About Madeira Trip Guide

An independent, unofficial guide to visiting Madeira: which trails need a permit, which ticket to buy for which garden or cable car, and how to spend three, five or seven days on the island without wasting one of them. We are not the Regional Government of Madeira, not IFCN, not Visit Madeira, not the Câmara Municipal do Funchal and not any cable car, garden or ferry operator, and we sell nothing directly. The whole guide starts on the Madeira city guide homepage.

Why this site exists

Madeira punishes a vague plan in a few specific ways. Every classified PR trail now needs an online booking on the regional SIMplifica system, from €4.50 a trail and €10.50 for the full PR1, and there is no ticket office at any trailhead. The PR1 ridge from Pico do Arieiro runs one way only past Pedra Rija, so the walk ends at Achada do Teixeira, far from where your car or bus left you. And the €47.02 Porto Santo ferry fare you may see quoted is the resident price after subsidy. A visitor pays €72.02 for the summer round trip, plus a fuel surcharge.

So every fee, hour and closed day here is read off the official page of the body that sets it. Where the official source does not state a figure, the page says so instead of borrowing a plausible one. The detail is on Madeira trail fees, Pico Ruivo and Porto Santo.

Where the information comes from

Trail status, closures and fees come from IFCN (ifcn.madeira.gov.pt) and the SIMplifica booking portal (simplifica.madeira.gov.pt). Opening hours and admission prices come from the attractions themselves: madeiracablecar.com, telefericojardimbotanico.com, carreirosdomonte.com, montepalacemadeira.com, blandyswinelodge.com and museucr7.com. City and island information comes from visitmadeira.com, funchal.pt and the municipal sites of Porto Moniz and Calheta. Buses, ferries and the airport come from horariosdofunchal.pt, rodoeste.com.pt, SIGA (siga.madeira.gov.pt), portosantoline.pt and the airport's own site, and weather from IPMA. Each page names its sources.

Tour prices, durations, ratings and review counts are the booking platform's own published numbers. Practical detail, such as which cable car station serves which garden or where a levada walk actually starts, is cross-checked against several published sources and the operators' own pages rather than taken from any one of them.

What we do not claim

There is no invented author here, no character who lives in Funchal and no claim that someone from this site walked a particular levada on a particular morning. We do not operate or personally conduct these tours, and we do not inspect trails, gardens or boats or audit any operator.

We also hold no bookings. Every Check Availability button hands you to the platform the tour is sold on, where the price, the terms and the cancellation window are theirs. Official sources are linked plainly, without any tracking on the link, whenever buying direct is the right move, which for trail permits and several of the Madeira tickets covered here it is.

How the site pays for itself

Tour and activity links on this site are affiliate links through GetYourGuide: book through one and the platform pays us a commission, at the same price you would have paid going there yourself. Hotel and rental links on where to stay in Madeira run through Stay22, which forwards you to Booking.com, Vrbo or another booking site on the same terms. That pays for the research and buys nothing else, not placement, not a rating, not the wording of a recommendation.

Where the official source is cheaper or the only sensible option, the page says so even though that link earns nothing. The mechanics are set out on the affiliate disclosure page.

Corrections

IFCN closes trails for works and rockfalls, ferry fares change with the season and garden prices move every year. If a number here is out of date, write to us with what you found and when you were there. A corrected figure is worth more than a defended one.