Is Madeira expensive?

I get asked this a lot, usually by people comparing Madeira against the Canaries or mainland Portugal. The short answer is that it sits in the middle, and that averages are useless because two people on the same island in the same week can spend wildly different amounts.

Here is what actually moves the number.

The things that cost money

Car hire is the biggest controllable cost, and it is not just the rental. It is fuel on an island where you are climbing constantly, it is parking in Funchal, and it is often an automatic upgrade because the gradients punish small manual engines.

Eating out has an enormous range. A plate of the day in a local place and a tasting menu with a sea view are both available within a few hundred metres of each other, and the gap between them is the single biggest lever on your daily spend.

Guided days and activities. This is my own business, so treat what follows as disclosure rather than modesty: my private day is two hundred euros per person for a group of two to four, and that includes hotel pickup, the tastings during the food walk, and a sit-down lunch. Pickup outside Funchal, Camara de Lobos and Canico adds forty euros.

The things that do not

The island itself is free. The viewpoints, the levada walks, the forests, the black sand beaches, the coastal roads. Some of the very best days here cost nothing beyond getting to the trailhead.

Natural swimming spots are mostly free or a couple of euros. The volcanic pools at Porto Moniz charge a small entry, and plenty of others charge nothing.

Cash or card?

Card almost everywhere, including small places. Carry some cash anyway for parking meters, small village cafes, market stalls and the occasional bar that has views on the subject. The currency is the euro.

Where people are surprised

Two places. Coffee is cheap, properly cheap, and people notice it in a good way. Taxis for long cross-island journeys are not, because the distances take longer than they look, and a fare that would be modest on flat ground is not modest here.

A word on prices in articles

I have deliberately not filled this page with restaurant prices and taxi fares. They change, and a page that quotes a number from two years ago is worse than a page that does not. The one figure I can stand behind is my own, above, because I set it.

If you want a realistic budget for your dates, tell me what you have in mind and I will give you a straight answer.