Algarve, Portugal
Golden cliffs at Ponta da Piedade, boat trips into the Benagil cave and championship golf around Vilamoura.
A sample of the properties we quote here. Tell us your dates and we shortlist the right ones for you.
Clifftop above Praia da Falésia, Albufeira
A large clifftop estate with its own nine-hole course and a lift down to the beach, long a fixture of the coast east of Albufeira.
Porches, on the cliffs near Armação de Pêra
A large private estate of subtropical gardens above the cliffs, known for its spread-out villas and suites and its own coves.
Vilamoura, beside the Victoria golf course
A golf-focused resort a short drive inland from the marina, with a large spa and wide grounds.
On the Vilamoura marina, by Falésia beach
A big resort right at the marina, with the beach on one side and the Vilamoura bars and restaurants on the other.
Vilamoura, among the golf courses
A large apartment-style resort near the Vilamoura courses, known for its extensive spa and pool complex.
Quinta do Lago, near Almancil
A modern low-rise hotel in the Quinta do Lago golf estate, a short drive from the Ria Formosa beaches.
Praia da Rocha, Portimão
A restored early-1900s mansion above Praia da Rocha, one of the oldest hotel buildings on the coast and today a small luxury property.
Lagos, above Porto de Mós beach
A resort on the cliffs at the western end of Lagos near Ponta da Piedade, laid out around gardens and pools.
We quote these and many more. Prices depend on dates and board — the quote is free and there is no payment on this site.
The Algarve is Portugal's southern coast: roughly 150 kilometres from the Spanish border at Vila Real de Santo António to Cape St Vincent, the south-western corner of continental Europe. It is sold as one destination and it is really three, and booking the wrong one of the three is the most common way to come home quietly disappointed.
The middle stretch, from Lagos east to Faro, is the Algarve of the photographs: ochre sandstone cliffs, small coves reached by wooden staircases, sea stacks standing offshore, and resort towns strung along the top. West of Lagos the land rises and hardens. The cliffs get higher, the wind blows most afternoons, and the beaches belong to surfers and walkers rather than to sunbeds. East of Faro the cliffs stop altogether. The coast becomes the Ria Formosa, a shallow lagoon sheltered behind low sandbar islands, and the towns behind it — Tavira above all — are working Portuguese towns that happen to receive visitors.
Same region, same airport, three completely different weeks.
This is the ocean, not the Mediterranean, and the water is cold. Not invigorating-but-fine cold. Properly cold if your reference point is Turkey, Greece or Egypt.
On the central and eastern coast the sea sits at roughly 16-17°C in April, 17-19°C in June, and peaks at about 21-23°C in August and early September. That peak is short. By late October it is back to 19°C.
The west coast is colder still. Around Sagres, Aljezur and the whole Costa Vicentina, cold water rises from the deep whenever the north wind blows, and the sea can hold at 16-18°C in the middle of July. A run of nortada — the persistent summer north wind — pushes it lower.
None of this makes the Algarve a bad beach holiday. It makes it a different one. Children who swim happily in the Aegean for two hours will last twenty minutes here. Adults who want to float about after lunch will want a heated pool as well as the sea, and most of the four-star stock has one. Ask us to confirm the pool is heated in the month you are travelling, because plenty are heated only from March to November.
The busiest base and the one most first-time visitors end up in. It has two halves that behave nothing alike. The Old Town, above Praia dos Pescadores, is a compact whitewashed centre with a lift down to the beach, a good spread of restaurants and a manageable evening.
Then there is the Strip — Avenida Doutor Francisco Sá Carneiro, in the Areias de São João district about three kilometres east. Bars, clubs, karaoke, neon and noise until the early hours, largely British and Irish, and genuinely loud. It is a good time if that is what you want and a mistake if it is not. When you ask us for Albufeira, tell us which side of that line you sit on, because the difference between a hotel a kilometre from the Strip and a hotel on it is the whole holiday.
Vilamoura is a purpose-built marina resort: no old town, no fishing village underneath, and it does not pretend otherwise. What it has is a large marina, a long flat beach, and golf courses within minutes. Immediately east are Quinta do Lago and Vale do Lobo, the most expensive addresses in the region, low-rise and gated and green. This is the golf-and-tennis end of the Algarve and it suits people who want the resort to be the point.
Lagos has actual history — city walls, a slave-market building that the town does not hide, cobbled streets — plus Meia Praia, a long sandy beach that is genuinely good for children, and Ponta da Piedade's cliffs on its doorstep. Praia da Luz just west is quieter and very family-oriented. Burgau and Salema further west are small and old-fashioned in the best way.
Carvoeiro is a cove village that grew upwards; charming, steep, and short on flat ground. Armação de Pêra has a big open beach and a cluster of larger hotels, including most of the region's limited all-inclusive stock. Praia da Rocha at Portimão is a wide golden beach under a wall of tall hotels — good value, unpretentious, and busier than anywhere west of Albufeira.
Tavira is the answer for anyone who finds the rest of it too built. A river town with a Roman bridge, tiled churches, tile-fronted houses and a market, where the beach is a ferry ride away on Ilha de Tavira, a sandbar island with warm shallow water. Cabanas, Cacela Velha and Fuseta are smaller versions of the same idea. Monte Gordo, near the Spanish border, is flatter and more Portuguese-domestic in feel.
The east is calm, shallow, warm by Algarve standards, and undramatic. If you want cliffs and cove drama you will find it dull. If you have a four-year-old, it is the best part of the region.
The end of the road. Cliffs, fortresses, surf schools, wind, and the sense of standing at the edge of a continent. Beaches like Amado and Bordeira are magnificent and often unswimmable. Come for walking, surfing and weather; do not come for a lounger week.
The Algarve grew as a self-catering market, and it shows. Aparthotels with kitchenettes, villas with private pools and apartment complexes make up a large share of the stock — often better value for a family than a hotel room, and easier when you have children who eat at six.
Board basis skews to bed-and-breakfast. Half-board is common in the larger coastal hotels. All-inclusive exists — mostly at Armação de Pêra, Alvor, Albufeira and Lagoa — but it is a minority product and it is not the automatic value it is in Turkey or Egypt, because eating out here is good and reasonably priced. Unless you are set on never leaving the resort, half-board plus a few dinners out usually beats it.
At around EUR 65 per person per night in May or October you are looking at a solid four-star with breakfast a short walk from a beach. In August the same room can be double. In January it can be half, which is exactly why the golf market works.
Faro (FAO) is the region's airport and it is small and quick to clear. Approximate road times: Vilamoura 30 minutes, Albufeira 35-40, Tavira 35-40, Carvoeiro 45, Praia da Rocha and Portimão 50, Monte Gordo 50, Lagos 60-70, Sagres 90.
To be plain about our role: we quote your accommodation through partner agencies. Our own vehicles and drivers work in Turkey and nowhere else, so a transfer in Portugal is arranged locally by the partner and we will tell you exactly who is driving rather than let you assume it is us.
Do you need a hire car? In Albufeira, Vilamoura or Praia da Rocha, no — everything is walkable and taxis are cheap. In the east, the west, or anywhere you want to see more than one beach, yes. The A22 motorway is electronically tolled with no cash booths, so settle the toll arrangement with the car hire desk when you collect the car.
April and May are the region at its best on land: hills green, wildflowers out, everything open, air around 20-23°C. The sea is cold.
June, July and August are hot, dry and busy. July and August bring Portuguese and Spanish holidaymakers on top of the northern Europeans, prices peak, and the popular cove beaches fill by ten in the morning. Afternoon nortada is normal on the western beaches.
September and early October are the sweet spot: warm air, the year's warmest sea, thinner crowds and softening prices.
November to March is the season people do not expect. Daytime air of 16-19°C, low rainfall by northern European standards, and roughly forty golf courses within an hour of each other — which keeps the hotels, restaurants and flight routes running when the rest of southern Europe shuts. It rains most in November and December, some beach restaurants close, and nobody swims in the sea. As a walking, golfing and eating holiday it is excellent value.
Two practical points that catch people out.
First, the tidal range is two to three and a half metres. Small cove beaches that look enormous in the photograph are photographed at low water. At high tide some of them are a strip of sand or nothing at all, and cave and arch access disappears with them. Check a tide table for the week — it costs nothing and it changes when you go down.
Second, the cliffs are sandstone and they fall. There are signs, they are not decorative, and there have been fatalities. Do not put your towel at the foot of a cliff, however good the shade looks.
Eat grilled fish, and eat it plainly: sea bream, sea bass, sardines in summer, all cooked over charcoal with potatoes and salad. Cataplana is the regional stew, cooked in a hinged copper pan and normally for two. Frango piri-piri, at its best inland, is a Portuguese institution rather than a tourist thing. The almond and fig sweets are Moorish inheritance, and the coffee culture is excellent and cheap.
Boat trips along the cliffs from Portimão, Lagos or Albufeira are the excursion worth doing. Benagil cave is the famous one; access rules have tightened in recent years, so ask the operator what the boat is actually permitted to do before you pay. Ponta da Piedade by small boat at low sun is better anyway. Inland, Silves has a red castle and Monchique has hills, cork oaks and cooler air. Seville is a long but feasible day trip, about two and a half hours each way.
If a warm sea is the point of your holiday, go to the Mediterranean instead. This is the single most reliable predictor of disappointment here.
If you want a full all-inclusive resort week with entertainment teams and a swim-up bar, Turkey and Egypt do it better, cheaper and warmer.
If you cannot manage steps, be careful. Cove beaches are reached by staircases cut into cliffs, and Carvoeiro and Albufeira Old Town are both built on slopes. The east coast around Tavira and Monte Gordo is flat and is the right choice.
And if you want nightlife but not the Strip, say so — the region has plenty of quiet, and it is concentrated in specific towns.
Algarve pricing swings hard between seasons and between neighbouring towns, and the honest answer to "what does a week cost" depends on which of the three coasts you have in mind and whether you need a kitchen.
Tell us your dates, how many of you and how old the children are, whether you want the beach in front of the hotel or a car and a quieter village, and whether the pool needs to be heated. A consultant comes back within one working day with two or three options, the board basis spelled out and an honest note on noise, slope and how far the sand actually is. The quote is free, it commits you to nothing, and no payment is taken on this site — the partner agency issues the booking and the voucher.
This is the Atlantic. On the central and eastern coast expect roughly 16-17°C in April, 17-19°C in June and a peak of about 21-23°C in August and early September. The west coast around Sagres often stays at 16-18°C even in midsummer because of upwelling. A heated hotel pool matters here more than in the Mediterranean.
The east, around Tavira, Cabanas and Monte Gordo. The lagoon and sandbar beaches are shallow, calm and the warmest water in the region, and the ground is flat. Meia Praia at Lagos and Praia da Luz are good central options. Avoid the west coast, where surf and rip currents are serious.
It depends entirely which part. The Strip in Areias de Sao Joao is loud until dawn and is a poor fit for young children. The Old Town and the hotels west of it, and the whole Falesia beach stretch towards Vilamoura, are calm. Tell us which you want and we will place you accordingly.
Not in Albufeira, Vilamoura or Praia da Rocha, where everything is walkable and taxis are cheap. Yes if you are basing yourself in the east or west, or if you want to see several beaches. The A22 motorway is electronically tolled with no cash booths, so arrange tolls at the car hire desk.
Less than in Turkey or Egypt. All-inclusive stock is limited and concentrated in a few resorts, while eating out locally is good and reasonably priced. For most people half-board plus a few dinners out works out better. If you genuinely want to stay on site all week, we will find the properties that do it well.
November to February, by a wide margin, followed by early March. Air temperatures of 16-19°C and around forty golf courses keep the region open through winter, so you get low rates without a shuttered resort. Nobody swims in the sea then. August is the most expensive month by some distance.
No. There is no checkout on this site and the quote costs nothing. If you accept an offer, payment goes directly to the partner agency that operates the booking and issues your voucher, and that agency is named in the offer before you commit to anything.
No. Our own vehicles and drivers operate in Turkey only. Any transfer in the Algarve is arranged locally through the partner agency, and we will tell you who is providing it rather than let you assume our fleet is involved.
Rates here move a lot between low and high season, so we quote each request individually rather than publish a number that would be wrong most of the year.
Free, non-binding, answered by a person.
