Algarve

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Algarve, Done Right the First Time We almost booked the Algarve for the first week of August — peak heat, peak prices, and, as a friend who summers near Lagos warned us, “you’ll be circling for a parking spot at Praia da Marinha by nine in the morning.” We moved the trip to late September instead. Same warm sea, same gold cliffs, half the crowd, and a hotel that cost noticeably less. The coves felt like ours. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Why car rental in the Algarve is the best decision you’ll make I almost made the mistake of not booking a car. The resort looked walkable on the map, the EN125 coast road was marked in orange — how far could the beaches really be? The answer, on day one, was a forty-minute walk along a road with no pavement and nothing on either side. I turned back, pulled out my phone, and had a Renault Clio reserved at Faro airport for the next morning. The rest of the week was a completely different holiday. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Cheap Flights from London to Faro: The Algarve Gateway I nearly booked Lisbon by mistake. I’d been staring at flight calendars for twenty minutes when I spotted it — Faro, £23 in late October, with the golden cliffs of Ponta da Piedade already playing in my mind. A friend had told me the Algarve in autumn is a completely different country to the August version: the same warm light, the same terracotta rock stacks rising out of the Atlantic, but without the queues and the noise. The Ria Formosa lagoon practically to yourself. A table at a seafood restaurant without a reservation. All of it hinging on one cheap flight from London to Faro. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Portugal, in One Sentence The August quote came back at 240 euros a night for a plain Lagos apartment, and my wife just turned her laptop around so I could see it. “Or,” she said, scrolling, “the same place, last week of September, is 150.” We almost booked August anyway, because everyone tells you Portugal in late September is “a gamble.” It isn’t. We swam in a sea that was warmer than it had been all summer, walked a clifftop trail with maybe six other people on it, and I’ll tell you below the exact mistake we nearly made with the dates. ...