Becky Walz

Biographical Info

I grew up moving every few years in the North East of the USA.  My husband Ron and I married in 1988 and lived in Georgia for 7 years.  In 1994, we moved to the Pacific Northwest where we lived until moving to Portugal in 2021. We have 2 children and 2 granddaughters.  We also have 2 little Shih-tzu’s that rule our lives.

My early years I was a stay at home mom raising 2 children. In my teen years and later in life I worked with people with multiple disabilities in the work force and in school. I believe everyone should have an opportunity to live their fullest life no matter what their circumstance is or what life has thrown at them.

Why I moved to Portugal

Well first, moving is in my blood. I love experiencing new places and new things. We sold our house in 2016 and decided we wanted to spend our lives having fun and adventures. We didn’t want to wait until we retired to do so.  This set us on an adventure of moving 9 times in 6 years.  During Covid we had downtime and we had time to think – dangerous I know!

Though our original plan was to move to Europe we ended up in Victoria BC before coming back to the Pacific Northwest.  Here we renewed our search to get to Europe. Portugal seemed a good fit and so we moved here, like many others, sight unseen.  We love living here!

Why I started the International Women’s Group

My experience of moving helped me learn that you have to be proactive to meet people and make new friends.  As much as I wanted to make Portuguese friends, the language barrier makes it difficult to have those deep connections.  I needed friendship to help navigate this huge move here. I needed support. Once settled in the Porto area I started to organise walks and coffee outings for the summer.  We as women love to chat so I knew a coffee group would also be a great way to bring us together. So in October 2022 we had our first coffee at El Corte Ingles.

From there we started various special interest groups.  Along the way I got to know my amazing neighbours Konni & Hank who created the Porto People group.  This past fall we decided to join forces and created one big community, Porto Together.  As of today we have over 430 members and 32 groups. Porto Together is a joint effort by all of us on this About Me page.  We happily volunteer our time and effort to make a valued contribution to Portugal.