I landed in Lisbon March 11th from eastern Canada, my one way flight was 670$ CAD. A bit expensive, but I wanted to fly out pretty much within these few days so it was the best I could get, plus flights out of Canada to anywhere tend to be more expensive when in comparison to flights within Europe.

Once in Portugal I stayed in Lisbon for 5 nights, Sintra 3 nights, Coimbra 2 nights, Porto 4 nights, Braga 2 nights and Viseu 2 nights.

I stayed in hostels and AirBnb the entire time to save money, I basically always went with the cheapest option I could find for accommodation.

Prices for accommodation: Lisbon 75$ CAD Sintra 70$ CAD Coimbra 40$ CAD Porto 65$ CAD Braga 30$ CAD Viseu 50$ CAD 330$ CAD on accommodation total.

I don’t have good estimates for how much I spent on food, transportation and activities separately sadly as I never thought to record that all at first (I’m doing that Spain now though!). Some typical prices I can remember for things are; ~10$-15$ CAD for a dinner, my personal favourite from Portugal was a febra de porc, which is a pork “steak” with fries and a drink, I specifically only ate at restaurants farther away from the tourist scene though to save money.

To save money I also never used the metro in Lisbon or Porto (if Porto has one?), as I preferred to walk anyways, so the only time I used transportation was between cities. I remember a bus ticket from Lisbon to Coimbra was ~20$ CAD, which was my most expensive transportation cost in Portugal. Most other bus tickets like from Porto to Braga and Porto to Viseu were 8-15$ CAD, so not very expensive at all. Coffees are easy to find for ~1 euro outside of the tourist spots, though their coffees are extremely small compared to what I see in Canada, but I know nothing about coffee either. Beers were advertised at ~2€ quite often outside of the touristy area. A lot of churches in Portugal are free to visit, though some also cost, usually only 2 or 3€, major attractions like Jeronimos monastery are obviously more but I forget how much.

Some recommendations to people traveling to Portugal. I’d spend 3-4 nights in Lisbon, not including time for day trips. The 3 full days I spent in Sintra I do not regret at all and I would like to return for an additional 2 days sometime, perhaps. If you’re really interested in the stuff in Sintra and want to learn a bit and don’t just go for the pictures then I think you could easily spend 5 days in Sintra just exploring nearby attractions and then do some day trips from Sintra like Boca Inferno, Cascais and farther into the national park outside of Sintra. Personally I would suggest 3 days for Porto, and then do some day trips. Viseu is easily doable in a day. Cities like Coimbra and Braga however I would say are easily both worth 2 days. Make sure to give Guimarães a visit, it’s one city I wasn’t able to get to and I heard it’s the most historically relevant city in Portugal.

My favourite city of the entire trip (not including Sintra because that’s really for the national park) was hands down Braga. Braga was such a beautiful city, lots of gardens and green spaces, big enough for all of the international companies you may want like McDonald’s, lots of sights to see and in my opinion a great city to raise a family if you’re living in Portugal lol. It’s a very family friendly city imo, however I did hear Braga has a reputation for prostitution though I honestly never noticed while I was there.

Hostel recommendations: Portugal hostel in Sintra would simply fantastic. Incredible owners/staff, very helpful if you have any questions and they’ll even try to help you without you asking. Extremely clean. Free breakfast, comfortable beds, decent location, outlets and lamp on the wall beside the beds, no curtains for the beds though, that’s honestly the only negative thing I could say.

Allgo hostel in Viseu. Bedrooms have 3 people in them, one bunk bed with three beds, I had the bottom bunk so it was enjoyable, not sure how great it’d be for whoever’s on the third bunk though. Bathroom was spotless, cleaned a few times a day, 3 showers and 3 toilets and the hostel isn’t usually busy because most people don’t stay the night in Viseu. Free breakfast, lamp and outlets in bed AND this one has a locker and curtains!! Very kind and helpful worked/reception guy, good location and the hostel in general is very new so it’s quite modern inside.

Hostels I would suggest to avoid: M2Students hostel in Porto. Tiny room with improvised lockers that used bicycle locks.. quite interesting honestly.They crammed 5 bunk beds so 10 people into a room basically built for one so it was a tight squeeze, two people couldn’t walk by each other there wasn’t enough room. A bit outside of the real city center, but nothing too bad. The real problem for me other than the over crowded room was the bathroom situation, in my opinion it was disgusting. The bathroom was just old and run down, and also crammed and tiny, when sitting in the toilet my knees were pushing into the sink. The bathroom also doesn’t have a real shower/bathtub, it’s an Asian style shower meaning you can get the whole telephone booth sized bathroom soaked, altogether it was one of the worst bathrooms I’ve ever been in. I wouldn’t of minded the Asian shower at all if the bathroom overall was just a bit more spacious and newer, because it was really fun down and disgusting.

Another important tip for Portugal, a lot of cafes may not accept your cards if your transaction is under 5 or 10 euros I found, and plenty of family run restaurants and mini-markets outright did not accept card at all, I was a bit surprised by this as in Canada I can just tap my card for a 0.80$ donut and there’s no issues, but Portugal seemed to be a very cash based society still in that regard, so just be aware of that.

Overall my expenses for 18 nights in Portugal were:

330$ CAD accommodation 595$ CAD for everything else (food, transport and activities) sorry again that I didn’t take better count of how much each section was, I will do better on my Spain trip report!

Total expenses in Portugal were 925$ CAD ($700 USD) (620€) not including flights.

Sorry for my incredible formatting, but I hope this helps. If you have any questions regarding my travels in Portugal I’m happy to help anyone out :).