General Azores Trip Itinerary Tips

General itinerary recommendations

I recommend taking the approach of aiming to do the activities you are most excited about first and being ready to adjust based on weather (see detailed info about suggested activities here!). For example, it is not worth going on a hike with incredible views if the day is overcast and you won’t be able to see the views. You also don’t want to save something special for the end of the trip and find that you can’t go because of the weather and miss the activity completely. Therefore, I would approach each day with more than one possible activity in mind based on the weather. For me, this was most achievable by planning a set of days in advance and treating each day like a movable block in the itinerary. In addition to checking the weather forecast, you can also check these webcams which are positioned throughout the island at points of interest (sometimes one part of the island is sunny but another is cloudy!).

A week is enough time to see the main sites on São Miguel. You could stay longer and see some of the other islands as well or cut your time shorter on São Miguel and opt to see another island as well. We preferred to minimize our traveling time and only visited São Miguel.

Other tips

Currency exchange - 

I recommend bringing cash to exchange or bringing Euros. We encountered a few places (including parking machines!) where only cash was accepted. There is a place to exchange currency at the airport and also at Novacambios in Ponta Delgada (Av. Infante Dom Henrique n111). Note both of these will be closed on Sundays.

Water - 

Water is not free at most European restaurants! If paying for multiple bottles of water at a table will irritate you, I recommend making sure to rehydrate before going to dinner. We did this and were fine splitting one bottle of water at restaurants between two people each night.