Meet Christie Peters
Some people you find on social media and forget by the next scroll. Christie Peters was not one of those people. I came across her in 2023 while getting ready for my first trip to Portugal, and she has had my attention ever since. Here was a woman building a life she loves and a thriving business, in a new country, in a new language, and inspiring people every step of the way.
Christie embodies what moxie looks like in real life. We are thrilled to feature her.
From Atlanta to Coimbra: Christie Peters is Building Life on Her Own Terms
Christie Peters lives in Coimbra, Portugal. She is a real estate and relocation specialist helping people make the leap from the United States to a new life abroad. She is also, by her own description, a builder at her core. Follow her journey at christieincoimbra.com, on Instagram as Christie in Coimbra, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
As we continue our Women’s History Month features, what follows is a glimpse into the mind, the faith, and the unstoppable upward action of Christie Peters.
Her favorite place in the world
Ask Christie Peters where her favorite place in the world is, and her answer is immediate: wherever her daughter is. But if you’re asking about a destination, she’ll tell you Macau without hesitation.
“I love the mashup of Chinese and Portuguese cultures,” she says. It’s a combination that, knowing Christie, makes perfect sense. She is a woman who has spent her life drawn to the places and spaces where different worlds meet and create something entirely their own.
The moment she chose courage over comfort
Christie was planted in Atlanta. She had a beautifully renovated home. She was deeply woven into her community. By most measures, her life looked exactly the way a good life is supposed to look.
She left anyway.
“I gave it up to answer a higher calling on my spirit and to be fully committed to my liberation,” she says. The cost was real. She left the security of familiarity, her mother, her friends, and the comfort of knowing how everything worked. She traded it for Coimbra, Portugal, and the unknown that came with it.
It was, she will tell you, one of her most courageous moments.
What a day in her life looks like
A typical day for Christie means researching markets, visiting properties, and putting her Portuguese (a work in progress, she notes with a smile) to use as she helps relocation and real estate clients execute their moves from the U.S. to Portugal.
But the work is about more than transactions.
“I’m a builder,” she says. “I literally used to build houses, and I am passionate about building community.” What she does now is an extension of that same instinct. She is helping people build a new life and a network of support in a country that is not yet familiar to them. “It feeds my spirit,” she says.
The belief about women and leadership she is ready to say out loud
Christie does not hedge this one.
“I believe women are naturally better at leadership than men. It’s not even close.”
She is quick to call it a generalization, but she stands behind the truth beneath it. Women, she says, nurture. They want people to be well. They listen carefully, look for ways to make everyone feel cared for, and approach conflict resolution with years of practice, earned through their roles as wives, mothers, sisters, and friends.
This is not a soft skill. This is leadership.
What grounds her when everything feels uncertain
When the ground shifts beneath her, Christie goes back to the same place every time:
Her faith.
She is clear that organized religion is not her path, but her belief in God is profound and unwavering.
“When I feel uncertain, I remember all the ways God has blessed me and know I am cared for,” she says. It is not a complicated formula. It is a returning, a remembering, and a trust that has been earned over a lifetime of evidence.
The shift in her field that genuinely excites her
Christie is watching something move in the culture, and she is excited about it.
“I am excited about the possibility of having people re-imagine what it’s like to live well,” she says, with less focus on consumerism and being ostentatious. Smaller footprints. Sustainable homes. A redefined idea of what prosperity actually looks and feels like.
For a woman who walked away from a beautifully renovated house in Atlanta to live more fully, this shift is not abstract. She is already living the answer to the question she is watching the rest of the world begin to ask.
The failure that quietly changed everything
Christie’s reflection on this topic comes with a laugh, the kind that only arrives once enough time has passed.
She was pursuing her insurance adjuster’s license from Portugal, working toward it for months, studying with intention. Days before her exam, the state changed the rules. She was not eligible. The months of preparation, gone.
“I was so distraught,” she says. But the closed door forced a pivot. She turned her full focus toward her real estate and relocation business, and it grew her in ways she had not envisioned when she was still staring at the door that had just shut in her face.
The failure, it turns out, was a redirect.
The advice she would give her younger self
If Christie could go back ten years and sit across from the woman just beginning to build something, she would tell her this: Build your professional support team early. Your CPA. Your attorney. Your insurance professional.
“It’s easy to focus on the excitement of building a business,” she says, “but the foundation is essential to be preparing for growth as you succeed.” The excitement is real and necessary. The foundation is what makes the excitement sustainable.
The resource that keeps inspiring her
Christie keeps coming back to the How I Built This podcast. Episode after episode, she finds herself moved by the creativity, audacity, and tenacity of people who decided to build something and did not stop. “I am constantly inspired,” she says. The stories remind her that the path is rarely straight and that the builders who last are the ones who keep going anyway.
Check out the “How I Build This” podcast on YouTube by clicking here.
A gift for you!
If you have been reading and quietly wondering whether a move abroad could be for you, Christie Peters sees you, and she has something just for you.
She is offering a complimentary one-hour consultation. No obligation. Just a conversation with someone who has done it, who helps others do it every day, and who genuinely believes that a well-lived life might be waiting for you somewhere you have not yet been.
You can find her at www.ChristieInCoimbra.com or on Instagram as @ChristieInCoimbra. She will meet you where you are.
Christie Peters is a real estate and relocation specialist based in Coimbra, Portugal, serving clients making the move from the U.S. abroad. Connect with her at ChristieInCoimbra.com.
