Moving to a new city can be taxing, even if you have your apartment for rent in Lisbon and stay only for a few months living. There are practicalities of living in Lisbon as an expat that you might not know which a good community will help you with. Also, having people with similar experiences in your life helps with loneliness and is the best cure for homesickness.
So with that said, here are some expat groups in Lisbon and where to find them.
Online expat groups in Lisbon
While meeting people face to face can be helpful, expat groups online
can be a precious resource. The many problems you will face as an expat usually have a variety of solutions, and using the collective knowledge of a given group of expats
working remotely in Lisbon can offer you
various ideas on what to do. Additionally, it can be an excellent way of getting to know people if you struggle with bigger groups or social anxiety. For general questions and more pleasant chats, use Facebook groups like
Lisbon Digital Nomads & Expats or the group
Expats in Lisbon.
Each group has over 20 000 members and are very lively, with new posts being shared every day. Just make sure you read their rules first, so you don’t end up banned. There is also the group International Friends Lisbon, which focuses more specifically on socialising. Another group is Brit Expats in Lisbon with around a thousand members but recently, it has been overrun by ads, so we recommend avoiding it.
Another (more specialised) group is Lisbon Expat Rooms, Flats & Roommates, where people post openings in their shared apartments and rent out their flats. The whole group is broker free, but as such, it has been noted by some to have had a problem with a few scammers – so proceed with caution.
A special mention also needs to go to the site Internations.org which focuses on connecting ex-pats within a specific place for a long time. They are also an excellent resource for information about your stay, so definitely go and check them out.
Offline ex-pat groups in Lisbon
As great as it is to be able to access thousands of expats online, nothing beats face to face interactions. Whether you’re looking for friends, romantic partners, or just some people to share a hobby with, Lisbon is chock full of expat groups. Lisbon has a lot of sports clubs, like the Lisbon Hash House Harriers, which is a running and drinking group – perfect for meeting active and fun friends.
Boys Want to Have Fun Sports Club is an LGBT sports club that does volleyball, swimming, football, and more. And there is also the Lisbon International Sailing Club which lets you try out a few sailing lessons before becoming a member. For lovers of other things than sports, there is The Lisbon Players – an expat theatre group and Grupo de Boardgamers de Lisboa, which loves board games.
There is also two coding boot camp in Lisbon: LeWagon & IronHack. And if you came to Lisbon to be part of its dancing tradition, try the school Jazzy Dance Studios.
There are still many more groups that are always looking for new members, so make sure to look them up and enjoy your new social life.
A few months living
Take a look at available apartments