# First trip to portugal



## NickyVer (Nov 20, 2014)

Hello,
My wife and I are interested in living in Portugal and maybe eventually buying property. After some research we think Central Portugal would suit us best, but we are open to suggestions.
We want to live in the countryside, with not to many people around, but still a few and maybe a small expat community would be nice, but our neighbors should be not to close. We think it’s best living close to a village so that we have some basic shops, a market and administrative functions close by, but we don’t mind driving an hour or more to the closest city. Some nice nature and hiking in the area would also be lovely.
We want to start of by renting for 6 months to a year so that we can get to know the area’s around, the people and learn the language and of course be sure that we want to live there. But eventually, when we decide we want to stay, we want to buy a property with quite a lot of land where we can grow our own food (vegetables, fruits and meat). We are open to buying an existing house, or renovating one, but would prefer the building to have a solid structure and roof. In a later future we would like to rent a few rooms as a small B&B, but these rooms can be yurts or something else, so a little bit of tourism in the area is a must.
So my questions are: 
-Any suggestions on regions that would suit us, within central Portugal or somewhere else?
-Does anybody have some recommendations for real estates that are trustworthy and can help us with finding a rental property that also is in the countryside, has a garden that would allow us to grow some veggies and allows dogs. If happy with the real estate we can also use it later on when looking for a property to buy.
If anybody knows about a rental property themselves, info is also welcome.
Also recommendations about a good lawyer, notary, etc….
-What places are not to be missed when we come on a small holliday/first trip to Central Portugal and does anybody knows a good place to stay in the area, we will probably come up there in April.

Thanks


----------



## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

There's no end of places that'll fit your criteria and I'm sure many here will recommend their particular area but truth be told, most areas in the central zone have what you want and indeed what you want is very much what we have. 

If you click on the link in my signature and then click the tab marked 'About Central Portugal' and the fly offs from there, you'll see a number of videos etc of this area. 

There are good and bad estate agents in all areas so it pays to try to make local connections for whatever area you're looking at if you want individual recommendations but there are also 'property finders' who although not licenced estate agents, know the local area and find you houses to look at with local prices if you find a good one, they can be worth their weight in gold. 

You need to rack up 5 posts before you can send/receive PMs but feel free to PM me when you can and I'll be happy to give you further details of this area if it's of interest.


----------

