I’ve been on and off in Portugal for the past 4 years and recently decided to move to Thailand

As a young Portuguese guy, my top reasons were:

1. Heavy taxes
2. Everything is slow and inefficient
3. Dating life is bad
4. Excess tourism

Taxes are so high, why would you want to create any sort of business in Portugal especially in the digital age? As a software and tech guy myself, this makes zero sense.

At risk of offending my peers, I have to say, the culture has this stagnant, depressing and slow vibe baked into it. You feel this whenever you deal with any service, public or private. It’s like nobody wants to work, they just want to doze off.

Due to lack of opportunities, mostly because of taxes and culture IMO, a lot of young ppl just emigrate leaving the country even deeper into stagnancy since the traits that the country needs most (competency and pro-activeness) fly to other countries. 

And ofc if young ppl fly away dating scene after university is pretty much non existent.

With no young ppl, you see the streets being filled with Indians and Pakistanis and it no longer feels like Portugal. You sit in a coffee shop in Lisbon and it’s like 20% Portuguese.

Unfortunately I see no way it can get better unless there are huge benefits for young ppl to stay and work for their country.

But somehow most Portuguese still think we’re ahead of otherwise underdeveloped Asia. Which is of course not true. Bangkok is 20x more advanced than Portugal, and the middle class here ($700/mo) lives with heavily better infrastructure.

The rate of progress in Portugal is about zero. As a young person, you want to be in a place that’s alive and improving, Portugal not being the case. It’s a stagnant museum.

Portugal still is for me a great place to spend couple months per year as a tourist. Good beach, weather, food, but not to be a permanent resident.