Portugal: The Art of Travelling Well

The best way to begin in Portugal is to resist the urge to conquer it. This is not a country that gives its best to the hurried visitor. It opens gradually, through shifts of pace and place: a few days in Porto, then a train east into the Douro. Time in Coimbra before heading into the villages. Lisbon deserves its place, of course, but so too do the estuary, Sintra’s wooded slopes and the beaches you can reach easily by rail. Further south, the plains of Alentejo ask for longer pauses, and the Algarve makes far more sense when lagoons, walking paths and inland routes are allowed to compete with the old summer clichés. Then there are the islands, where the Atlantic rewrites the mood entirely.

Portugal’s tourism strategy places sustainability at the centre of the national offer, supported by accessible itineraries in 20 cities, 243 accessible bathing areas on the coast and rivers, and a quietly impressive network of protected landscapes, including 13 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves. The country’s current “Futourism” language only feels convincing because the raw material is already here.

Porto and the North: Where the country begins

Stepping into northern Portugal, one finds a region steeped in history yet alive with modern creativity. This is where Portugal’s identity first took root, from the ancient streets of Guimarães, often called the nation’s cradle, to the medieval lanes of Porto, the capital of the North. Porto’s historic centre, with its ripple of azulejo-tiled facades tumbling down to the Douro River, is a UNESCO World Heritage jewel that lives in harmony with contemporary life. Washing hangs from balconies. Trams rattle on. Students spill from cafés. It is a city with real life left in it.

It is also a city that has learned not to treat preservation and progress as enemies. There are pedestrian-friendly boulevards, new electric buses quietly climbing steep hills, and solar-powered street lighting that respects the night sky. Porto’s forward-thinking urban planning has already earned it recognition as a Green City Award finalist, yet what matters more on the ground is the feel of it. The city moves with less friction than it used to. The old fabric is still there, but everyday life moves through it with less weight.

Beyond the cities, the Douro Valley unfolds to the east; a breathtaking cultural landscape of terraced vineyards straddling steep hillsides. Visiting the Douro feels like stepping into a living postcard: terraced vine rows plunging toward the mirror-like river, whitewashed quintas (wineries) perched amid olive trees and cork oaks.

The valley’s beauty is more than skin-deep: it’s also a story of sustainable winemaking. Many family-run estates are shifting to organic farming and regenerative practices, ensuring that the soil, water and local communities are cared for as diligently as the vines. Travellers can take a charming scenic train along the Douro River or cruise in electric-powered riverboats, savouring the region at a leisurely pace while minimising impact. In autumn, harvest-time visitors are welcomed to join grape stomping celebrations, a joyful tradition now imbued with new meaning as wineries promote eco-certifications and farm-to-table wine tourism. The entire Alto Douro Wine Region is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site, a testament to how culture and nature intertwine here in a balance that endures.

Northern Portugal’s landscapes are as rich as its culture. The region boasts Portugal’s only national park, Peneda-Gerês, a vast realm of rugged mountains, oak forests and sparkling rivers that forms part of the UNESCO Gerês-Xurés Transboundary Biosphere Reserve. Wolves still roam the remote uplands, while wild Garrano horses graze the meadows below. Hikers here tread ancient Roman roads and granite shepherd trails, discovering waterfalls and viewpoints with eagles soaring above. Park authorities have marked gentle trekking paths and created small interpretive centres to educate visitors on wildlife and conservation. Whether walking under the canopy of an old-growth oak grove or kayaking on a clear mountain lake, travellers are encouraged to “take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints”, a mantra visible on trail signs. It’s an invitation to experience wilderness the way the locals do: reverently and responsibly.

There is also a creative confidence to the North that keeps it from becoming merely picturesque. Braga, with its deep religious heritage and its youthful population, offers one version of that. Porto offers another, where institutions such as Serralves and Casa da Música show how culture can be contemporary without severing itself from place. Even the smaller towns have it too, in lively markets, local kitchens and streets that still belong first to residents.

Perhaps the greatest charm of the North is its year-round appeal grounded in sustainability. In winter, mountain villages come into their own, with wood-burning hearths and a slower pace. Spring brings wildflowers to the Douro and birds back to the valleys. Summer still leaves room for solitude beyond the main hotspots, whether on a Gerês trail or by the Lima River. Autumn, meanwhile, brings the grape harvest and folklore festivals, extending the season naturally. The North forms a gateway to Portugal that honours the past and innovates for the future, inviting travellers to be part of its living story, not merely to pass through.

Centro de Portugal: Tradition and nature in balance

If the North is Portugal’s historic birthplace, Centro is its wise heart. The landscapes are gentler in places, sterner in others, but the overall feeling is one of continuity. Things have a way of enduring here: stone, custom, silence.

History sits close to the surface. The region boasts an extraordinary concentration of UNESCO World Heritage sites, each carrying a different register of Portugal’s story. Alcobaça brings Gothic grandeur and the tragedy of Pedro and Inês. Batalha is all late medieval ambition and intricate stonework. Tomar, with the Convent of Christ, pulls the imagination towards the Templars and the Age of Discovery. These are not minor stops arranged to fill an itinerary. They are among the places in which Portugal explains itself.

Yet Centro is not only a region of monuments. It is also a region that understands the value of pace. Historic town centres have restricted traffic or pedestrianised old streets, allowing places to sound like themselves again. In Coimbra, home to one of Europe’s oldest universities, people still move through the stepped lanes largely on foot. The university crowns the hill, and below it, the city falls away towards the river. Electric minibuses take some of the strain, and walking does the rest.

Beyond the cities lies one of the most rewarding forms of travel in Portugal. The Historic Villages, places such as Monsanto, Sortelha and Castelo Rodrigo, have been revived with uncommon sensitivity. Rather than being flattened into charming backdrops, many have been restored as functioning communities with guesthouses, small-scale hospitality and a renewed local economy. The same can be said of the Schist Villages in the Lousã and Açor ranges, where restored stone houses, craft workshops and marked trails offer a model of tourism that does not need spectacle to justify itself.

What makes these places memorable is not just beauty, though there is plenty of that. It is the sense that tourism here can still support continuity rather than replace it. Stay in a family-run inn, eat food sourced from the surrounding land, spend time rather than merely passing through, and you begin to understand what sustainable tourism looks like when stripped of jargon.

Nature gives Centro a second register altogether. Serra da Estrela, the highest mountain range on mainland Portugal, brings a harsher kind of beauty, all upland valleys, rocky plateaus and weather that changes its mind quickly. Once associated, somewhat awkwardly, with modest ski tourism, the region now makes far more sense as a destination for year-round walking, nature immersion and slower outdoor travel. The Zêzere Glacier Valley, with its broad U-shape carved by ancient ice, offers one of the most striking landscapes in the country.

Then there is the coast. Aveiro’s lagoon, the dunes and beaches further west, the fishing towns, the salt pans, Nazaré with its impossible winter surf. Even here the story is less about headline-making extremes than about management and balance. Big waves may capture attention, but the broader coastal picture is one of habitats, livelihoods and seasonal spread. Centro doesn’t shout for attention; instead, it simply rewards those who listen.

Lisboa Region: Cosmopolitan culture with a green edge

Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, is a city of seven hills, centuries of history, and an irrepressible zest for life. But beyond the postcard images of yellow trams clattering through Alfama’s cobbled alleys and sunlit views over the Tagus River, Lisboa (Lisbon) Region tells a remarkable story of urban sustainability meeting cultural vibrancy. This city and its environs have shown that a cosmopolitan hub can be eco-conscious, proving why Lisbon earned the title of European Green Capital in 2020; the very first Southern European city to do so. The recognition was well-deserved: Lisbon has expanded cycle paths and public transport, improved access to green space, and already surpassed earlier CO₂-reduction targets while raising its climate ambitions further.

Culture in the Lisboa Region is inseparable from sustainability. Take Sintra, just a short train ride west of Lisbon: this fairy-tale landscape of wooded hills and whimsical palaces has been treasured by poets and kings, and is recognised as a UNESCO Cultural Landscape. Sintra remains one of Portugal’s most seductive places, all wooded slopes, eccentric palaces and a mist-softened atmosphere that can turn theatrical within minutes.

The danger, obviously, is overtourism. Sintra’s response has been to lean more heavily on managed access, shuttles, monitored visitor flow and footpaths that make walking between sites a viable alternative to traffic-clogged roads. It is a small but important shift. The landscape remains magical, but the logistics are slowly becoming more rational.

What makes the Lisbon region truly unique is how quickly one can transition from urban bustle to pristine nature. The Tagus Estuary Nature Reserve lies startlingly close to the capital, yet in winter it becomes one of Europe’s great bird sanctuaries, with flamingos and other migratory species working the mudflats against the distant skyline. South of the river, Arrábida offers another contrast altogether: limestone ridges, Mediterranean vegetation, turquoise coves, dolphins in the Sado estuary, villages folded into the hills. It is easy, in both cases, to see how proximity to Lisbon could have destroyed these places, yet has not.

That restraint is part of the region’s appeal. The city can still give you late-night restaurants, museums, music, hotels and conference infrastructure. But within a short distance, the mood changes. Wetlands replace avenues. Forest replaces stone. The Atlantic takes over. Few European capitals can move between registers quite so convincingly.

Alentejo: Plains, stars and authentic slow travel

South of Lisbon, Portugal begins to breathe differently. The roads lengthen, the villages thin out, and the horizon grows wide enough to alter the mood. Alentejo can appear simple at first glance, but that apparent simplicity is deceptive. This is one of the country’s most quietly complex regions, and one of the most persuasive when it comes to sustainable tourism.

Its great defining landscape is the montado, the oak woodland system in which cork production, grazing and agriculture coexist. It is beautiful, certainly, but also useful in the deepest sense of the word. Cork oaks are harvested without felling the tree. Biodiversity survives within a working landscape. Shade protects the soil, and an old system continues to prove its worth. In an era of flashy green claims, Alentejo has the advantage of not needing to invent its ecological logic. Much of it is already there.

The same is true of the rhythm of life. Alentejo has long been associated with slowness, and while that can be sentimentalised, it has real substance here. There is still space here, and still silence. The year follows old agricultural rhythms, and tourism works best when it joins them rather than breaks them.

Évora embodies this particularly well. Encircled by medieval walls, marked by its Roman Temple and old university life, it is a city with obvious heritage value. Yet it has not surrendered entirely to the museum instinct. It still feels inhabited, and it still belongs to the people who call it home. That makes a difference. So does the quieter work of sustainability, from traffic restrictions in the historic centre to the more practical conversations now taking place around water use, restoration and resource awareness.

Then there is the night sky. Alqueva has become one of the region’s most distinctive tourism stories, and with good reason. In a Europe increasingly washed in artificial light, darkness has become something of a form of luxury. Around Lake Alqueva, that darkness is protected. Villages have adjusted lighting, while local accommodation providers have built part of the experience around stargazing. Visitors come not for a constructed attraction, but for the simple fact that the heavens are still visible in proper scale. It is difficult to think of a more elegant tourism proposition.

No portrait of Alentejo is complete without its cuisine and hospitality, which are deeply tied to the land. The gastronomy is hearty, seasonal, and proudly local: rustic bread (baked in wood ovens) forms the base of many dishes like açorda (herbed bread stew) or migas; free-range black pigs that forage on acorns become the most flavourful hams; herbs like coriander, pennyroyal and mint from the fields give unexpected vibrancy to soups and stews. Wineries across Alentejo, known for robust reds and unique talha (clay pot) wines, are increasingly going organic: some have even restored old Roman techniques of winemaking in amphorae, proving that innovation can mean going back to greener old ways. The concept of farm-to-table isn’t a trendy slogan here, it’s simply how life is lived. The people of Alentejo welcome guests with genuine warmth, treating them to tales of local history or maybe a folk song by the campfire, yet they also gently impart the rules of their land: close the gates so livestock won’t stray, don’t throw cigarette butts that could spark fires in dry grass, and respect the afternoon quiet when even nature seems to siesta.

The Algarve beyond the old cliché

The Algarve has long been Europe’s sun and sand poster child, but Portugal’s southernmost region is reinventing itself beyond the clichés. While it’s true this region basks in over 300 sunny days a year and has long been a magnet for holidaymakers, the Algarve’s true treasures lie in its well-preserved nature, culture, and a new commitment to balance.

A shining example of the “new Algarve” is the Ria Formosa Natural Park. This lagoon system of islands, marshes and tidal flats runs along the eastern Algarve coast with a quiet authority. Flamingos feed in the shallows. Boats move carefully through protected channels. Traditional communities such as Culatra still offer a different scale of coastal life from the resort model that dominates popular imagination. For travellers, the experience can be remarkably gentle: think cycling, ferries, oysters, birdlife, water and light. Once you spend time there, the notion that the Algarve begins and ends with crowded beaches starts to look absurd.

To the west, the mood changes again. The Vicentine Coast, running up towards Alentejo, remains one of the last great unspoilt stretches of coastline in Europe. The cliffs are raw, the winds are strong, the development here is strictly controlled; you won’t find big hotels, but you will find a paradise for walkers, surfers, and nature lovers. Crucially, local communities and organisations have worked to keep the success of the area from eroding what made it valuable in the first place.

The inland Algarve is perhaps the region’s most useful corrective. A short drive from the coast, the tone changes entirely. Monchique rises into greener and cooler country, with villages set into a landscape still shaped by agriculture. The Algarve’s Via Algarviana, a 300 km long-distance footpath, winds through these inland areas from the Spanish border to the Cape St. Vincent, channelling hikers into the heart of rural Algarve.

Even the more established parts of the Algarve are moving, if unevenly, towards a greener model. Better beach management, more solar energy, more attention to seasonality, quieter promotion of spring, autumn and winter travel, all of it adds up. The Algarve’s culinary scene underscores its renewal. While beach bars still serve grilled sardines (sustainably caught under strict EU quotas) and piri-piri chicken, there’s a flourishing of farm-to-table restaurants inland and along the coast where young chefs elevate grandma’s recipes with organic ingredients. Inland silos are being converted to craft breweries, old fish canning factories to art centres: all giving tourists reasons to explore beyond the usual spots.

The Algarve still has the light, the beaches and the easy allure that made it famous. But look a little harder, or simply travel a little slower, and a fuller region comes into view: greener, quieter, more various, and more convincing for it.

The Azores: Nine islands, one green philosophy

Some 1,500 km west of Europe’s coast lies the Azores, a mystic archipelago born of volcanoes and draped in green: a place often described as the “Hawaii of Europe” for its dramatic landscapes and abundant nature. Comprising nine inhabited islands, the Azores embody a singular philosophy: living in harmony with nature is not optional here, it’s a necessity and a source of national pride. Over recent years, the Azores have gained international recognition for sustainable tourism, including becoming the first archipelago in the world certified as a sustainable destination by EarthCheck.

The Azores may be nine islands, but the instinct behind them feels very much shared: protect what matters. On São Miguel, that comes through clearly. At Sete Cidades, efforts to reduce agricultural runoff have helped safeguard the lakes, while trails and shuttle access encourage visitors to leave the car behind. In Furnas, where hot springs and fumaroles shape the landscape, the famous earth-cooked cozido is more than a spectacle. It reflects a wider Azorean habit of working with nature rather than against it.

Managed bathing areas, monitoring of water quality and careful visitor guidance all reinforce that approach.

Pico tells the story differently. Its UNESCO-listed vineyards, built from lava and basalt walls, remain one of the clearest examples of human adaptation in the archipelago. What might look severe at first glance is in fact highly intelligent: a landscape shaped by necessity, still productive, and increasingly tied to organic methods and small-scale wine culture. Even Pico mountain, Portugal’s highest peak, is protected by visitor caps and regulated access, with guided climbs widely available and recommended.

The marine story is just as important. Once associated with whaling, the Azores are now far better known for conservation. Whale watching is one of the great experiences here, but it is tightly regulated, with licensed operators, strict codes of conduct and a clear emphasis on respect. Marine protected areas, no-take zones and more sustainable fishing practices have helped turn the surrounding Atlantic into one of the archipelago’s greatest assets.

Elsewhere, the same pattern holds. São Jorge’s fajãs, Flores and Corvo’s UNESCO Biosphere Reserve landscapes, and Graciosa’s progress in renewable energy all point in the same direction.

Culturally, too, the Azores have handled tourism with more care than many destinations of similar beauty. Festivals still feel like community occasions rather than staged performances, and initiatives such as the Azores Sustainability Charter make clear that the archipelago wants tourism on its own terms: lower waste, stronger support for local producers and artisans, and a degree of respect for both cultural custom and environmental limits. That may be the most impressive thing of all. The Azores are welcoming, certainly, but they are not careless. They know what they have, and they are trying, sensibly, to keep it.

For to experience the Azores is to experience a sense of the world before: before species vanished, before night skies were dulled by city lights, before we lost touch with the source of things. Whether you’re soaking in a hot spring surrounded by jungle-like vegetation, tasting a rare Azorean pineapple grown in a glasshouse warmed by the sun, or quietly watching a whale breach on the horizon, the message is clear: when you respect nature, nature rewards you with wonders.

The Azores do not need embellishment. They simply need good judgement from those who visit.

Madeira: A sustainable garden in the Atlantic

Known as the “Pearl of the Atlantic” and the “Island of Eternal Spring,” Madeira has long enchanted travellers with its lush landscapes and mild climate. But beyond its floral beauty and famous levada walks, Madeira (and its smaller sister island Porto Santo) offers a masterclass in how a popular destination can embrace sustainability naturally, building on its own traditions of conservation. This subtropical archipelago, closer to Africa than to mainland Europe, has been practicing a form of sustainability for centuries, almost by necessity: its steep terrain demanded careful terracing and water management, its isolated location meant communities had to be self-reliant and resourceful. Today, those practices have evolved into a deliberate strategy to keep Madeira green and thriving for future generations.

One cannot talk about Madeira without starting with the landscape. Around two-thirds of the main island lies within the Madeira Natural Park, and at its heart is the Laurissilva, a UNESCO World Heritage laurel forest and one of the last surviving fragments of the subtropical woodland that once covered parts of Southern Europe.

It is an extraordinary place: damp, shadowy, tangled, and older in feeling than most visitors expect. Madeira has, to its credit, treated it seriously. The forest is monitored, logging is tightly restricted, and invasive species such as acacia and ginger lily are gradually being cleared to give native flora room to recover.

Most people experience this interior through the levadas, the historic irrigation channels cut into the mountains from the 15^th century onwards to carry water from the wetter north to the drier south. They still do that job. They also now form one of Europe’s most distinctive walking networks, drawing people into the island’s wilder interior without the need to carve fresh routes through fragile ground. It is a very Madeiran solution: practical first, elegant afterwards.

That same logic runs through the island more broadly. Funchal’s Botanical Garden is not simply decorative but part of a wider culture of plant conservation, and across the island there has been a clear shift towards endemic planting and more careful water use. That matters on an island where water has always had to be managed properly. Madeira remains remarkably green, but not through wastefulness.

Adventure tourism has grown here, yet in a way that still feels relatively controlled. Canyoning, hiking, trail running and paragliding are largely built around guides, smaller groups and a fairly clear sense that the landscape sets the terms. Porto Santo, meanwhile, offers a different expression of the same values. Its UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status reflects efforts to restore dry habitats, protect surrounding marine life and keep tourism from overwhelming the island. Replanting, beach clean-ups and lower-impact visitor initiatives all feed into that wider picture.

Madeira has also managed, more successfully than many destinations, to modernise without flattening itself. Madeira wine is still rooted in longstanding methods, the Flower Festival (Festa da Flor) has become more conscious about local sourcing and composting, and the island has avoided the kind of resort sprawl that would have damaged it irreparably. There are strong hotels and better transport, including cleaner buses and more electric options, but the built environment still broadly answers to the terrain. The tourism economy is real, of course. But the island has not entirely lost the feeling of belonging first to itself.

That may be Madeira’s greatest achievement. It has absorbed popularity without surrendering character.

Portugal for meetings that mean something

What makes Portugal especially interesting now is that the leisure story and the meetings story no longer need to be told separately. The country has the hard infrastructure to compete seriously and the territorial variety to make events feel memorable without slipping into spectacle for its own sake.

Portugal maintained its place in ICCA’s global top ten in the 2024 country ranking published in 2025, while Lisbon returned to second place globally and Porto climbed to 34^th in the world and 22^nd in Europe. Those figures back up something the market has been recognising for some time: Portugal combines operational confidence with genuine destination character. It is established enough to reassure, but still varied enough to feel fresh.

At national level, Meetings in Portugal gives that offer structure. Officially developed by Turismo de Portugal, it works as the country’s dedicated business events platform, bringing together the national picture in one place while linking directly to regional partners across Porto, Centro, Lisbon, Cascais, Alentejo, Algarve, Madeira and the Azores. For planners, that is more useful than it may sound on first impressions. The platform does not simply promote Portugal in general terms. It lets organisers search venues and suppliers, explore hotels and cultural heritage settings, and submit proposal requests either through regional partners or by selecting specific venues and suppliers. In practice, it acts as a practical front door into a market that could otherwise feel more fragmented from the outside.

That national framing also makes it easier to understand Portugal’s green meetings offer in a more mature way.

The country does not present sustainability as a decorative extra attached only to nature programmes or CSR add-ons. Turismo de Portugal’s own policy framework places sustainability inside Tourism Strategy 2027, while Tourism Strategy 2035 is being developed as its successor, and the Portugal Events Programme now supports events across the whole country, including the islands, that strengthen territorial dynamism, diversify tourism in space and time, boost local economies, particularly in lower-density areas, and raise the international profile of the destination. For 2026 to 2028, that programme carries a budget of €45 million, with corporate and associative events explicitly included. In other words, the public framework is increasingly aligned with the idea that meetings should leave more behind than hotel nights.

For organisers looking specifically at greener supply chains, Portugal’s accommodation base is also becoming easier to read. In 2025, the Green Key programme recognised 405 establishments in Portugal, including hotels, rural tourism units, campsites, restaurants and one conference centre. The criteria cover areas such as resource and waste management, social responsibility and guest information, and the programme’s criteria are recognised by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council. That does not mean every event product in Portugal is automatically sustainable, nor should anyone pretend otherwise. But it does mean planners have an increasingly visible layer of independently recognised options to work with, especially in Greater Lisbon and Setúbal, Madeira, the Algarve and the Porto metropolitan area, where Green Key coverage is already substantial.

The strength of Portugal, though, is that this more responsible offer sits inside a destination that is already straightforward to programme well. In Lisbon, planners can move from the large-scale flexibility of FIL to the riverfront setting of the Lisboa Congress Centre in Belém. In Porto, Alfândega Porto Congress Centre still makes one of the strongest opening statements in the country: historic, self-assured and intelligently adapted. Elsewhere, the proposition broadens rather than weakens. The Meetings in Portugal platform foregrounds hotels, rural properties, event organisers, caterers and cultural heritage venues, including UNESCO-listed monuments, national palaces and museums. That opens up a wider palette for events that want to feel distinctive without becoming contrived.

Accessibility also sits more clearly inside the national offer than it once did. Congress centres and event venues provide information on conditions for people with disabilities and are prepared to welcome them, while Portugal’s airports and rail services provide dedicated assistance and adapted taxis are available in the main cities and at some airport ranks, though coverage is not universal and may require advance booking.

This is worth stressing because accessibility is often treated as a late-stage logistical check, when in reality it is part of what makes a destination genuinely usable. Portugal’s better business events offer increasingly understands that.

Perhaps the simplest way to put it is this: Portugal works for meetings because it is no longer trying to force a separation between performance and place. It can offer scale, connectivity and professional delivery, but it can also offer regional texture, lower-impact experiences and a national framework that is beginning to take sustainability more seriously in operational terms. For planners, that creates room to design events that are efficient without being anonymous, and memorable without being wasteful. That is a stronger proposition than even just a short decade ago, and a far more interesting one to boot.

A country to return to

Portugal as a tourism destination sells itself well, and it always has. But the most interesting thing about the country in 2026 is that it no longer needs to choose between pleasure and principle, or between a beautiful trip and a better one. The two increasingly overlap in ways that feel natural rather than contrived.

Sustainability here is not always visible as branding, nor does it need to be. More often it shows itself in the overall quality of the experience: places that still feel like themselves, landscapes that have not been overrun, heritage used intelligently, and tourism offers that draw strength from local character rather than trying to replace it.

For sustainable tourists and destination managers alike, the lesson is simple enough. Authenticity still carries more force than gimmick. Portugal’s story is not one of slogans but of substance: birdlife in wetlands, vineyards held in balance, congress venues that work because they belong to their setting, islands that understand environmental limits because they must.

That is why Portugal remains so persuasive. Not because it is flawless, and not because it has discovered some magic formula, but because in many of its regions the better version of travel is already visible. Portugal is betting that thoughtful tourism makes for a healthier planet and a stronger economy; and every region, from Madeira’s laurel woods to Porto’s wine lodges, from the dark skies of Alentejo to the crater lakes of the Azores, seems to agree.

For further inspiration on Portugal’s regions, landscapes and more sustainable travel experiences, please visit: www.visitportugal.com