Where are the Azores?

The Azores are an island chain in the middle of the Atlantic about 1500 kilometers off the coast of Portugal and around 2000km from Newfoundland, Canada. Administratively it belongs to Portugal and is distinctly portuguese in its culture. The islands are no small archipeligo but consist of 9 main islands, that can be divided into the western group, the central group and the eastern group.

Getting to and from the Azores

Getting to the Azores is pretty straightforward, as there is no other option of getting there than flying. There are many different airlines offering flights to and from the islands, most of which connect the Azores with most of Western Europe and even a couple of places in North America. But speaking from a budget perspective, many places are not an option, as they are only serviced by full service carriers like TAP or Lufthansa. Flights from many places, especially outside of Portugal itself, cost at least 100-150€ if you are lucky.

I would therefore advise you to fly to Lisbon, Faro or Porto first, spend a couple of days there and then continue to the Azores, as it is in many cases cheaper to break up the journey and you get to see something on the way to your destination.

Two airlines offer cheaper flights to the islands without breaking the bank. One is Ryanair, as expected and the other is Azores Airlines, the airline with its home base situated in Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel, the main island of the Azores.

Flights with Ryanair

Ryanair offers flights to Terceira and Sao Miguel. Each destination is served from Lisbon and Porto. It is in theory the cheapest option as there are flights starting around 15€. But this is with a catch. If you want to get that 20kg luggage, which you most likely will with the unpredictable weather on the islands, it costs an upcharge of at least 30€. Additionally the 15€ flights are uncommon on those routes, even in the off season, so don’t get your hopes up. I would say it is worth taking a look on the Ryanair website, but in most cases, travelling with luggage is actually cheaper and far more comfortable with Azores Airlines.

Flying with Azores Airlines

Azores Airlines offers flights to and from the Azores from Lisbon, Porto, Faro, Praia, Funchal, Barcelona, Paris, Montreal, Boston, Toronto and New York. They have pretty cheap flight packages starting from 42€ without checked baggage and 54€ with checked baggage from the Portuguese Mainland. When we flew to the islands, we chose them and were pleasently surprised. New aircrafts, comfortable seats and even a small snack was served, which we did not expect.

All in all I would advise everybody to do an intermediate stop on the Portuguese mainland and then continue onwards. We spent a couple days on the Algarve before we took the flight to Ponta Delgada and that in itself could have been our holiday destination.

Ways to travel between the islands

Flying

To travel between the islands you have two choices. Taking the plane, which offers more flexibility and and actually connects all islands or take the ferry if you are travelling in the summer. During the winter, almost all ferry services are cancelled, mostly because of the stormy seas, so flying is your only option. Azores Airlines is the only airline serving inter-island transport needs and operate a fleet of De Havilland Dash-8-400 and Dash-8-200 aircraft. When choosing islands to visit, we oriented ourselves around our 40€ a day maximum budget, which is pretty tight for the Azores, when including the flights.

Our strategy was to book through their website and basically let the price decide, what places to visit, as they have a mechanic that allows you to book multiple flights at once and if you play around a bit, you can get a pretty interesting roster of combinations, that dont brake the bank. As practically all islands are worth visiting, you cannot go wrong.

What we decided on was to fly from Sao Miguel to Flores and from Flores to Faial, which cost us 143€ with checked baggage. You can go cheaper but we wanted to visit Flores, the most western island, which is further away. It was the highligt of our trip and you can read everything about it in our guide. Ending in Faial also gave us the possibilty to visit Pico, as that Ferry operates year-round.

Ferries

Taking the ferry is interesting, as they are much cheaper than flying, thought it is, as said, only an option in the summer months on some longer lines. You can book ferry tickets and see routes on the website of Atlânticoline. Basically ferries are tricky, because of the rough seas around the islands. To understand, where you can find which destinations by ferry, you have to understand the location of the islands.

In the western group, so between Flores and Corvo, there exists a ferry line, though it runs only in the summer months. When we visited Flores in February, the only option was flying to Corvo, which we did not do, as the costs for such a trip where too high for us.

In the central group there are multiple year-round ferries operating between Faial, Sao Jorge and Pico, as all 3 islands are pretty close together. I recommend taking the ferry here, as you save a lot compared to flying and it does not take longer than 1,5h. Additionally you get to enjoy the stunning views of the Pico volcano and the cliffs of Sao Jorge from sea. It is an experience in itself. The tickets cost between 12€ and 25€ depending on the route.

In the eastern group, there exists a seasonal ferry connection twice a week between Sao Miguel and Santa Maria, though I read reports, that it is out of operation right now, but I cannot check, whether that information is true and when it will be running again.There is no ferry connection between the different island groups !!!

How to get around on the islands?

To keep it short, no you cannot really use public transport to get around apart from Faial island. There are some occasional busses, but they are far between and not useful for tourists at all. You have to get a rental car. And that is where most people look at the prices for those rentals and quit their travel plans, as in summer months, they can skyrocket to astronomical proportions.

To give you an idea, in peak season you pay at least 700€ for a car for a week on some islands with limited supply like Flores. My tip here is again to travel in the off season. We actually got the cheapest rentals out of all of our trips here in the Azores. We rented 3 times and paid 9€ a day on Sao Miguel, 13€ a day on Flores, and 16€ a day on Pico, excluding gas.

The only island where we did not get a car, was on Faial. The island is not that big and as we got accomodation in the biggest city Horta we could take the bus to basically any destination from there. We also rented bikes here, there is an amazing rental service, I can highly recommend.

How to find cheap accomodation?

I recommend booking your accomodation far in advance, when travelling in the high season, as they can sell out especially on the smaller islands like Flores. In the off season, your best bet is actually to book on short notice, as all the summer accomodations are empty and the owners lower prices on websites like Booking.com when you book just a couple days in advance. For example we got an accomodation with a private room and a jacuzzi for just 26€ per night on Sao Miguel. Fantastic value for money.

A personal recommendation would be the Azoris Faial Garden Hotel on the island of Faial, which in winter offers some good deals. For 27€ per person per night we stayed there two nights. They have a Spa area and the most amazing breakfast view of the bay and Mt Pico, that I have ever seen. My biggest recommendation goes to an AirBnB on Flores the Casa Citrina, where you can stay in a cozy guest room in a green farmers estate with a welcoming french family. It was very high quality and we immediately felt at home.

Activities to do on a budget

Where should I begin, the Azores are an outdoor destination, there are no big cities and although they have a rich culture with amazing summer festivals, people mainly visit for the nature. They have the greenest gras I have ever seen and the freshest air I have ever smelled. Most nature activities include some sort of hiking around the mountainous islands.

That in itself is always free apart from the climb on top of Mt Pico, which costs 15€ per person. If sport is your thing you might also want to go surfing, which is still a bit unknown apart from certain spots in the Azores. I can highly recommend my guide on surfing in Morocco as a guide to surfing in the Atlantic if you are new to it.

Every trip also includes a visit to one of the many lava rock formations around the coast line where you can swim in the ocean water. Other free activities include a visit to the pineapple plantations in Ponta Delgada or watching the surfers in Ribeira Grande, where the beach is definitely worth a visit for sunset aswell.

Things that cost money include the thermal pools on Sao Miguel (around 6 to 12€ each). I would recommend to go to one in the mountains and visit the free one on the western most point on Sao Miguel, that only work during middle tight.

Travel in the Off season, there is still a lot to see

My biggest tip overall here is to travel in the off season. Prices for cars, flights and accomodation are really low, we managed to do our 23 day Azores trip with 46€ a day (a bit more than we planned) with all expenses included. Furthermore flights and ferries sell out quickly in high season, which requires a lot more planning. We planned our trip around 1 week in advance, so we really had that flexibility.

Additionally, attractions like the thermal springs on Sao Miguel are not booked out for weeks, you can just go the same day and it does not feel crushed by tourism. On many hikes we did, we were the only ones around. Basically, seeing islands with almost zero tourists was a really relaxing experience. We got to experience it the way, the locals get to.

Another tip: If you have an activity or a hike that ends in a place other than your car, don’t refrain from trying to hitchhike. We tried it several times got rides in 10 minutes or less. And you get to hear the stories from other tourists or from people living on the islands.

Something, that might not everybody will like, but we enjoyed a lot, is the roughness of the island weather conditions. I would compare it to visiting Irelands west coast or Iceland, so be prepared, but we liked exactly that.

What drawbacks does the Off season have?

Rough weather

Travelling in the Off season has some obvious drawbacks. One is the weather. It is not a cozy 26°C but more likely something around 16-22°C. Still not cold at all, but keep in mind, there will be short episodes of rain and stronger winds on any given day, so pack rain jackets and warm clothing. If it rains in the morning, it will be sunny in the afternoon, and the other way around. We even had two blue bird days.

Also the nature may not be as you expect it from Instagram posts. There will be a lot of semi-tropical greenery and lush fields, but none of the famous flowers so keep that in mind. In my opinion that is not a reason to not come here. It is no less stunning than in summer.

Another drawback is, that some activities are not really working. The Azores are famous for whale-watching which is not possible in the winter due to the rough seas. We were more into hiking, so this was not a problem. We still managed to climb Pico by planning our hike and other activities on the island around the weather.

Flight cancellations

Also keep in mind that flights can and will get cancelled if a storm with strong winds passes the islands. They will just rebook you at no extra costs, but you may be stuck for a bit. That is another reason why I recommend booking everything through the same airline. Especially when you want to visit Flores in the Off season, it can be a risky endeavour. When we visited, we stayed on the island for a week and during that time on 4 out of the 6 days the flights in and out were cancelled.

One thing that surprised us, but that only seems to be a thing on the western islands is the supply of food. As food only comes in by ship and the seas prohibite deliveries for weeks in the winter, the supermarkets were all out of fresh produce. We could only get canned goods and long lasting products there.

Our cost breakdown for a 23 day trip:

All costs are per person. We travelled as a couple and visited Sao Miguel, Faial, Pico and Flores. Apart from the 4 days on Pico we always had a rental car.