Madeira is a mountain with a coast road around it. Book accordingly.
Which 4x4 actually reaches Fanal on a clear morning. What the Pico do Arieiro sunrise transfer costs. Whether your levada has the tunnel or the drop. Reviews of every tour you can book on the island.
Sunrise on the peak, the north coast, a levada and a boat off Funchal.
Four bookings and you have seen the whole island: the summit ridge above the cloud, the road over the top to Porto Moniz, one water channel through the laurel forest, and the bay the dolphins actually live in.
01The 5am onePico do Arieiro Sunrise Transfer Self-guided HikeA minibus to 1,818 metres for first light, then you walk the ridge on your own. The cheapest way onto the summit and the one that fills first.
02Over the topSkywalk, Porto Moniz, Seixal, and Fanal 4WD TourCabo Girao, Porto Moniz, Seixal and Fanal in one open-roof day. The north coast is nothing like the south, and this is how you find that out.
03Out of the harbourEcological Catamaran Dolphin Whale WatchingBottlenose and pilot whales sit off Funchal all year. The eco catamarans cut their engines and drift rather than chase.
04Water on the levelEnjoy a Guided Levada Walk in the Rabaçal ValleyA guided walk beside the Rabacal channel, deep into laurel forest that has been growing since before the island was settled.
The road to the north coast is the day everyone remembers.
Funchal sits in permanent sun and the north sits under cloud, and the drive between them takes forty minutes. Three ways to cross, what each one costs to board, and which corner of the island it hands you.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · Skywalk, Porto Moniz, Seixal, and Fanal 4WD Tour
West: Fanal and the poolsCabo Girao, the laurel forest, then swimming in lava at Porto Moniz.
East: Santana and the peaksTriangular thatched houses, the Ribeiro Frio trout pools, cliffs at Ponta de Sao Lourenco.
Inland: the Nuns ValleyDown into a crater village that hid from pirates for three centuries. Half a day.
All 67 jeep and 4x4 days →
The Madeira days that book out first.
Every Madeira tour we have reviewed →More travellers take these than anything else on the island, and each one earns the slot for a different reason.
1
Ecological Catamaran Dolphin Whale Watching
From Funchal Marina, you’ll sail aboard Magic Dolphin Eco, Madeira’s purpose-built hybrid catamaran, with land-based spotters guiding the crew toward dolphins, whales, turtles, and seabirds. Expect certified guides, two decks, large viewing nets, a Cabo Girão swim stop, and English or Portuguese commentary.
From · $40
Read our review →
2
Skywalk, Porto Moniz, Seixal, and Fanal 4WD Tour
from $72
3
Dolphin and Whale Watching Catamaran Cruise
from $41
4
Enchanted Terraces, Porto do Moniz & Fanal 4WD Tour
from $74
5
Porto Moniz, Seixal, Fanal Forest, Cliff Skywalk in Open Roof 4X4
from $75
6
Best of Madeira’s West Tour
from $42
7
Best of the East Tour from Funchal
from $42
8
Old Town Walking Tour
from $19
Levadas, two peaks and a canyon: Madeira on foot.
Two thousand kilometres of irrigation channel run through this island at a walkable gradient, and the ridge between Pico do Arieiro and Pico Ruivo runs above the cloud. Book the transfer, not the taxi: the trailheads are an hour from town and the buses do not go there.
- 1Pico do Arieiro Sunrise Transfer Self-guided Hikefrom $37
- 2Enjoy a Guided Levada Walk in the Rabaçal Valleyfrom $50
- 3Madeira Funchal:East Tour Pico Arieiro & Santana&Laurissilvafrom $37
Six corners of Madeira, and the best day out in each.
A skywalk hung 580 metres above the sea, tidal pools set in lava, a fog forest of thousand-year-old laurels, a crater village, thatched houses on the east coast, and the capital that most of it leaves from.
The whales never left the bay. Neither did the boats.
The seabed drops to two thousand metres within sight of the marina, so pilot whales, bottlenose and the occasional sperm whale feed close in, all year. Catamarans out of Funchal run morning, afternoon and sunset, and most of them swim you off Garajau on the way back.
Funchal is small enough to walk and steep enough that you will not want to.
Everything in Funchal →
The old town runs uphill from the marina in painted doors and cobble mosaic, the market sells scabbardfish and passion fruit you cannot get anywhere else, and the wine lodges pour the 1900s by the glass. Three ways to take it, in the order most people book them.
- 1Old Town Walking Tourfrom $19
- 2Private Funchal City Tour in a Tukxifrom $47
- 3Old Funchal Walking Tourfrom $19
The old town, doors and all
Rua de Santa Maria has a painted door on every building, an art project from 2010 that nobody took down. The walk carries on to the market and the Se cathedral, and it is over before the heat arrives.
Tuk-tuk to the viewpoints
The city climbs 500 metres in three kilometres. A tuk-tuk takes the hairpins to Pico dos Barcelos and Monte, waits while you look, and gets you back down. Worth it purely for the gradient.
Madeira wine, in the lodge
Madeira is heated and oxidised on purpose, which is why an opened bottle survives a year. The Funchal lodges pour Sercial through to Malmsey and explain the difference in an hour.
Seixal, Sao Vicente, Porto Moniz: the green half of Madeira.
North-facing slopes take the Atlantic weather, which is why the laurel forest survived there and the waterfalls run all summer. The old coast road is cut into the cliff with water falling onto it, and the black-sand beach at Seixal has palm trees growing out of the lava behind it.
North coast days out →
What a day out on Madeira actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The island is cheap by Atlantic-archipelago standards, and a good half of the best days here cost less than dinner in Funchal.
Old-town walks, the wine lodges, tuk-tuk viewpoint runs and the self-guided peak transfers.
The full-day standards: 4x4 crossings to the north, guided levadas, catamaran half-days and canyoning.
Private drivers, chartered boats and the small-group days that keep the numbers down on purpose.
Three things that only happen on Madeira.
Volcanic islands all have viewpoints and boat trips. Water channels you can walk for a hundred kilometres, a forest that drinks standing cloud, and two men steering a wicker sledge downhill do not exist anywhere else.
The Levadas
Settlers cut channels into the wet north face in the fifteenth century to carry water to the sugar terraces in the south, and kept cutting for four hundred years. Two thousand kilometres of them survive, each with a maintenance path beside it at almost no gradient. It is why an island this vertical is one of the easiest places in Europe to walk all day.
- 1Enjoy a Guided Levada Walk in the Rabaçal Valley★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,197 reviews
- 2Rabaçal: 25 Fontes & Risco Levada Transfer Self-guided Hike★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 841 reviews
- 3Madeira East Island Tour and Levada Walk★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 787 reviews
Fanal
On the high plateau above Porto Moniz, laurel trees a thousand years old stand in a field that spends most of the year inside a cloud. The trees comb water out of the air and drip it into the ground, which is how a forest survives on a plateau with no river. Go early: the cloud usually burns off by noon and it is just a field of old trees after that.
- 1Skywalk, Porto Moniz, Seixal, and Fanal 4WD Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 5,732 reviews
- 2Enchanted Terraces, Porto do Moniz & Fanal 4WD Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 4,930 reviews
- 3Porto Moniz, Seixal, Fanal Forest, Cliff Skywalk in Open Roof 4X4★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,631 reviews
The Monte Toboggans
Two men in white cotton and straw hats push a wicker basket on wooden runners down two kilometres of public road from Monte, steering with their boots and braking with the soles. It started in the 1850s as a way for growers to get down the hill quickly. It is still the fastest way down, and the road is still open to cars.
- 1Nuns Valley, Monte and Sleigh Ride Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,829 reviews
- 2Guided Tuk Tuk Tour to Toboggan Rides & Old Town★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 308 reviews
- 3Monte Tropical Garden & Toboggan Ride by Tuk Tuk★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 227 reviews
Four Madeira bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this island can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on sunrise, on water levels and on how many seats a minibus has, and none of those care what time your flight lands.
- 01Pico do Arieiro Sunrise Transfer Self-guided HikeThe transfer leaves in the dark to reach 1,818 metres before the sun does. There are only so many minibus seats, and the clear mornings sell out first.
- 02Canyoning Madeira Island – Level OneGroups are capped by the number of guides on the rope, and the canyons close outright after heavy rain. Wet weeks compress everyone into the same few dry days.
- 03Skywalk, Porto Moniz, Seixal, and Fanal 4WD TourThe forest is only the forest while the cloud is sitting in it, which is mostly early. Afternoon departures reach a field of trees in flat light.
- 04Guided Tuk Tuk Tour to Toboggan Rides & Old TownThe carreiros run to the cruise-ship calendar. On a two-ship morning the queue at Monte swallows an hour that you had planned to spend elsewhere.
Madeira makes its own weather, and it changes over a ridge.
The north is wet, the south is dry, and the mountain in the middle decides which you get. A washed-out morning in Funchal is often a clear one at Porto Moniz and vice versa, so the answer is rarely to give up on the day. Go around the island, go under a roof, or go down to the water.
- 1Old Town Walking Tourfrom $19
- 2Eastern Madeira: Full-Day Tour with Rum Tastingfrom $37
- 3Taste Funchal: food, wine & cultural tourfrom $112
By place, from Funchal outwards
Funchal, the north coast, the peaks, the east: the week most people end up doing.
The newest Madeira tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Discover Ponta de São Lourenço: Private Classic Jeep in 4h
Read our review →
From Market to Plate: visit the market & culinary experience
Read our review →
Canyoning Level 2 – Ribeira do Cidrão- Madeira Island
Read our review →
Canyoning in Madeira: Ideal for First-Timers and Families
Read our review →
West Tour Full day 4×4 Jipe Tour Natural Swimming Pools
Read our review →
