“Everybody always asks, “Why did you leave America for Portugal?”

To answer “why Portugal,” I should begin with the countryside. We have mountains; plains where cork oak, olives, grapes and cattle are raised; lovely river valleys where the famous Port wine grapes come from; the semitropical south called the Algarve; and, of course, the coast.

In a nutshell, I am a happy expat. I live in a beautiful place, I have a profession I love, I enjoy my family, friends and neighbors, and I am never bored or lonely. One can ask little more than that from life.”

A version of this article appeared April 9, 2012, on page R7 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Moving to Portugal.