London vs Lisbon: the losses and the gains of moving abroad
Weighing up the cost of big life decisions
Ok so I’m finally on this newsletter thing. I’ve accumulated 200 subscribers, but not a word has gone out to anyone since they’ve signed up so…. hello! Welcome! Thanks for joining and I hope you like it here. As an increasing number of us are travelling again, I wanted to review my time in Lisbon and discuss what you lose and gain when you make the decision to move out of your home country for a prolonged period of time. (If you’d rather just skip to some reading, writing and Lisbon reccs, they are at the bottom).
Anyway, it’s as if I’ve blinked and two years have suddenly passed with me living in Portugal! I moved in October 2020, and it’s the place from which I launched my first book, Raceless, a memoir which examines the development of black identity in white families and traces my own journey uncovering family secrets and travelling the world. It was a virtual launch, due to UK being in the depths of the pandemic and it went ok considering. It’s since sold over 10,000 copies worldwide and I’ve returned to London several times and held two book launches to make up for lost time because if it’s one thing I know how to do well, it’s have a party. But whenever I go home one thing I’m still asked frequently by many people is: ‘why did you leave London for Lisbon in the first place?’
The truth is, there was no big break-up between me and London. It was a slow decline, a mellow fading of affection between myself and the city in which I was born. There was also no big romantic relationship break-up to trigger the move and I don’t have family in Portugal, as many people ask me. When I moved, I didn’t speak a lick of Portuguese (I’m ashamed to admit I’m still far from fluent but I am doing lessons with this online school and they are very good.) I wasn’t desperate for an EU passport either as I’m half Irish, but I did want to continue living within the EU as Britain seemed to be getting smaller and more miserable by the day - and it’s seemingly getting worse. I also wanted to meet new people and to experience a different (read: sunnier and more affordable) place to exist as a freelance journalist, author and travel writer. Oh, and I was also tired of sharing my space with people I didn’t love. Basically I left London because I fancied a change and I am a person who craves new experiences and interactions every week otherwise I feel as if life is passing me by. I’d previously been living in a spacious and affordable house-share by Brockwell Park in Brixton, but when everyone lost their jobs it became claustrophobic. I adopted Jasper, a greyhound, from Battersea Dog’s Home who is now the light of my life, and moved back home to Sutton with my Mum and brother where I worked on my second book - a travel guide called Black Girls Take World - in my garden over the summer of 2020. I sat in my patio, reviewing all my old travel notes and articles from Nicaragua, Cuba, Ecuador, Vietnam and other places while training Jasper and putting on a bit of weight. I had signed both book deals in 2019 and was lucky to have two books to work on during a time in which financial support for freelancer writers was tough to come by. But by October 2020, with some of the book deal money still burning a hole in my pocket, I was restless, and off to Portugal Jasper and I went.
Living in Portugal has given me a lot of grounding during a time of collective sadness and mourning. On an individual level, I know about mourning. I lost my Dad in 2015 and a year later, when I affirmed that our biological connection didn’t exist, I was plunged to emotional depths lower than I ever thought existed. That’s why I originally left London to travel solo for around a year and a half, back in 2017. Travelling then provided me with perspective, it reminded me of my power and impacted my identity in an incredibly positive way. In hindsight however, I was also running away from a lot of pain that I had to work through when I returned and I’ve written about how I handled that in my memoir. This time around, leaving the UK felt very different. Despite the pandemic, I moved to Portugal when I was in a generally good headspace - as adult, with a plan and a dog and some money. And the move has been one of the best things I’ve ever done.
Swapping London for another city like Lisbon has numerous benefits. Firstly, I’ve made so many friends in a social scene that is so much more chilled than back home. Lisbon is smaller than London and it’s easier to make plans and get to know people. In London, there’s a need to arrange low-key trip to the pub with mates two months in advance. Diaries are whipped out, calendar notifications are made and even then the whole thing is weather dependent and subject to last-minute cancellations. In London, getting a hold of people I consider Very Good friends becomes increasingly harder with each passing year as everyone gets busier or slightly more boring. In Lisbon, all my friends are transplants from the UK, Brazil or other parts of Portugal and all of us have been willingly shaped by the casual nature of the social scene here: wanna grab a beer and take a walk by the river in 45 minutes? Sure see you there. Beach tomorrow? Yeah I’m in. I’m also enamoured by the creative work scene in Lisbon. Maybe it’s because I work remotely and largely from co-working spaces, but it seems that I’m around people doing relatively interesting things: running businesses, founding companies, designing cool stuff and inspiring me in the process. There’s an real appetite for small-scale events and parties that feels community-focused, if you throw an event - people come! That still happens in certain scenes in London, of course, but it feels as if everything is more of an effort. You don’t show up and show out unless you really know the person. Perhaps it’s because Lisbon is smaller and changing rapildy with so many people moving here post-pandemic, but it feels like an exciting place to be, a city in flux. There’s meet-ups, web summits, a buzzing crypto scene, lots of funk, house and techno music nights and beach parties as well as new restaurants opening all the time. I’m also working on creating my own group for POC creatives and writers which is something I just wouldn’t do in London largely because it feels over-saturated and secondly because I’m convinced no-one would turn up.
The Portuguese can be quite chill. Although the country is defined by a mind-numbing system of infuriating bureaucracy, things do work relatively well. The country is well connected via train. The food is delicious and healthy. The standard of living in Lisbon - with its gorgeous coastlines 30 minutes away and beers for 1 Euro - certainly beats that of London. And although I can’t get any UK Garage on a night out (yet), a trip to a fancy rooftop bar feels far less pretentious than it did in London. And once you’ve made some Portuguese friends, they’ll sweet-talk your group to the front of any queues because they really do look after their own here. FYI: The Portuguese are tough cookies to crack socially, but once you’ve got one, you’ll probably have a friend for life.
I fully believe that life becomes so much richer and fuller when you leave your home behind to move elsewhere - especially if you do it alone - and that’s been the case for me. There’s something electrifyingly exciting about having the option to reinvent yourself abroad, to exist beyond a singular vision of yourself defined by others and try on another life for size. Who knows where you will end up, or what you might discover? In London it felt as if I was on one set path, the co-ordinates for the final destination already mapped out, the GPS set. Right now, while I have a vision for my work and my goals, I don’t know where exactly I’ll end up living, or with who, and that thought is freeing - exhilarating, even.
Moving to Portugal from the UK there are of course, several financial benefits, but they ain’t as numerous as you might think. I rent a 1-bed apartment from a friend for under 600GBP including bills in the centre of the city, but this is relatively rare and still out of reach to locals. The average wage for a Portuguese citizen in Lisbon is 1000 Euro a month, so most wouldn’t be able to afford my place, even though, for a Londoner sounds like a brilliant deal. A recent study of over 56 countries also listed Lisbon as the third most expensive city to live - after Rome and London respectively - and the cost of living crisis is definitely hitting food and electricity prices hard here too.
Moving to Portugal is giving me the space and comfort I need to finish my next book which is a novel. It’s also helping my travel writing career and content creation side hustle. Of course I miss my friends and family back home and sometimes I just really crave a roast, a portion of rhubarb crumble and the spectacle of travelling back from Brixton on the night tube, but London is a city powered on two parts mania and money and one part madness, and I can get my fix of all that when I dash home for a month or two as I did this summer. Overall my life is so much more chill and for now, I like it that way. I exist with less stressors around money, but also around street harassment and the threat of sexual violence. African-Americans that have moved here often tell me they are amazed at the ways they can exist beyond racism and although I am aware that Portugal is far from a racial utopia and that moving here as a black Brit/American ‘expat’ (I hate that word, it’s incredibly hypocritical) is vastly different to living here as a citizen from one of Portugal’s former colonies like Angola or Brazil, I have to say, I do feel incredibly at peace from day to day.
My mind is clear, my stressors are lower and I can get an octopus hotdog for lunch, and yet… of course there is some loss when you live abroad. Home is still home. I live without the people who truly know me best by my side. I sometimes miss out on social events and work events, because even though Lisbon is less than two hours from London, it is still in a different country and flight prices aren’t getting any cheaper. The postal system in Portugal is also whack and I miss the UK’s efficiency when it comes to filing a form. But even though the logical, reasoned part of my brain concedes that my life is better in Lisbon, the part that controls my inner most base desires will pipe up and say: ‘but London is home’. And it is. It’s the city that shaped me, the place where I was born and the only place I can really imagine having a family. So perhaps there is an expiry date on my time in Portugal. Perhaps it will come to a natural end. I know now that choosing a place to live is a lot like dating. You can write down your ideal type is on paper and drone on about set criteria, but at the end of the day, despite what your mates or your Mum might say, you simply go on *vibes*. Those indescribable feelings from deep within that don’t make sense to others, but which ultimately drive you do what you want.
I guess this first newsletter is to encourage you to test out a few things that may or may not be for you. Life is short and the world is wide. Take World, the name of this newsletter, comes from part of the title of my travel guide. I didn’t realise until I was translating things from Portuguese, but the verb ‘take’ is used in so many contexts in English. It’s a verb that means to go somewhere: can you take me there? Or, to move or remove something: the suitcases were taken / her possessions had been taken. It also means to grasp or grip something as in, take the bull by the horns. All of these meanings are connected in someway to movement, which by definition is linked to change. I guess I like the idea of this newsletter perhaps inspiring someone, somewhere to do something they’ve been thinking about for a while because of something I’ve written. Whenever I have received emails from people who have read Raceless and made changes in their life as a result, I always smile. Because life will throw situations at us that are overwhelming and beyond our control, like death and depression, and we’ll so desperately wish we could change it. So when it comes to things like moving abroad or trying a new job, it’s important to keep perspective, embrace the good that can come from these changes and realise that these ones are never permanent. I left London to change my way of being and my life has grown all the more richer in terms of experiences, friendship, creative inspiration and love, as a result. I might stay here for five more years, I might move back next year. I don’t really know, but I’m having a damn good time trying new things and re-defining my version of happiness in the process. I hope you get clarity and peace of mind if you’re on the verge of making a big decision or two. And remember: nothing is forever. Nobody cares as much as you think they do. Permanence is an illusion. Fuck it.
Things I’m loving in Lisbon this week:
Casa Reia beach club - the new kid on the block in terms of bougie beach club. I want to have my birthday here!
Garagem cafe - this view (below) is insane and never fails to inspire me when I’m writing. I love cosying up here in autumn which isn’t actually now because Lisbon is still 28 degrees! (Sorry if you’re reading this from a cold country).
Tasca Baldracca - this restaurant opened a few months ago and has to be one of the best Portuguese small plates places I’ve tried out recently. All the dishes are still stalking my dreams months later.
Things I’m reading this week:
Was absolutely loving this book, Strong Female Character, by Hanna Flint (below). It’s a sharp, smart memoir that weaves Brit-Tunisian Hanna’s experiences growing up in Doncaster/London and entering the world of film criticism, with detailed analysis of the cinema around the world that has inspired, informed and infuriated her. I feel like a right proper film critic when reading this, but I also love Hana’s warm and witty style of prose as she reflects on her life.
This article on Alison P. Davis, that brilliant writer from The Cut who has written the kind of profiles on Megan Markle and Lena Dunham that always transport you to right into the room with them.
This article about Portugal’s poverty worsening.
Things I’ve written recently
This article about turning your phone notifications off for the Guardian
I contributed to this piece about dating around the world, also for the Guardian
This piece about flat-mates and packages for my column about domestic disputes called You Be The Judge, also in the Guardian.
Things I’m watching this week:
Was craving a bit of London recently so binged all of Top Boy Seasons 3 and 4 again (the Summerhouse ones). Best season ever? IMO it has to be 3.
MAFS UK. Kwame I hate you! Duka I love you. And yes, I have a fantastic VPN.