{"id":49612,"date":"2026-04-26T14:31:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T14:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-moved-to-portugal-by-taking-a-two-week-cruise-there-from-the-us-traveling-by-boat-had-major-benefits\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T14:31:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T14:31:18","slug":"i-moved-to-portugal-by-taking-a-two-week-cruise-there-from-the-us-traveling-by-boat-had-major-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-moved-to-portugal-by-taking-a-two-week-cruise-there-from-the-us-traveling-by-boat-had-major-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"I moved to Portugal by taking a two-week cruise there from the US. Traveling by boat had major benefits."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69ebbb6e3fecbb42897a3d82?format=jpeg\" alt=\"A man with the Lisbon skyline behind him.\"\/><figcaption>Zachary Biss sailed from Tampa, Florida, to Lisbon to move.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Zachary Biss.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Zachary Biss moved from the Tampa Bay area to Lisbon seeking a new lifestyle.<\/li>\n<li>Biss chose to take a cruise instead of flying and was able to bring  more items with him.<\/li>\n<li>Biss appreciates the slower pace of life in Portugal and anticipates saving more money on bills.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@zachary_abroad\" rel=\"noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Zachary Biss<\/em><\/a><em>, 29, a musician from St. Petersburg, Florida, who moved with his girlfriend, Marina, to Portugal by boat. The following has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I&#039;m a full-time musician. Back in the States, I played gigs at bars and restaurants with my guitar, singing and playing covers for a living.<\/p>\n<p>I&#039;ve always had the same job in music, and over time, I was able to play all my gigs and have enough money at the end of the month to put away in savings and invest in stocks.<\/p>\n<p>That allowed me to buy a house in Florida in 2019. I was really proud that I was able to make that happen.<\/p>\n<p>Ever since I moved into the house, I&#039;ve kept a budget down to the penny, and the expenses got absolutely insane.<\/p>\n<p>My electric bill roughly doubled over the course of five years. My utilities, which covered water and garbage disposal, doubled as well.<\/p>\n<p>You have all these people telling you homeownership is the goal \u2014 that&#039;s the dream \u2014 but the bills kept going up. I&#039;m like, &quot;This seems backward. I feel like I should be paying something off to where eventually I&#039;ll be paying less.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of half a decade, everything has crept up to where I&#039;m working harder than I&#039;ve ever worked, and making as much money as I&#039;ve ever made, but I have nothing to show for it here. <\/p>\n<h2>We knew we wanted to move to Lisbon<\/h2>\n<p>I thought, maybe it&#039;s time to go somewhere else and try something different, because otherwise I&#039;m just going to float here and not really thrive.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69e9262aa98bc8fdc096d97b?format=jpeg\" alt=\"A man and woman drinking beer.\"\/><figcaption>Biss and his girlfriend, Marina.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Zachary Biss.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I haven&#039;t sold my home yet. It&#039;s still on the market.<\/p>\n<p>My girlfriend and I already knew we wanted to move to Portugal for a while. So by the time we were able to finally move, I was like, &quot;I don&#039;t care. We just have to go.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>It was a little bit emotional, but not really because we&#039;d been planning it for so long. I had gotten to the point where I didn&#039;t want to wait anymore.<\/p>\n<h2>We decided to move by taking a cruise<\/h2>\n<p>We found a cruise that was actually going directly one way, because they do the transatlantic sailings to move the boats. After the season&#039;s over in the Caribbean, they move to Europe, so we found one that was going from Tampa and ending in Lisbon. It was a match made in heaven.<\/p>\n<p>We did pay a little bit more than flying, but you&#039;re getting a two-week cruise: all the food, all the lodging, and a couple of stops along the way.<\/p>\n<p>We stopped in the Bahamas, and then after the Bahamas were six days at sea, and that was pretty wild. I&#039;ve never spent that much time at sea.<\/p>\n<p>After that was the Azores, and then it was another sea day because they&#039;re pretty far off from the mainland. Then we did Porto, which was really cool, and then we ended in Lisbon.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69e9262aa98bc8fdc096d97a?format=jpeg\" alt=\"A slefie of a man and woman in Lisbon.\"\/><figcaption>Biss and his girlfriend in Lisbon.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Zachary Biss.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>All in, we paid $2,500 total, so definitely more than two flights, but I would say it was worth the cost. The transatlantics are usually a bargain because they&#039;re not that full and they&#039;re just trying to sell tickets to make the voyage worth it \u2014 we actually got a balcony room and everything.<\/p>\n<p>But the biggest perk was that there was no hard luggage limit. I brought my guitar, I brought my suitcases, Marina brought a bunch of her suitcases \u2014 as much as we could fit \u2014 and we got to the port and the porter&#039;s like, &quot;How many luggage tags do you need?&quot; And we said, &quot;However many.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Flying would have been a lot more restrictive.<\/p>\n<p>We also thought that sailing would ease us into moving a little more than flying would, because there&#039;s really nothing worse than landing at Lisbon Airport after an overnight flight, not sleeping on the plane, and dealing with that brutal jet lag.<\/p>\n<p>On the cruise, there were six days at sea in a row, and they would roll forward the clock one hour at a time; they did that five times over the course of the trip to get us five hours ahead to where we are now.<\/p>\n<p>I would totally recommend moving by boat for the luggage benefit alone, but especially if you&#039;re a cruiser or you just like relaxing, it&#039;s like being at the spa.<\/p>\n<p>It&#039;s fun, and at the end of the day, I don&#039;t think many people get to say they&#039;ve sailed across the ocean.<\/p>\n<h2>We like the pace of life in Portugal<\/h2>\n<p>The first night, we were sitting at the dinner table, and we looked at each other, and we both started crying, like, &quot;What are we doing?&quot; But I think that&#039;s 100% normal for anyone moving, even just moving to another state. It&#039;s scary. This is the first time I&#039;ve moved.<\/p>\n<p>There were things pushing us out of the US and things bringing us to Portugal. Honestly, the biggest one was health insurance.<\/p>\n<p>As a self-employed person in the States, I often feel punished for being self-employed when it comes to health insurance. The cheapest plan offered to me on the marketplace for this year was about $360 a month.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69e926293fecbb42897a2d41?format=jpeg\" alt=\"A man and woman at the Arco da Rua Augusta in Portugal.\"\/><figcaption>Biss and his girlfriend at the Arco da Rua Augusta in Portugal.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Zachary Biss.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When I talk to my friends who live here or have moved here, and I tell them what I paid in a month, they&#039;re like, &quot;Well, that&#039;s about what I pay in a year.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Affordability wasn&#039;t the only reason we moved. If we were going for affordability, there are definitely cheaper places in Portugal, and even more affordable places in Europe. It&#039;s all relative; what&#039;s affordable to me might be different than what&#039;s affordable to a local here.<\/p>\n<p>The people, in broad strokes, are in a little bit less of a rush here. I made a joke that even the people trying to sell you something off the street, once they realize you&#039;re not going to buy what they&#039;re selling, they&#039;ll just have a conversation with you, which is nice.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69e92629a98bc8fdc096d979?format=jpeg\" alt=\"A selfie of a man and woman holding an ice-cream cone.\"\/><figcaption>Biss enjoying ice cream in Portugal.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Zachary Biss.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The pace of life is not so much work, work, work all the time, rush, rush, rush. People here really will take a moment \u2014 it&#039;s built into the day to have a coffee, have your pastry in the morning, and you&#039;re not just grabbing your big iced coffee and getting in your car and rushing to work.<\/p>\n<p>It&#039;s a breath of fresh air.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zachary Biss sailed from Tampa, Florida, to Lisbon to move. Courtesy of Zachary Biss. Zachary Biss moved from the Tampa Bay area to Lisbon seeking a new lifestyle. Biss chose to take a cruise instead of flying and was able to bring more items with him. Biss appreciates the slower pace of life in Portugal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-49612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}