The Portugal Diaries - Episode 1 - Choosing a location

I've always had this dream. A dream about responsibility. For family and friends, for community, for nature. A dream about living with nature instead of against it. A dream about balance, and self-reliance. Not to be selfish, but to be selfless. A dream of gardening, building, recycling, creating. A dream of homesteading.

The buildings and plots of land in Belgium are all so full and expensive, that to do what I (we) want to do, I'll have to move. Not to another part of the country, but to another part of the continent.

Portugal. Northern Portugal specifically, likely in the district of Porto. It's not far away from hospitals (which my chronically ill body needs) and other necessary urban services, but far away enough from the big city to have cheap pricing when it comes to land.

There's also water. A lot of it. Because of the rivers and it's close proximity to the mountains, there's always enough water to go around, even when the (other) regions of Portugal are being plagued with wildfires, the North keeps relatively safe.

So now the questions pose themselves. When? How? Where specifically? That's for me to to figure out in the next episode.