Destination Report: Porto – Part Two: Cost of Nomad Living

Last week in the first part of our destination report about Porto (in Portugal), we shared everything we did, ate and saw. In this week’s blog post, we are taking a deep dive into our budget and how the two of us spent less than $2,400 USD during the month we spent there. Are you ready to see our numbers and find out what surprised us the most in Porto?

We stayed in Porto for 4 weeks and the two of us spent $40 per person per day, or $2,327 in total.

Where We Traveled Porto, Portugal

What did we do, see, eat? Check out our destination guide of Porto

Number of Days 4 weeks (from July 16, 2019 to August 13, 2019)

Type of Travel Married Couple, Slow Travel/Nomadic, Price Conscious

Total living cost $2,327 (for 2 people) or $41 per person and per day

Note: Unless specified otherwise, prices are in USD and were converted from the local currency (EUR or Euro) to USD using a 1:12 ratio. (so 1 USD = 0.89 EUR). 

With our previous trips to Montreal, Quebec City, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico City, Oaxaca City, San Miguel de Allende and Aruba, our average monthly spend per person was around $35 / person / day (Excluding cost of getting in & out). Porto was above this average with a daily budget of $40 / person / day for a monthly budget of about $1,200 per person. While everything was really affordable, our budget was so high because  accommodation alone represented 71% of it! 

For this budget, we rented a car to explore the beautiful Douro Valley (check out our 2 day itinerary here), spend a day in Matosinhos to enjoy delicious seafood, spend another day in Aveiro where we discovered what the “Venice of Portugal” was liked. We also had plenty of time to discover Porto through the lens of the locals (through guided walking tours for instance) or through our own eyes. We ate out about 2-3 times per week and really enjoying cooking some great dishes at home with all the fresh and local produce we were able to find in the city. And we did all of this while staying in an apartment located just 5 minutes away from the old town. How did we manage to spend within this budget? Well let’s look into each main budget category in more detail. 

For more details about what to do, eat, see & avoid, please check out Part I of our destination guide about Porto

If you want to know every single expense we had, fill-out out the form below to download our itemized budget spreadsheet.

How much did we spent? 

Note: If you are curious about how we spend our money, check out this article where we explain our decision making process.

Accommodation: $28.50 / person / day

(Or $855 / person / month).

We were pretty surprised by how expensive accommodation was in Porto after hearing everybody touting about it being a very affordable place (the minimum wage in Portugal is still around 600 EUR!). Accommodation remains the most expensive part of our budget even as slow travelers as it represented 71% of our overall budget! 

Well, it turns out that Porto has gained a lot of tourist attention over the past 4-5 years (to say the least) which has drastically increased the rent in the city. Even while pulling some of our our own AirBnb tips and getting a monthly discount, we still ended up paying a lot. Also booking during the peak of the season (which is July/August) did not help.

👉 You can check out our AirBnB rental listing here.

That being said, we liked our apartment. It was comfortable, nice and updated. It was within walking distance from the old town with close proximity to grocery stores, restaurants and plenty of sight to see. We had strong wifi, cable TV (with 100s of channels) and the bed was pretty comfortable. One of the highlights of our apartment was that it came with weekly cleaning which was a nice treat for us.

⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $1,653 on this apartment for a total of 28 nights.

Transportation: $2.26 / person / day

(Or $68 / person / month)

Since our AirBnB was walking distance from shops, restaurants and grocery stores, we only used public transportation to go explore outside of the city. The network of buses, trains, metro & ferries is pretty developed, convenient and affordable.

Buses and metro use the Andante network which has similar pricing and use a reloadable card to let you conveniently load as many tickets as you need to travel (cost of the card: 0.60 EUR – or 0.67 USD). Fares use a zoning system which means you pay depending on how many zones you need to cross, starting at 1.20 EUR. (or 1.34 USD) Note: Keep in mind that you can only load the card with only one type of zone (let’s say Z2 for Zone 2). If you want to load Z3 onto your card, it has to be emptied first. To activate your ticket, make sure to tag it prior to boarding the vehicle. You can find metro fares here, bus fares here and train fares here.  

Taxis & Uber are also widely available in Porto. We used Uber to get from the airport to our apartment as we liked the convenience and it’s fairly inexpensive.

⇒ In total, for the length of our stay, the 2 of us spent $130.92 on transportation.

Groceries: $4.95 / person / day

(Or $148 / person / month)

We went grocery shopping mostly at Ludite + Pingo Doce (for fruits/vegetables), Mercado do Bolhão (for meat/fish) & Lidl (for the rest). You will find a LOT of small shops spread throughout Porto that will sell you fruits & vegetables at a very affordable price (usually under 1 EUR / kg which is less than 0,5 EUR / lbs).

Check the part one of our destination guide of Porto for more details about each of these stores and where they are located. 

⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $286.93 on groceries. This covered 76/84 meals (breakfast, lunch & dinner) which is about $1.89 / meal.

Eating Out: $3.08 / person / day

(Or $92 / person / month)

The main specialties in Porto you should try are bacalhau (cod) (you will find it prepared in dozens of ways), Tripas à moda do Porto and Pastel De Nata and as much fresh seafood as you’d like since it’s really good. Another specialty for portugal that we didn’t try is the Francesinha. 

Check the part one of our destination guide of Porto for our favorite restaurants.

⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $150 on restaurants + $28 on snacks for a total of $178. Our restaurant budget covered 8/84 meals (mostly lunch or dinner). The average cost of our meals was $9.44 (including tax + tip) which is 4.2 times more expensive than eating at home (by doing the ratio between what a full day of eating out would cost vs a full day of eating at home as per our budget). This makes Porto one of the cheapest cities we’ve been to when it comes to eating out and cooking at home.

Activities: $1.10 / person / day

(Or $33 / person / month)

Our paid activities in Porto included tip for a walking tour, a one hour boat tour on the douro river, a 2 hours tasting tour at a winery in the Douro Valley and entrance fee to visit the Lello library. Our free activities included plenty of hiking, sightseeing, enjoying sunsets over Porto, and some time by the beach.

⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $64 on activities. 

Miscellaneous: $0.24 / person / day

(Or $7.2 / person / month)

Mr. Nomad Numbers got a haircut in Porto!

Our Money Savings Tips

How did we save money for this trip?

• Avoid visiting during peak season (July and August). We made this mistake and paid a premium for our accommodation! As you can see, the cost of living was inexpensive for us except for our apartment. If we had come on the fringe months, accommodation would be much cheaper.
• Stay outside of the old town. Again, because housing is the biggest expense, you can save a lot of money if you don’t mind walking 10-15 minutes to get into town or better yet taking public transportation. We found the outside area enjoyable and less touristy.
• Stay away from the restaurants in the old town area. Most of them are touristy so not only are they pricey, they don’t really feature the homemade authentic cuisine you want
• Don’t take a Tuk Tuk tour. Instead take a free walking tour to have a more enjoyable experience of the city at a fraction of the cost. 
• Use your two feet every day! This helped us reduce our public transportation footprint while increasing our exercise activity. Double win!
• We use travel credit cards with sign-on bonuses to maximize free miles that we then apply towards our trip to travel for (almost) free. 
• Use AirBnB. AirBnB is a website that allows homeowners, in destinations all over the world, the ability to rent private spaces (or entire apartments) for a fee. As nomadic long term travelers, we like to call AirBnB our home as it has helped us save a lot of money and provides us with really great places managed by wonderful hosts! Pro tip: If you sign up for AirBnB using our referral link, you will get a 55 USD credit (or the equivalent in your local currency), which should give you a pretty nice discount on your first night.

So that’s it folks! What do you think about our budget in Porto? Is it as affordable as you thought it was? Feel free to share your experience and ask questions by leaving a comment below.