Getting Around

From the Airport to Your Hotel

First - the Airport has free WIFI in case you need it (choose VINCI Airports network).

You have a number of options.

• Taxi - these will run about 20-25 €. There should be plenty of them as you leave the airport. You don’t need to plan this in advance. This is more expensive than public transportation, but in our opinion it’s worth it after a long flight since it’s no stress and point-to-point.

• Uber - there is a page dedicated to the Lisbon airport which walks you through what to do and lets you get a price estimate.

• Public Transportation - the airport has a page with options. There is a Metro (subway) station at the airport. From the Metro website you can use the “Plan your Journey” feature to say where you are leaving from (Aeroporto) and where you are going and it will tell you what train to get on, how to transfer, etc.

• If You Rented a Car - your car rental agency will have a shuttle or driver that picks you up in the arrivals area. Make sure you confirm with the agency how the process works ahead of time so you don’t have to stress about it after you land.

Public Transportation in Lisbon

You can buy a Viva Viagem card at any Metro (subway) station and load it up with individual trip credits, cash amounts, or get a 24-hour pass. The card is usable on the Metro, buses, ferries, trams and urban trains. To use the card:

Simply hold your card over the scanner at the barriers at Metro and train stations to pass through. On Lisbon's buses validate your journey on the yellow card reader. The amount left on your card can be read and displayed at the barriers. If the barrier does not open, go to a ticket machine and reload your card.

Here is a cost breakdown for Lisbon public transit:

• 1-trip ticket on the Metro: 1.50 €

• 1-trip on tram or bus: 1.50 € if using prepaid card, 3 € cash in person (awkward to buy in-person on tram b/c they are crowded)

• 24-hour pass for unlimited use: 6.45 € (best value!! This is $7.33)

The 24-hour pass includes lifts, e.g. Santa Justa Lift, which is a tourist attraction in itself (it joins different "levels" of downtown, built by one of Eiffel's students, see below) - so we think that's your best bet for public transport, you can use it all day without worrying about how much credit is left. You can get the Viva Viagem card at a Metro station, and also “top up” or “zap” it with additional credit as needed. It would be nice to zap online but I don’t believe that’s currently possible…

Schedules

• Metro hours: 6:30AM - 1:00AM

• Bus hours: 5:00AM - 11:00PM, every 15 to 30 minutes (I think this depends on route, some can run later)

Links for More Details

• Metro Website

• Bus Website

Ridesharing Apps

The main ones to use in Portugal are Uber and Bolt (basically an EU Uber).

Uber has gotten expensive in the US, but trips are still reasonably priced in Portugal (try the estimator tool here).

At the end of the day - you should be fine with just Uber if you’ve already got it, but it’s nice to have Bolt as a backup just in case.

From Lisbon to Estoril/Sintra/etc.

General Notes

Portugal’s high-speed train service is Comboios de Portugal. You should book your tickets online in advance if possible (especially for the Algarve, as those can sell out in the summer).

Don’t buy tickets through a third party like Rail Ninja or Kiwi - they have no association with Comboios and if there’s a problem, you are likely out of luck and have to buy another ticket at the station. Book directly through the Comboios website instead.

As a side note, there is a really cool site called Rome2Rio - punch in any 2 spots on earth and it tells you how you to get from one to the other (planes, trains, roads, boats, …)

Close To Lisbon (Estoril/Sintra)

An easy way to go point-to-point is grab an Uber or Bolt. The Lisbon → Estoril trip is about 30 minutes by car.

You can see on Rome2Rio, the train from Lisbon to Estoril is only a few bucks and takes about 35 minutes. It’s similarly easy to get a train to Sintra.

Longer Trips: Porto (3 hrs, up north), The Algarve (3 hrs, south coast)

The Porto trip is direct from Lisbon, and for the Algarve, you’ll need to make 1 transfer (depends which town in the Algarve you’re heading to). If you make either of these trips, we recommend to stay for a night or two.

Renting a Car

When we visited in July 2021, we rented a car. We used car rental aggregator Discover Cars - which is kind of like Kayak or Expedia but just for cars. They gave us a lot of options and we picked Cael. It was a good experience with them. No matter which vendor you pick, make sure you bring your US Driver’s License - it is required.

The highway system is great - clear signage, well-maintained, clean rest stops that have good food and espresso.

Driving in cities is “hard mode” because the streets are windy/hilly/one-way - most were not designed for motor vehicles. You need to be a confident and somewhat aggressive driver. We recommend getting a small car, it’s very difficult or impossible to maneuver a big car in some spots.

The good news is that driving rules are basically the same in Portugal as they are in the US. You drive on the right side of the road, and you don’t need an International Driving Permit. You should be able to just get in the car and go, that’s what we did.

Some Tips

• If you don’t know how to drive stick, make sure you reserve a car with an automatic transmission. European cars are still mostly stick!

• GPS is a must. Make sure either your car has it built-in, or do what we did and make sure your phone’s data plan is good-to-go. If you have Google Maps, you can download sections of the country ahead of time for offline access if you’re worried about spotty connectivity (we did not have this problem, but better safe than sorry). Just in case your car doesn’t support phone charging, a power brick is a must-have. That saved us a few times on our long drives across the country.

• If you plan to drive out of the country (e.g. Spain), you will need to clear it with your rental company first.

• Make sure your car comes with a Via Verde transponder (Portuguese EZPass) - this is a small fee and is totally worth it. Just like the US, you can skip the tolls by going through the Via Verde lanes. Your rental company will tack the tolls onto your final bill when you return the car.

• Before leaving the rental office, be certain you are clear on what kind of fuel your car takes - gasoline/petrol or diesel. Diesel engines in “normal” cars are far more common in Europe than they are in the US. Be careful to use the correct fuel for your car, the Portuguese words are very similar.
  
  At the pump:

  • Gasóleo is diesel

  • Gasolina is petrol (regular gasoline in the US) - this will have octane options like 95, 97, 98 (like in the US where we have 87, 89, 93). For a non-diesel car, 95 is what you want unless you rent a high-end sports car that requires high octane.

• On highways, the “left lane is the passing lane” rule is taken seriously, in contrast to the US. Don’t drive there unless you are passing. There will be people driving faster than you, guaranteed. If you camp out in the left lane, at a minimum you will have people flashing their brights until you move.

• Expect a lot of roundabouts in preference to traffic lights. The Portuguese love their roundabouts. Remember, cars entering a roundabout must yield to cars already in the roundabout.

• If you have a rental car and want to drive to Pena Palace - it is no longer possible, you need a taxi or Tuk-Tuk! GPS info is crazy wrong, don’t try to follow it, trust us. We wasted a couple hours figuring that out for ourselves. The road up is super-hilly/narrow and tourists in rental cars would have problems and block the road for everyone, so public access was recently shut down.

• Getting rental insurance is a little complicated. You might already have it available to you through the credit card you book with (many cards offer this). And in our case, Discover Cars offered insurance. And finally, Cael - the actual rental company - offered it. For me, it was a little difficult to determine the right thing to do with 3 different options. If I had to do it over again, I would have only paid Cael’s insurance because it was unclear if my credit card or Discover Cars’ plan would have covered everything in case of a problem (you might be seeing a theme with travel bookings here…avoid the middleman when possible).