About us
Why choose us?
Just like so many people the pandemic hit us hard in 2020.
Lost family members, jobs, and the reality that if we don’t go after our dreams now one day we won’t have the chance again.
My name is Colleen and my husband Clyde, father Bob, and our Newfiedoodle Dutch made the move to Portugal in 2021. Our daughter Fi Rose joined us in Alcobaca this last year. We are travel industry veterans, we’ve explored the world and experienced what it has to offer. Colleen has a project planning background that really helped us navigate the discovery process once we decided to move to Portugal.
Due to the pandemic, we were not able to travel to Portugal to do a scouting trip. Using Google street view and watching videos from a tourist perspective really didn’t give us the information that we needed to narrow down our choices. We’ve been lucky, we have a great realtor and friend in Nazare and he helped guide us to our new home in Alcobaça but it took a lot of communication, trust, and patience for us to get here. As we have grown our business, we have grown our team. We are now a team of over 10 native Portuguese and English speaking individuals working together in this beautiful country to help you find your place.
Now we are here, and we want to help others find what they need.
A lot of factors go into what makes a place your “home” and we understand that each of us has a unique set of criteria when making decisions. Our job is to help you find your place in Portugal, no matter where and what that may entail.
We are here to be your “sneakers on the ground”.
“O que hoje não sabemos,
amanhã saberemos”
Garcia da Orta
Testimonials
Our hosts Colleen and Clyde are the perfect Expat Home Finders! On Wednesday they spent several hours showing us around many of Coimbra's historic neighborhoods, then went to work finding listings in the ones we liked best.
By Saturday they had booked three viewings, then accompanied us to each one. And just like Goldilocks and the Three Bears: one was too dark, one was too small, but one was Just Right -- and we have a contract pending!
In our opinion, you can't go wrong with these folks. It's not like working with strangers; it's more like sharing experiences with new friends -- and now, friends for life!
This was a delightful and thoroughly useful service! We were made to feel right at home in Portugal, and we were able to get a real feel for so many different areas in the Silver Coast. Our hosts were knowledgeable, friendly, and just plain fun to spend time with. Highly, highly recommend to anyone looking to live in Silver Coast!!
This cute couple, Colleen and Clyde, helped us find an apartment. They drove us all around neighborhoods so we could get the feel of what part of town we want to live in. Then they researched, made phone calls, set appts for us and today they drove us to those appts and we found the perfect 3 bedroom, 2 bath Apt. It’s within walking distance of cafes, coffee shops, bakery, groceries, and butcher shop, as well other sundries. I love the neighborhood. I highly recommend Portugal the Place.
I cannot recommend the team at Portugal the Place more. My husband and I just spent several days scouting the Silver Coast with them. Colleen introduced us to towns we had not considered previously, after careful consideration of our wants and needs, and she picked the right spots every time. The time and headaches they saved us are massive! Colleen and Clyde are also really well connected within the Silver Coast communities, introducing us to a lawyer, a real estate agent and a banker, all within days. They are able to answer questions that expats will naturally have, recommend restaurants and grocery stores, it’s truly a full service experience! Cannot speak highly enough of them!
We came to Portugal the Place ("PtP") through recommendations from several Facebook groups focused on expatriation. Engaging PtP for our scouting trip was (IS... we are still in Portugal, enjoying our stay before returning to the US...) of incalculable value to us. We needed, most importantly, to find and commit to a place to live in one of the many cities of interest to us. Clyde, Colleen, Ana, Antonio, Bernardo, and Fiona all made our trip highly productive and completely successful - we were able to meet all of our objectives and enjoyed the whole experience. For the sake of full transparency here, Dutch was not quite as forthcoming. However, given that he is a large, fuzzy, 3-year-old dog (cão em Português), and sadly but predictably without opposable thumbs, his contributions were also notable and greatly appreciated.
Thank you all for your wonderful company and your able and enthusiastic assistance. We are so pleased to now call you friends, and once we successfully navigate the D7 visa and SEF residency processes, we will be honored to also call you neighbors.
Everyone at Portugal the Place has given us so much support in coming to Portugal, with minimal language so far (although my husband is really getting into Portuguese—-he sees everyone as his teacher), getting us wherever we needed to go, helping with location information, helping identify potential housing and speaking with landlords, and answering every question (or getting answers) we had. I can imagine other ways we might have done this, but absolutely cannot imagine a warmer and more supportive “birth” into Portugal. We are forever grateful! A shoutout to Bernardo and Clyde, who have been extraordinary guides and, we hope, new but lifelong friends. You are the best.
This is the best company, best service and best people I have ever worked with.
When you are moving to a new country and area, what you need to know and don’t even know to ask is critical. Colleen Showalter and her staff are the answer.
They helped us find where we are going to live which is not where we thought we would when we went on our scouting trip with them. She listened to what we wanted, what are needs are and helped guide us. She arranged a real estate agent and we found our dream property with 180 degree sea view in Nazare. She and her staff continue to support us as we move. This is the best investment we made for creating a life in Portugal.
We absolutely loved our trip to Portugal. We could not have done it without Colleen, Clyde and their phenomenal team. If you are truly passionate about moving to Portugal, temporarily or permanently, Portugal The Place offers customized guided tours of the cities that best meet your needs and/or peak your interest amongst many other services. We could not have asked for a better experience. Clyde is a gem and truly made this the best time possible not only for us, but also for our 4 year old daughter. We were able to get our NIF paperwork taken care of thanks to Antonio, Ana and the rest of the team. What a relief it was to have a team of people help us through these processes. Everything was so easy. We are truly thankful and so appreciative of their services. We highly recommend
Knowledgeable folks who helps you get relocated
My husband and I decided that we wanted to check Portugal out for possible retirement. Due to certain circumstances we decided I would go alone. This was November 2021. I am an adventurous sort so I thought I could do it alone. but..... As we began the research for my solo trip to scout Portugal, I fortuitously ran across this company. After carefully considering the options, my husband and I decided to talk to Colleen. We booked our 30m free consultation and decided to ask them to choose an itinerary based on our interests. Colleen had both my husband and I on the Zoom consult call so she could hear his ideas as well. I got to Portugal, got picked up at the airport and a very jet-lagged me was taken to a wonderful hotel in Caldas de Rainha. From the beginning the trip was very successful. This company, these people, listened very carefully to my responses and questions about places we were visiting. Colleen didn't sugarcoat her response to my questions. My itinerary was easily changed because of the responses I was having. Colleen is a wealth of historical and current information about this beautiful country. Each day of scouting I had a printout of detailed information about the area we were going to visit. She took me to grocery stores and shopping malls and furniture stores and parks and historical sites..... all kinds of places to show me what is available in Portugal. I can't thank Colleen and Clyde enough for their generosity and kindness.
Colleen and Clyde made our scouting trip successful. They were efficient, talented at discerning what we wanted, and had the connections and knowledge to help us exceed our goals for the trip. Bonus: they're friendly and fun to spend time with!
We just returned stateside after spending a month scouting numerous areas in Portugal with Colleen and Clyde Showalter of Portugal The Place. We booked with PTP 4 months in advance of our trip to secure our spot as we know that they get booked up very quickly due to the high demand of folks looking for their perfect retirement spot. All paperwork provided including the trip invoice and non-refundable deposit was concisely prepared and all terms and conditions clearly written. Throughout the trip Colleen and her team exuded professionalism and provided outstanding customer service exceeding all of our expectations! Our daily itineraries were very well planned and prepared and Colleen's historical and cultural knowledge of each location was excellent. The PTP team was nimble as we changed our itinerary and narrowed our focus to a specific area. In getting to know Colleen I was struck by her unwavering ethical commitment to her customers.
Colleen and the crew at Portugal the Place made our Portugal dreams come true. They know what they’re doing. In my initial one hour interview with Colleen, she insisted we also make an appointment for her to speak with my husband. Turns out we had very different ideas about our future lives in Portugal. Thankfully, Colleen realized she needed to hear from each of us, and knew exactly what questions to ask. It was this kind of insight that amazed us in every interaction with the PTP team.
They found a wonderful house for us to rent at an unbelievable price. After we explained what we were looking for in a place to live, she led us directly to a small town we fell in love with. Her crew is available to receive shipments, they not only took us furniture shopping, but talked through with us exactly what we would need upon arrival in Portugal to make the move seamless. They helped us turn on utilities. Whatever we worried about, they had already thought about. Moving to Portugal would have been a very different experience for us without Colleen, Clyde, Fiona and Ana’s help. And we couldn’t recommend them more highly.
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