A Final Portugal Recap: Top Recommendations, Things I Want To Do Next Time + How Much It Cost

I’ve started getting into the habit of doing a post-mortem of sorts after we finish a trip. What worked, what didn’t, and what we ended up spending. I always enjoy reading these sort of summaries, but if the nitty gritty of travel planning and budgets aren’t your thing (or you’re not headed to Portugal any time soon), skip today’s post. It is – in the catchy words of Encanto – “a great big roundup.”

I’ve already gone into detail about how I plan our itineraries (Rome; Barcelona) and how we pack for trips. Not surprisingly, we repeated a lot of the same habits so I’ll simply mention a few new things that worked well.

PACKING

I packed everything I’d need to take out at security in my purse. Not in my bookbag. Not in the front pouch of a carry-on luggage. Liquids, my phone, e-reader, and our passports all went into the purse and nothing else. Gamechanger. Though, sadly, this $3 thrifted purse that I’ve had for years had a zipper break on our final day in Porto, so I’m on the hunt for a replacement before our next trip.

I printed out maps and I printed out a day-by-day itinerary and I put Google Drive on my phone (the itinerary was a Google sheet divided by location so it was easy to toggle to the right page for the day).

I packed L’s clothes as complete outfits. Each packing cube or baggie had a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, underwear and socks. Everything matched. Everything was clean. This worked so, so well.

Here is everything I took with me to Portugal for 15 days:

You’ll spot some packing cubes in there and they worked very well. In general I love packing cubes. I sort my clothes into cubes by type. So the biggest cube had dresses, a smaller one had bottoms, and an even smaller one had socks and underwear. They help keep things organized and, on this trip, it was even more compact since I bought compression cubes. These were good; I’m sure there are better ones out there, but I was happy with my purchase and found them to be good quality.

In my bookbag I packed all my non-liquid toiletries and anything related to the bathroom or bedtime. In the bottom of my bookbag I tucked my PJs, a pill organizer, my One Line a Day Journal, and European outlet adapters. That meant the first night we were in Lisbon I didn’t need to unpack anything from my suitcase. It was all in my purse and bookbag!

We took our own towels! I bought this four-pack from Amazon. They’re lightweight and thin, dry very quickly, and don’t attract sand. They were perfect since we only had carry-ons and didn’t want to be lugging huge bags to the beach.

A few other thoughts in bullet point:

• I took a pair of long jeans I never wore, but it’s impossible to predict the weather for two whole weeks and I knew we’d be doing a lot of activities near the coast which can be dramatically cooler. I also brought an umbrella and rain jacket I never touched. These three items took up a reasonable amount of space since I was only taking one carry-on luggage, but I’d do the same thing another time. I did wear a sweater on the plane and ended up wearing that many times in the evening.
• I packed two of the gauzy, foldable grocery bags that collapse into tiny squares. We used these ALL. THE. TIME. For the grocery store, for carrying souvenirs home, for transporting picnic suppers. I always had at least one packed in my purse and we used them every single day. 
• Buying sunscreen there. Everyone told me European sunscreen was better than North American and it was – we were out in so much sun and none of us ever got a burn. It was incredible!
• Bringing “emergency snacks” that don’t melt. I brought one little bottle of mini M&Ms (when my parents were in Africa, they learned this is one of the few treats that doesn’t melt in extreme heat), and a few boxes of Mike and Ike’s. When the M&Ms were gone, I started to fill the tube with a few handfuls of candy and this was amazing for when the kids were tired or grumpy. We’d stop and have a few candies and everyone’s mood magically improved enough to find a real place to stop and eat or enough time to get us back to our apartment for a rest. 

MY TOP RECS

I didn’t poll my family before posting this, so their list might be slightly different from mine. Take everything with a grain of salt, since this obviously reflects personal preference. But if I was being asked for Top Five Recommendations, here’s what I’d say:

Lisbon:

• Go to Castro Bakery for pasteis de nata. They were my favourite out of all the many (I refuse to even approximate here) pasteis I tried during our two weeks in Portugal.
• Consider a sailboat cruise; it would be even more lovely at sunset, I’m sure.
• Go to Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara – my favourite viewpoint of the city. We only visited during the day, but I think it would be incredible at night!
• Parque Eduardo VII – this isn’t a spot where you’ll need to spend a long time, but it’s a great picnicking location and if you hike to the top, you’re rewarded with lovely views of the downtown and river. Then wander from the park all the way to the waterfront (it’s downhill!) and enjoy the quaint streets along the way.
• Use Lisbon as a launch point for day trips – Cascais, Nazare (Sintra)

The Algarve:

• Take a sunset boat tour of the caves. This was incredible and the highlight of our entire trip for me.
• Surf lessons; this was A’s highlight from the trip. There are various beaches that offer surf lessons, but the best will usually be found on the western side of Portugal. The beach we went to – Praia Amado – is one of the most famous for surfing. 
• Before you go to any beach, research the tides. It really matters in the Algarve. My favourite beach was Praia do Carvalho but I would love to get to Praia do Camilo some day at higher tide. (Praia do Vale de Centeanes was lovely as well – in general, any beach that’s a little out of the way tends to be more fun since the crowds aren’t quite as intense, at least in the high season.)
• Book a place with a pool. This is highly subjective, but the kids adored having a private pool area and with the extreme heat, I’ll admit it was very nice.
• Algar Seco. This is such a beautiful spot, it’s free to visit (and free to park). I think it would be easy to spend several fun hours exploring.

Porto:

• Visit Foz, especially the lighthouse. And if you have kids or just want a bit of fun, try the great minigolf course near the waterfront.
• Watch a sunset from the monastery and then see the night lights of the city from one of the hills in Gaia. Magic!
• Take a day trip to Aveiro/Barra/Costa Nova. There is a lovely beach, and the striped houses are not to be missed.
• If you’re not vegan, try a francicinia and/or bifana. There is also a Castro Bakery in Porto. Indulge in another amazing pastel.
• Take the tram! It’s iconic and a fun adventure (pro tip: get on in Foz; the lines will be much shorter).

THINGS TO DO NEXT TIME

Of course we didn’t get to do everything we wanted to do in Portugal. Here are some things that would be top of my list for the next time (again, I didn’t consult the fam, so they might have different priorities).

• Visit Sintra. It’s iconic and we didn’t do it and that’s FINE. But it looks stunning.
• Go back to Nazare.
• Do another boat tour in the Algarve.
• Spend more time in the Algarve and learn from my mistakes – check the tide tables. If we visited in the off season, do more hiking in the area.
• Go to the top of Clergios Tower in Porto. 
• Take a river cruise in Porto, maybe to the Duoro Valley?
• Visit some of the other quaint towns/cities like Evora, Coimbra, Braga. I’d love to see the Chapel of the Bones and tour Coimbra University.

THINGS I’D DO DIFFERENTLY

• Portuguese bathrooms are…not great. It can be hard to find public bathrooms – many people mentioned to me that restaurants are happy to have you use the bathroom without buying something but that wasn’t really the case for us (probably since it was high season). In some places (like McDonalds), you get a code to enter the washroom on your receipt. And most publicly accessible bathrooms that aren’t in a restaurant cost money. Come prepared with change – specifically, coins! Still on the bathroom note, BRING MINI KLEENEX or something else that can serve as emergency toilet tissue. I would say at least 50% of the bathrooms I used had no toilet paper. Also, the bathrooms were generally disgusting (especially in public transit hubs). If you’re able, use the bathroom every time you have access to a nice one. Your hotel in the morning, the restaurant you visit for lunch…
• Check the tide times. I really didn’t consider how much tides impact beach access in Portugal. Of course where I live in Nova Scotia, everything nautical revolves around the tide and we share an ocean, so, duh Elisabeth. It would have made things easier to know when high and low tide were going to hit and plan accordingly.
• I’d buy more energy-dense snacks at the grocery store (things like nuts and protein bars, though the latter was hard to find!), and I’d bring some small collapsible containers or Ziploc baggies from home. It was hard to stay hydrated and hard to stay fed with all the walking and odd timings of things. The kids did great overall and John and I are pretty resilient, but it would have been nice to decant some non-fragile food items that weren’t candy.

MANTRAS

I cycled through three main mantras for the trip (all of which I’ve mentioned on the blog before).

The first: It costs what it costs. I absolutely hate spending money, and a vacation is basically one big spending spree. Worse, for a Canadian going to Europe, the exchange rate is the pits. So every time we’d check out at the grocery store I’d think to myself: Wow, things are so cheap here! and then I’d remember. Right. This is gonna cost a lot more than the register is telling me it will. But we are so blessed to have the resources to do this sort of thing. While we aim to spend – and travel – conscientiously, what an incredible privilege it is to see the world! It costs what it costs. Sure I’ll still try to find ways to cut corners and save money, but not at the expense (pun intended) of a great vacation.

The second: A few enjoyable moments. This one is the most powerful reframes I’ve ever come across. Several years ago, after a somewhat tumultuous road trip to Toronto/New York City, I ended up breaking down in tears at a dive hotel in Portland after I couldn’t bear the kids incessant fighting for one more second. I took a long shower (crying was involved), and when I came out feeling mildly refreshed, I happened to read Laura Vanderkam’s most recent blog post. It was all about managing expectations on vacation and how what she was looking for were a few enjoyable moments. It’s impossible for everything – every day – to be perfect. That is what I want. I feel silly even writing that, but it’s what my brain strains toward. Subconsciously I believe things should work out perfectly. If they don’t, I conclude I’ve failed in some way. But I kept reminding myself on this trip that I was just looking for a few enjoyable moments each day. There were going to be rough periods. And there were – but so few and the enjoyable moments prevailed in excess, likely because I wasn’t as fixated on everyone being happy at all times.

Finally, the day we were at Praia do Amado and John was debating whether to rent wetsuits and surfboards, he finally looked at me and said: You only live once. That doesn’t have to translate into big and flashy decisions, but choosing something because it feels right and expansive and positive and fun. As Elizabeth Craft would say, it’s “choosing the bigger life.” Minigolf in Portugal? Why not! YOLO. A sailboat tour in Lisbon – YOLO. Spending €3 (I also gave her a tip) to get portraits drawn? YOLO. Taking a picnic lunch to an obscure empty street to watch the lights of Porto turn on? Sure! YOLO.

WHAT THIS ALL COST!

I wish vacations were free. Alas, they’re not. I’ve previously detailed the cost of our Rome and Barcelona trips.

Here is how it all broke down in Canadian dollars for a 14-night stay in Portugal – plus two travel days – for four people*. The exchange rate is not great; €100 is about $150 CAD (€ and USD are almost par).

*Some days, when John’s sister was adventuring with us, we paid for the whole group’s transport, tickets, and food so in reality this is for slightly more than 4 people per day.

• Flights: $132.47 each | $529.88 total (Our flights were so inexpensive because we booked on points + have special travel rates because of John’s frequent flyer status; flights to Portugal happened to have an especially good rate for this time period which played a big role in us making the decision to travel there in August. When we had priced things out for Portugal in March, the prices were much higher and tickets to Barcelona were under $100/each…so we went to Spain!)
• Accommodations: $234.03 per night | $3,276.51 total (*these were all booked in June – so very, very late – and during the high season + we tried to balance price with having nice places and knocked this out of the park as each of our apartments was PHENOMENAL)
• Food + Drinks: $935.08 (works out to $16.70 per person/per day)
• Miscellaneous: $870.13 This was a big category in Portugal since many things only accepted cash. This included souvenirs, gifts, some food/water on the go, the e-Sim for my phone, some public transit (the funicular in Nazare, for example), and the €20 city tax we had to pay at two of our apartments
• Transportation: $1,360.75 (train to Faro, train from Porto to Lisbon, 2 car rentals – our days in the Algarve + the drive from Faro to Porto, highway tolls, train to Cascais, bus to Nazare)
• Uber/Bolt: $441.76. We generally use public transit when we travel, but this time it made so much more sense to use a shared car service. It was marginally more expensive than public transit but saved us hours and hours in time. Plus…air conditioning. No regrets.
• Adventures: $495.12 – Algarve speedboat cruise, Lisbon sailboat cruise, minigolf, the Oceanario + Telecabine Lisbon, and Christo Rei

Grand Total: $7,909.23 CAD (~€5,250 or $5,830 USD)

This works out to ~$124 CAD per person for each day of the trip (14 on the ground + 2 travel) – including flights, food, transportation, and accommodations. For my American readers this is about $90 USD per person/day. At the end of the day it was cheaper to visit Portugal in the high season than it was to visit Barcelona in the off season ($125/person/day). I think it’s hilarious that the per day rate is $1 different between our two international family trips. (Though technically, since we occasionally paid for 5 people, it might be more like $120/person/day.)

When John and I went to Rome in 2023 it worked out to $181 per person/day, so I guess we travel more cheaply when the kids are with us!

Your turn. If you made it to the end of this tome, congratulations + a sheet of gold stars. Now I want to hear your best travel hacks and advice!!