Scouting Trips Across The Algarve, Portugal
Where to settle down?
During our first six months in Portugal renting an apartment in Silves, we traveled extensively across the entire southern coast of the Algarve region in search of our dream location to buy an apartment/condo to settle in for the long term.
We focused on towns within walking distance to the beach with abundant hiking routes and that offer amenities such as private and public healthcare providers, variety of restaurants, multiple supermarkets to choose from, shopping, etc.
This ruled out some of our favorite towns such as Silves, Almancil and Loulé simply due to their distance from the coast.
This also ruled out most of the small but lovely towns and fishing villages along the coast due to lack of amenities such as Luz, Ferragudo, Olhão, Cabanas, etc.
We also quickly ruled out the largest towns in the Algarve such as Portimão, Albufeira, and Faro as they just seemed overly crowded with too much traffic & noise, too many very-tall apartment buildings and not all that walking-friendly for our liking.
Although we stayed in Armação de Pêra often as a base camp during our multiple scouting trips, this post about Armação de Pêra gives more details as to why it was a great place for holiday but not really a consideration to settle down for us.
So this pretty much narrowed our top-five list of liveable towns to Lagos, Alvor, Quarteira, Tavira and Vila Real de Santo António (VRSA). These are all fantastic towns popular with expats and that have a wonderful selection of restaurants, cafés, bars, markets and many other amenities.
The more we visited these towns, the more it became clear, however, that we love the western Algarve (west of Faro) much more than the east side. This ruled out Tavira and VRSA. Quarteira was a bit pricier than our budget allowed for what we were looking for in an apartment. They call that area the “golden triangle” for a reason.
Alvor ticked all the boxes for us, but just seemed a bit far from the main east-west motorways (N125 & A22) to get out of town during our planned frequent travels. Further, Alvor tends to be more of a laidback sleepy town, especially during the offseason although this seems to be changing as it grows and continues to become more popular with expats (like much of the Algarve).
Lagos proved to be the “goldilocks” town for us. Not too big or too small. Just the right amount of amenities and conveniences for what we enjoy doing. Not too quiet in the winter offseason, although certainly packed full of tourists in the summer high season (like most beach towns in the Algarve). There are frequent farmers markets and a large variety of supermarkets, private and public healthcare options, dozens of fantastic restaurants and coffee shops, and some of the most beautiful beaches and hiking trails in the Algarve (and the world for that matter).
So in December of 2021 we moved from Silves to Lagos and have loved every minute of it. Although we travel away often, usually exploring other areas of Portugal we haven’t yet been to, it’s always a wonderful feeling returning to our new home in lovely Lagos.
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Beautiful!
Thank you so much for this! Sounds like the same things we are looking for. We love hiking and walking and I want the beach. :) So thanks for narrowing it down! I’m looking forward to seeing Lagos.