Free Roaming - Shiny Penguin

Free Roaming is not just for phones anymore. Now that we have our 2-year temporary residence cards, we can now freely move about the Schengen area in the EU.

Process Timeline

Here is what our time table looked like:

Oct 2024 Applied for D7 Visa in San Francisco.
Nov 2024 D7 Visa Approved & Arrived in Portugal.
May 2025 Applied for Temporary Residency at AIMA in Faro and Castelo Branco. An earlier appointment in Viana do Castelo was rescheduled which seems to be fairly common.
June 2025 Registered for a public health number at Centro Saúde. This is referred to either as an SNS number or a Número de Utente. Even though we don’t plan to use the public health system, this number is needed when we need vaccines or asked for in other processes, so it is better to have one.
Aug 2025 Received Residency Card (valid for 2 years) and headed to Câmara Municipal de Olhão to request a NISS (social security number) which is now required for renewal. And starting the process to get a Portuguese driver’s license (required if over 60 years old). If you don’t do it within a time window, you have go to driving school.

This was definitely a leap of faith as there is little transparency in the process, in terms of ETA. My card showed up in the mailbox with no fanfare, Tom’s required a signature.

Travel Rules

As a temporary resident of Portugal we can travel to other Schengen countries and not have to worry about Schengen’s 180/90 rule. But we still need to adhere to some rules during this initial 2-year period: namely that we cannot be absent from Portugal for more than 6 consecutive months OR 8 non-consecutive months.

EU Schengen countries (23): Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia (Czech Republic), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal 🇵🇹, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.

Non-EU Schengen countries (4): Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland.

EU non-Schengen: Ireland, Romania & Bulgaria (air/sea only), Cyprus. We can still travel to these countries, we have to go through passport control.

Foz do Guadiana

Foz do Guadiana literally means “Mouth of the Guadiana” and this week we drove out the jetty to this most southern-eastern part of Portugal.

At the end of the jetty in Vila Real de Santo António we stood at Foz do Guadiana—the mouth of the Guadiana River, where it finally empties into the Atlantic after winding 800 kilometers through Spain and Portugal.

Home Improvements

We are still settling in, and now focused on putting things on these white walls. The two main pieces include a tile mural over the fireplace and a painting of San Diego (Balboa Park). That wall is still a work in progress, but this is where we are so far.

What a typical evening looks like

A few typical evenings in town. The first is a concert in the Irish bar along the riverfront. The next was a burger dinner near the skate park along the river.

What’s next?

We are going to Ayamonte Spain to celebrate our residency cards. Stay tuned for that adventure!

More Portugal

Read more about daily life, the embarrassing moments, and the process for having a long stay in Portugal. If you are more of a picture person, follow me on Instagram.