Portugal is small. Six trips fit inside it.
Which Douro day includes the boat. Whether the Benagil cave is worth the early start. What a whale morning off São Miguel actually costs. Every tour in Portugal, reviewed and ranked.
A week in Lisbon and a week in the Azores are not the same holiday.
Every region →The mainland is 560km end to end, and then the country keeps going, a thousand kilometres out into the Atlantic. Each of these has its own weather, its own food and its own reason to book ahead. Start where you are actually staying.
Lisbon531 tours
Porto309 tours
The Algarve183 tours
Madeira223 tours
The Azores87 tours
The Douro Valley99 tours
Sintra & Cascais146 tours
Faro & the eastern coast41 tours
What Portugal actually books.
Every review →Ordered by how many travellers came back and left a review, not by what anyone wants to sell. The order moves; the top of it rarely does.
1
The Unvanquished Tour in Porto City Center
A 2.5-hour Porto city-center walk with local stories, São Bento Station, Clérigos views, and Vitória viewpoint. Skip Lello lines, pay what you want.
From · $3.62
Read our review →
2
Lisbon City Center Tour – The Unmissable Lisbon
from $3.62
3
Sintra, Pena, Regaleira, Cabo da Roca & Cascais
from $23
4
Douro Valley w/ Boat Tour, Wine Tasting & Lunch
from $82
5
Lisbon Card: 24, 48, or 72-Hour Pass
from $36
6
Pena Palace and Park Entrance Ticket
from $11
7
Jerónimos Monastery Entrance Ticket
from $21
8
Complete Douro Valley Wine Tour with Lunch, Wine Tastings and River Cruise
from $101.76
Portugal turns its back on the land.
All boat trips →
Eighteen hundred kilometres of coast and a river that made a wine region. Most of the days people remember here happen on a boat — and the three below are different trips, not three versions of one.
Benagil, from the only side there is
There is no path down to the sand inside Benagil. You arrive by water or you look at photographs. Speedboats run the arch and the stacks either side; kayaks and paddleboards are the ones that go in under it.
Up the Douro, with lunch and a boat leg
The classic runs east past Peso da Régua, stops at two quintas, feeds you, and puts you on the river for an hour of the terraces. The valley is a UNESCO landscape and the harvest runs September into October.
Sperm whales off São Miguel and Funchal
Sperm whales live off both island groups all year; blue and fin whales pass the Azores between April and June. The boats still work with lookouts posted on the cliffs, which is why sighting rates are what they are.
The six days Portugal is planned around.
Wine that arrives with a river, a cave you can only reach by boat, a palace on a crag, whales, a fado room, and a table somewhere with the sardines still smoking.
Two island groups, and neither is a beach holiday.
Madeira is a mountain that fell into the sea: levada paths cut along cliff faces, laurel forest older than the country, cable cars where a road would not fit. The Azores are nine volcanoes with crater lakes on top and whales underneath. Both are Portugal; neither feels like the mainland.
Portugal drinks what it grows, and it grows a lot of it.
Port is aged in Gaia, across the water from Porto, because the river brought it there. Vinho verde comes down from the Minho, the Alentejo makes the reds people carry home, and Madeira makes a wine that survives being heated. Every one of them has a room you can sit down in.
Portugal is the affordable one, and the prices show it.
Every tour on the site sorted by what it actually costs. A good day out here starts below the price of lunch for two in Lisbon.
Walking tours, tram and monastery tickets, tuk-tuk hours, market mornings, an evening of fado.
The full days: Douro with lunch, Sintra circuits, cave boats, whale mornings, cooking classes.
Private drivers, chartered boats, small-group island days and the tastings people plan a trip around.
Three things Portugal has that nowhere else does.
Coast walks and old quarters are everywhere in southern Europe. A cathedral-sized sea cave with no door, a resident sperm-whale population and a form of singing on the UNESCO list are not.
The Benagil Cave
A collapsed limestone dome over a private beach, with a hole in the roof that drops a column of light onto the sand around midday. There is no path down and the cliff above it is fenced for good reason. Boats run from Portimão, Lagos, Albufeira and Carvoeiro; the small craft — kayaks and paddleboards — are the ones that go in under the arch.
- 1Benagil Caves Speed Boat Tour with Sunset Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 11,663 reviews
- 22.5-Hour Benagil Caves & Dolphin Watching★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 10,710 reviews
- 3Benagil Sea Caves Speedboat Adventure Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 6,546 reviews
Sperm Whales off the Azores
The waters off São Miguel and Pico hold sperm whales all year rather than for a season. Boats still use the vigias, the cliff lookouts built for whaling, to spot a blow and radio the position out — which is why sightings here are counted rather than hoped for. Blue and fin whales pass through between April and June, and people plan flights around it.
- 1Ecological Catamaran Dolphin Whale Watching★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 8,204 reviews
- 2Dolphin and Whale Watching Catamaran Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,697 reviews
- 3Whale and Dolphin Watching Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 4,109 reviews
Fado, Sung Properly
Two guitars — one of them Portuguese, twelve strings, pear-shaped — one voice, and a room that goes quiet when it starts. The good houses in Alfama and Mouraria seat forty and amplify nothing. Porto has its own rooms and its own singers. Dinner is usually part of the booking; the singing starts late and the last set is the one to stay for.
- 1Live Fado Show with Glass of Port Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 6,498 reviews
- 2Live Fado Show with Port Wine at Lisboa em Fado★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 5,097 reviews
- 3Fado Show and Wine inside Medieval Walls★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 3,819 reviews
Book these before you fly to Portugal.
Most of the country can be arranged from your hotel the night before. These cannot: they run on timed slots, boat capacity and a calendar that has nothing to do with your flight.
- 01Pena Palace and Park Entrance TicketPena admits visitors in timed slots and the morning ones go first. Buying at the gate can mean a long wait in the park before you get inside.
- 02Benagil Caves Speed Boat Tour with Sunset OptionSmall boats, fixed departures and a weather window that usually closes by afternoon. The summer runs go days ahead.
- 03Ecological Catamaran Dolphin Whale WatchingBoats are capped by licence rather than by demand, and the April–June migration weeks fill first.
- 04Douro Valley w/ Boat Tour, Wine Tasting & LunchThe quintas that include lunch have a set number of places at the table. Harvest, September into October, is when they close first.
From November the weather arrives off the ocean, and Portugal has an answer ready.
The wet months are November to March, and even in August the nortada — the north wind — can shut the small boats down by lunchtime. None of it cancels the best of the country. Port cellars are underground, tascas have doors, and the fado houses were built for precisely this evening.
By experience — what kind of day is it?
The newest Portugal reviews.
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Wild West Coast Hiking Adventure with Sunset Picnic Dinner & Wine
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Fátima, Nazaré and Óbidos Small Group Tour from Lisbon
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Fado: Musical Walking Tour with Food & Live Show
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Amazing West – Jeep Safari Tour – Full Day – Shared Tour
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Kayak Tours with Amazing Caves, sea life and Marine Biologist .
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Azores Canyoning Adventure in São Miguel – Half-day
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