Portugal has a lot to supply as a vacation spot — stunning landscapes, vibrant cities, fascinating tradition, scrumptious meals and wine, and pleasant individuals. And better of all, it’s reasonably priced in comparison with different in style European locations! Planning a visit to Portugal isn’t laborious, however if you wish to scratch under the floor, it would be best to learn the following pointers first.
I fell a bit of in love throughout my first journey to Portugal, however it wasn’t till I not too long ago had the chance to spend a number of weeks touring via the nation that Portugal actually acquired underneath my pores and skin and I developed a deeper appreciation for this particular nation.
Read on for my Portugal journey tips on attending to Portugal, when to go to Portugal, how lengthy to remain in Portugal, and Portugal journey ideas, and get began planning your dream journey.
If you aren’t certain the place you wish to go in Portugal, I’ve put collectively 4 pattern one-week Portugal itineraries which you could select from. If you’ll fairly have another person plan your journey and put collectively a tremendous journey via Portugal with distinctive experiences, I’d extremely suggest working with my companion EPIC Travel. Mention We3Travel when contacting EPIC Travel and obtain a free VIP welcome reward once you arrive in your EPIC journey to Portugal.
Getting to Portugal
Note: This publish could include affiliate hyperlinks. If you click on a hyperlink and make a purchase order, I could obtain a small fee. All opinions are my very own.
Tap Airlines, Portugal’s flagship service, provides direct flights to Lisbon or Porto from many US cities together with Boston, Newark, Washington D.C., Miami, Chicago, and San Francisco. Known as being a reasonable possibility for flying to Europe, TAP Airlines actually maximizes its free stopover program to encourage guests to spend time in Portugal. When you e-book a stopover with TAP Airlines, you’ll be able to keep from one to 5 nights in both Porto or Lisbon for no extra cost.
After flying TAP twice (be aware: my flights had been complimentary as a part of a media journey), I discover them on par with different nationwide carriers similar to Aer Lingus or the outdated Alitalia. As a part of the Star Alliance, you may as well bid on upgrades or use miles to improve to Executive class or EconomyXtra. EconomyXtra seats supply spacious legroom and a beneficiant recline, whereas Executive class seats ship a full lay-flat mattress for snug transatlantic flights. (See a full evaluation of TAP Airlines Executive class.)
When to Visit Portugal
The finest instances to go to Portugal actually is determined by the area(s) you intend on visiting, however normally, the shoulder seasons of May-June and September-October are going to be excellent. April and November are recognized to be wet all through the nation and whereas winter temperatures in Portugal aren’t frigid (often within the 40s and 50s), you’ll get pleasure from extra time outdoors throughout these shoulder season months.
The cities of Lisbon and Porto are at all times going to be busy, particularly through the summer season and vacation breaks. But let’s discuss a few of the different areas:
- Douro Valley, and northern Portugal: late August via October are excellent within the north. Wine harvest usually runs from late August to late September, though after we had been there in early October a number of vineyards had been nonetheless harvesting and it was a good time to go to to see the grape stomping in motion.
- Interior Alentejo: this dry area will get extraordinarily scorching in the summertime, with temperature hovering above 40-45 levels Celsius (above 100 levels Fahrenheit.) The excellent time to go to could be in September or early October through the wine harvest when the temperatures are good for spending time outdoors or enjoyable by the pool. May and June would even be nice, however July and August sound a bit insufferable to spend a lot time outdoors of the pool or air con, and local weather change is just making this extra excessive. It additionally makes temperatures a bit much less predictable. When I visited in October, the temperatures had been within the excessive 70s or low to mid-80s, though that is unusually heat.
- Coastal Alentejo: if you wish to benefit from the seaside, it’s best to go to between May and October. While the seashores will probably be extra crowded with locals coming down from Lisbon, simply stroll a couple of minutes down the seaside and you’ll have loads of house to get pleasure from this space’s attractive vast sand.
- Algarve: the Algarve is absolutely hopping in the summertime when the vacationers flock to the coast, however it actually will be pleasing year-round. You will not be swimming within the winter, however you’ll be able to get pleasure from mountain climbing the cliffs and exploring the caves and shoreline. Plus the cities may be a bit of quieter through the low season.
- Azores: the best time to go to the Azores is May-July, when the hydrangeas are in full bloom and the islands are bursting with shade and luxurious greens. It may also be essentially the most crowded. But fortunately, the Gulf Stream retains the waters across the islands pretty heat 12 months spherical. No matter what time of 12 months that you simply go to, the climate within the islands may be very temperamental and might change at a second’s discover so it’s best to be ready for solar, rain, wind, and fog — all in sooner or later!
How Long to Spend in Portugal
Portugal is definitely a reasonably small nation, not at the same time as massive as Indiana. But don’t underestimate how a lot time you must correctly discover the nation! I hear so many individuals speaking about doing Spain and Portugal in a single journey. Well, I can inform you that I’ve spent two weeks in Spain and altogether three weeks in Portugal and I’ve not come near seeing the whole lot that I’d prefer to see in both nation.
If you’ll be able to spare the time, I’d suggest spending at the very least two weeks in Portugal and exploring three to 4 areas in every journey. I’ve created 4 completely different, one-week Portugal itineraries in a separate publish, however some attainable 10-14 day itinerary concepts are:
- Porto (3 days) + Douro (2-3 days) + Lisbon (3 days) + Sintra (1 day journey) + Cascais or Comporta (3 days)
- Lisbon (3-5 days with day journeys) + Algarve (5 days)
- Porto (3 days) + Alentejo (5-7 days) + Lisbon (3-4 days)
- Azores: São Miguel (5 days) + Pico (3 -4 days with day journey to São Jorge) + Terceira (3 days)
Planning a Trip to Portugal
Planning a fundamental journey to Portugal isn’t laborious, there’s numerous data accessible that will help you determine the place to remain and issues to do in Lisbon, Sintra, Porto, and Cascais. However, if you wish to enterprise past the extraordinary, it’s your decision some assist planning your journey. Full disclosure, my current journey to Portugal was hosted by Epic Travel and its journey companions in order that I might expertise an EPIC Portugal itinerary.
EPIC Travel is a boutique company that focuses on journey to Portugal and Morocco. Its journey planners reside in-country and have shut relationships with lodges, guides, drivers, and tour operators on the bottom. EPIC focuses on planning customized itineraries for shoppers that wish to journey deeper and revel in journey and cultural experiences alongside the best way.
In my expertise working with EPIC each in Portugal and once I employed them to assist me plan my Morocco journey, there are a wealth of causes to work with an company like EPIC to plan your journey to Portugal, together with:
- Unique experiences — EPIC can prepare experiences that you simply couldn’t even assume up by yourself since you didn’t know they existed. These are sourced via shut relationships on the bottom and taking the time to actually perceive tradition and have interaction with locals. Examples embrace cork trekking, bridge climbing, non-public tram excursions with chef’s tasting menus, customized farm visits and cooking lessons, and a lot extra.
- Boutique, upscale and luxurious lodges — EPIC goes out of its method to discover fascinating lodges that provide excessive contact customer support as a substitute of going with the standard choices you discover on tour itineraries. And greater than that, they will completely match particular person vacationers with an applicable resort based mostly on journey type and finances. Because EPIC stays in shut contact with resort administration, they will additionally pair you with the very best room kind and have sought out lodges that provide nice facilities for households together with villas with kitchens and kids’s actions.
- High-touch service — the EPIC group works intently with shoppers to design a customized itinerary based mostly in your journey tastes and pursuits. They are additionally on-hand to assist modify on the fly or deal with any issues that come up. They even went as far as to greet us upon arrival at our resort and prepare our COVID checks for the Azores.
- Save tons of time — Could you discover these distinctive experiences and lodges by yourself? Maybe with sufficient digging. But why spend hours and hours researching and nonetheless not ensure if you’re making the precise decisions. It is a lot of a time and psychological vitality financial savings to work with an professional. And not somebody who’s simply outsourcing it to a third-party, however somebody with direct relationships in your vacation spot.
If you desire to assist planning and reserving your journey to Portugal, please attain out to EPIC Travel and allow them to know that you simply examine them on WE3TRAVEL and you’ll obtain a VIP Welcome Gift as a thanks!
Money & Language Matters
Traveling via Portugal is absolutely fairly straightforward, particularly as an American. English may be very extensively spoken, though studying to say Bom Dia (good morning) and obrigado/obrigada (thanks) is a good suggestion [note: Duolingo only supports Brazilian Portuguese and the languages have a lot of differences.]
It can also be a reasonably cashless financial system, with most eating places and retailers accepting Visa and Mastercard with a faucet and pay chip, and lots of supporting Apple Pay. Just ensure you are utilizing a bank card that doesn’t cost worldwide transaction charges and speak to your financial institution prematurely to allow them to find out about any worldwide journey in order that they don’t block your transactions for worry of fraud (until you might have a journey card that doesn’t require this.)
However, you can see the few holdouts so it pays to both get some Euro out of your native financial institution (be sure you order it at the very least every week forward of your journey) or take some cash out of an ATM (be careful for ATMs that cost excessive charges) once you arrive. Not all banks/ATMs will settle for playing cards from different banks so it may be price it to change some cash earlier than you arrive within the nation for small purchases and ideas (at all times request small payments.)
Before you go, be sure you try my publish on how a lot a journey to Portugal prices.
Tipping at eating places isn’t customary and should you do go away a gratuity, it ought to be a small quantity utilizing just some cash you might have available. I at all times assume it’s a good suggestion to tip guides that present nice service, and people are often fortunately accepted.
Food Matters
The meals in Portugal varies from high-end, tremendous eating with Michelin-starred cooks to informal tabernas serving up cheap, genuine dishes. Some dishes you will note incessantly embrace:
- Pastéis de bacalhau – salt cod fritters or croquettes
- Pastel de nata (or Belem) – traditional egg custard tarts
- Caldo verde – kale or cabbage soup (usually served as a starter)
- Sardines – usually grilled
- Fresh seafood – from shrimp in garlic butter to seafood rice to sea bass, monk fish, and octopus
- Bifana – the standard beef or pork sandwich
- Francesinha – sausage sandwich slathered in cheese and gravy present in Porto
- Piri piri hen – roasted or grilled with spices from Mozambique
- Iberian black pig – acorn-fed and much like Spanish jamon iberico however served each cured and as a grilled tenderloin
- Orange juice – don’t miss out on making an attempt a few of Portugal’s wonderful oranges and different fruits
- Local honey – once you see native honey on the breakfast buffet, be sure that to get pleasure from some!
Eating out in Portugal will be very reasonably priced in comparison with different international locations. If you might be consuming at an informal taberna, you’ll be able to usually get a full meal for underneath 10 euros, 15 with a glass of wine to go together with it. One factor to look out for is the “couvert” which is usually a small basket of bread and dish of olives delivered to the desk at first of the meal. This is typically listed on the menu and must be ordered, however different instances it’s introduced routinely (however that doesn’t imply it’s free.) If you don’t need it, or don’t wish to pay for it, simply flip it away.
Getting Around
Getting from place to put in Portugal isn’t laborious and usually, it’s straightforward to self-drive all through the nation on a well-established freeway system. I say that with a number of caveats!
- Do not try and drive in Lisbon or central Porto until you might be an skilled metropolis driver and you’ve got a spot to park at your resort
- Portuguese drivers will be fairly aggressive and prefer to tailgate and don’t essentially keep inside the traces
- Driving via small cities could be a little nerve-wracking because the streets are extraordinarily slim (and sometimes one-way so you want a superb navigation system)
- There are numerous roundabouts/rotaries so ensure you are snug with easy methods to enter and exit
I’d additionally very extremely suggest hiring a driver or taking a tour when visiting vineyards. Not solely do you not wish to drink and drive, however some could be a bit tough to search out. Also, a few of the roads within the Douro Valley, particularly on the north aspect of the river are gravel, slim, and intently grip the sting of the cliffs.
You can even fly from Lisbon to Porto or the Algarve, however actually, the drive isn’t that lengthy so I discover it’s simpler to only drive. If you fly into one metropolis you’ll be able to choose up a rental automobile (if from outdoors of the EU chances are you’ll want an International Driver’s Permit, test together with your rental automobile firm) outdoors of town and drop it off outdoors of town on the return. Uber is pretty straightforward to search out within the cities and trams are additionally accessible for getting round city (though usually full as a result of they’re in style with vacationers.)
Packing for Portugal
Choosing what to pack for Portugal will fluctuate relying on when and the place you’re going, however there are a number of objects you must put in your packing record:
- Comfortable, non-slip sneakers: the tile sidewalks are pretty however they’re worn clean and slippery, particularly on the various hills in Porto and Lisbon and much more so when it rains;
- Travel umbrella and rain coat: talking of rain, you’ll be able to count on to come across some, particularly if visiting the northern a part of the nation or between October and April;
- Sunscreen, sun shades and a hat: when the solar does come out, it may be sturdy, even in October! Be ready with a superb sunscreen and a hat if you’ll be spending numerous time outdoors;
- Bug spray or lotion: if you’re visiting the Alentejo area, particularly round farms or rice fields, you’ll encounter some flies and mosquitos, so finest to be ready;
- Travel-safe bag: Lisbon is understood to have pickpockets, particularly round crowded squares and scenic overlooks. Don’t lose your valuables, carry a bag that gives theft-protection. I deliver my Travelon locking sling bag with anti-theft and anti-slash options.
- Motion illness meds or bands: if you’re driving via the Douro Valley or the winding roads within the Azores, it would be best to be ready should you endure from movement illness.
So are you able to plan a visit to Portugal? I’d suggest reaching out to EPIC Travel to see how they may help and studying a few of my different articles about Portugal.
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