently tried to calm me down. They are also pretty quiet unless they are drinking with friends or watching their football. When they start singing together, they can get pretty loud.
We witnessed the Portuguese free spirit wherever we stayed. The employees were always hugging and kissing one another. During quiet moments, like at the breakfast bar each morning at all the hotels where we stayed, they would rub one another’s shoulders or sometimes hold hands. What would have been considered sexual harassment in the States was just a lean-on-me moment in Portugal. And it was very refreshing.
I have been leading tours through FREE! Annapolis Walking Tour for many years. I’m really good at it. Many people say it’s the best tour they’ve ever taken. So, I am biased when it comes to what makes a good or bad tour. Most reasonably priced group walking or biking tours abroad are lousy, and Portugal was no different. They started late, much of the information was simply not true, and the guide often spoke Portuglish and was extremely hard to hear or understand. But it was still fun!
Portugal is slippery when wet! Every street in every city—even the small towns—has polished limestone cobbles for sidewalks and streets. They are super attractive, but are sometimes like ice rinks when dry. It never rained while we were in Portugal, so I don’t know for sure, but I am guessing walking, driving, or biking would become treacherous when it gets wet.
Many native Portuguese speakers sound like Russians when they speak English. At first, I thought I was imagining it, but there are a few real phonetic reasons Brazilian or European Portuguese speakers can sound Slavic to some ears. Portuguese heavily reduces or swallows unstressed vowels — similar to Russian. Words get compressed, and consonant clusters become prominent. For example, “obrigado” sounds almost like “brigadu.” Russian does the same thing, dropping unstressed vowel sounds. European Portuguese is full of “sh” and “zh” sounds (Lisboa = “Lish-boa”). These patterns are also very characteristic of Russian and other Slavic languages, which is rare in Romance languages like Spanish or Italian. Portuguese also has a flatter, more monotone rhythm than the sing-song quality of Spanish or Italian. Russian also has a relatively flat, heavy intonation pattern. When either group speaks English, this carries over. So I wasn’t imagining it. There’s a genuine acoustic overlap between the two accents, even though the languages are completely unrelated.
There were clean bathrooms everywhere we traveled! And I think that says a lot about the quality of a place, be it a country, town, or somebody’s house.
We were amazed at the variety of cars in Portugal. We never saw a single American vehicle. Even trippier, we had never heard of most of the cars.
Here are the top 20 best-selling car models in Portugal for 2025, based on full-year data from ACAP and industry trackers:
1. Renault Clio
2. Peugeot 2008
3. Dacia Sandero
4. Dacia Duster
5. Citroën C3
6. Peugeot 208
7. Mercedes A-Class
8. Tesla Model 3
9. Nissan Qashqai
10. Nissan Juke
11. Opel Corsa
12. Renault Captur
13. Toyota Yaris
14. Renault 5
15. Opel Frontera
16. Tesla Model Y
17. Volkswagen T-Roc
18. BMW 1 Series
19. Citroën C3 Aircross
20. BYD Atto 3 / Seal (Chinese)
We rented a Citroën (French) to drive north, then a Peugeot (French) when we headed south. They were both quite peppy and got great gas mileage. China is steadily increasing its market share in Portugal, while American cars are not commercially relevant.
There are federal highways throughout Portugal — the A roads — and they are very much like the interstate transportation system in the U.S. They are uniformly well-maintained, and it felt like we were driving on I-95, except that there was a lot less traffic, undoubtedly because every road is a toll road and gas is prohibitively expensive. But what was very disconcerting was the fact that the road lanes are dished, or concave, which makes changing lanes a struggle. It felt like I was grabbing a steering-wheel gyroscope when I tried to change lanes. The road literally fights you.
After I posted that last bit on Facebook about the dished lanes on Portuguese highways, a follower who lives in Portugal set me straight. Bruno Pereira explained that “the lanes aren’t concave nor dished. You were likely fighting lane assistance in those cars. Next time. Try using your turn signal, and it won’t keep you in the lane. “ I have never heard of such a driving feature, which just goes to show that you can learn about your home by traveling abroad. A little research on the matter revealed the following:
“If you’ve noticed a distinct stiffness or aggressive pushback in European cars compared to some U.S. or Asian market models, you are picking up on different engineering philosophies:
• The “Rigid” Approach (Common in European brands like BMW, Mercedes, and Volvo): European manufacturers often program their LKA to be highly assertive. If you don’t use your turn signal, the steering wheel will fight back with noticeable force, or it will sharply “ping-pong” you back into the lane.
• The “Subtle” Approach (Common in many U.S. and Japanese brands like Ford, GM, and Toyota): Many domestic market vehicles favor a more subtle intervention. The resistance is there, but it is programmed to be a gentle “nudge” that is incredibly easy to override. In fact, many American drivers complain that it feels too faint or delayed.
No matter the car or market, these systems must legally yield to the human driver. You can bypass the resistance in two ways:
1. Use your turn signal: Activating your blinker instantly tells the system your lane change is intentional, and it will drop all steering resistance completely.
2. Muscle through it: If you twist the wheel with enough force, the system will recognize “driver takeover,” temporarily disengage, and let you steer freely.
Most modern U.S. vehicles allow you to go into the dashboard settings menu to adjust the sensitivity of this assistance — or turn the steering intervention off entirely if you prefer only a vibration or an audio beep. As an unregistered dumbass, I live and learn every day.
The orange SOS call boxes every few miles were a nice touch. We never need one, but it was nice to know we could always call for help. In the wonderful world of cellphones, public phones are indeed a rarity. Portugal remains old school. And they have unique public attraction signs that look like little brown houses with maroon roofs. A silhouette of a church or castle and the place’s name are etched across the house’s face.
We drove across the country, and I saw a clear correlation between vehicle type and speed. People who owned Mercedes — which dominated the luxury car market — drove the fastest.
Portugal is a nation of roundabouts — large and small. They are everywhere and often poorly marked, which can add to the confusion of driving in a strange land. Adding to the chaotic mix, bad — or at least lackadaisical — driving was pretty prevalent, and nobody seemed to mind much. Car horns are rarely used except in big cities. There were some really ancient people driving wherever we went, and they were just puttering along, driving well below the posted speed limit, and couldn’t care less what was happening around them. It was like Mr. Magoo Land. So, it seemed like most drivers were programmed to relax. We didn’t encounter any angry drivers, except once when I screwed up and almost ran head-on into another car on our way to Lagos. And they had every right to be pissed.
There are very nice service areas along the A highways. They are similar to the service areas on the New Jersey Turnpike in that you can get gas and food without passing through a toll gate. The same concessionaire runs most of them, Áreas de Serviço, and they feature a consistently fine restaurant run by a company named Colibri. Its restaurants cook a limited selection of hearty meals like lamb shank and veggies. It’s not fast food crap like in America. There’s the usual Portuguese assortment of freshly baked breads and desserts, plus sodas, water, juices, and wine to complement standard snacks like chips (Lays rules!) and candy. It’s always clean and a very nice place to unwind from driving for a bit. The internet is reliable, and it isn’t loud and chaotic. But it works in Portugal because there are never more than a hundred people stopping at a time, whereas there are a thousand at, say, the Walt Whitman service area.
What I disliked most about Portugal was the small hotel rooms. We stayed in high-end hotels all over the country, and the rooms were shoebox-crammed. But they were exceedingly clean, and the water pressure and hot water were always outstanding. Showers after a long day were a joy. And as an added bonus, every place we stayed had an outstanding free breakfast buffet.
These days, there’s a lot of talk about Portugal as a great place to flee to in uncertain times. Travel blogs often list Portugal as the best place to start over, especially for digital nomads. It’s not just a great place to make a new home, but it’s a clever way to join the EU Team. If this sounds like something you might be interested in, then you should explore Portugal’s Golden Visa program, a residency-by-investment program that grants non-EU nationals the right to live, work, and travel in Portugal and the Schengen Area in exchange for a qualifying investment. You make an approved investment, receive a residency permit, and after 5-10 years, you can apply for permanent residency or citizenship — without needing to live in Portugal full-time. You only need to spend an average of 7 days per year in Portugal to maintain the permit. BUT, and this is really important, real estate purchases are no longer eligible.
Current qualifying options include:
* Capital transfer of €1.5 million or more into Portugal
* Investment funds — €500,000 into qualifying Portuguese venture capital or private equity funds
* Job creation — establishing a business that creates at least 10 permanent jobs
* R&D — €500,000 into Portuguese research and development activities
* Arts/cultural heritage — €250,000 toward approved cultural or artistic projects (lower in low-density areas)
Key Benefits:
* Visa-free travel across the 26 Schengen countries (A Schengen visa is an official entry permit that lets non-EU nationals visit the Schengen area for short, temporary stays. You can stay for up to 90 days within any 180-day period. The Schengen area includes 29 European countries that have removed internal border controls. This means that once you enter one member country with your visa, you can travel freely to other member countries without stopping for extra border checks.)
* Minimal physical presence required (just 7 days/year on average)
* Family reunification — spouse, children, and dependent parents can be included (This means that once you obtain EU citizenship, so does your whole family!)
* Path to permanent residency after 5 years
* Path to Portuguese (EU) citizenship after 5 years, subject to language and other requirements
If you ask me, that’s a quarter chasing a dime. Portugal is a really nice country and would be a fun place to live, but I would rather rent a place for ninety days, then set up shop in Spain for ninety, then Italy, and then—well, you get the point. Rolling stones gather no obligations.
There are a lot of really nice places in the world, and the ninety-day plan would work quite well in most of them without chaining you to a particular spot on the map. Plus, you don’t have to maintain a property where you don’t speak the language fluently and where service people can take you to the cleaners while you’re away. Do you really want to deal with a plumbing leak in your apartment or house in Porto while you are traveling out of the country? I have a hard time with my Florida condo, and I live in Maryland.
On a final note, I always try to sample the beers in the countries I travel to. And Portugal has some fine ones.
Top Portuguese Beer Brands:
* Super Bock (5.2% ABV): Considered the market leader, it is a bright, pale lager known for being slightly malty.
* Sagres (5.0% ABV): A crisp, Bohemian-style pilsner with a slight hop bitterness.
* Coral: A popular beer from the island of Madeira, often considered the third largest brand.
* Bohemia: A premium, higher-alcohol line (often under Super Bock) offering stronger, maltier options.
My favorite beer — and I know my Portuguese friends won’t like this — was Mahou, a Spanish lager I sampled in Carvoeiro that tasted just like my hometown favorite, Natty Bo.
Saúde! (The most common Portuguese toast, which translates directly to “Health.”)
