We just got back from a wonderful, relaxing spring break trip to Portugal with our kids and I’m excited to share it with you!
I’ll be writing more in-depth about our experiences and where went, but this article will give you an overview of how we structured our family trip to Portugal – and what you might want to do differently.
While we’ve visited many parts of Europe before, particularly around the Mediterranean, Portugal was a distinct experience. Each of the large cities has a few “must see” attractions, but that checklist feels much more manageable than in other places so that it’s easier to page yourself and add in activities or sites that are specific to your own interests – or just decompress as you sit by the river at sunset with a good drink and a good book. Truly I think that no two families’ Portugal trips will look identical, and that’s part of the country’s charm.
Our Spring Portugal with Kids itinerary
4 nights in Lisbon
The vast majority of flights from North America to Portugal are overnight, so you’ll arrive in the morning. That said, given how unpredictable the Lisbon airport can be I don’t recommend making any huge plans your first day – between the massive line at immigration and the drive from the airport into the city, it was nearly three hours between landing and getting situated at our hotel.
These days we find that our kids are attentive listeners when we have tour guides, but are less focused when we parents try to fill that role. To make the most of our time in Lisbon I arranged a number of tour guides – that was particularly helpful because we happen to be a lot less familiar with Portugal than we are with other European countries.
I definitely recommend that you have at least some organization to your time in Lisbon, so I put together this Lisbon with kids itinerary that covers visits between 3 and 5 days. Here are a few of my top picks:
- We scheduled a late afternoon tuk tuk tour around historic Lisbon for 4pm on our first day. That was the perfect way to get oriented even when we were tired from the red-eye. Lisbon is also an incredibly hilly city, so tuk tuks are a popular way to get around.
- Food tours are a great way to get to know a new culture and a new location! It’s a great choice for day 2 because it helps you get oriented. That said, we actually didn’t love the one we booked. For reasons I discuss here, I recommend that you book Ultimate Lisbon Food & History Tour of Baixa & Chiado and add a note to request Helena M as your tour guide!
- We spent a full day in Belém, where we toured (and took a lot of photos in) Mosteiro dos Jerónimos and then visited Quake and the Palace Fronteira gardens – I recommend all three of those, and they give you a very balanced day.
- The Oceanário de Lisboa (aka aquarium) was a great place to spend an evening – it’s open late so it doesn’t conflict with other plans, and going late avoids most of the crowds.
- Our family also did a Jewish Lisbon tour, which was absolutely fascinating and pulled together many aspects of the city’s history.
Where to stay in Lisbon with kids
Lisbon is actually kind of a tough city for hotels with kids – so many of the buildings in the historic area are old enough that the rooms are small and have a maximum occupancy of two people, regardless of age. We found a great solution for our family, the Hyatt Regency Lisbon.
It’s a great hotel but it has some pros and cons. You can read all about it along with my other curated recommendations for where to stay in Lisbon with kids. If you want to skip my analysis of each, here are my top picks:
These are all in different parts of the city and each one has something unique to offer families.
Day trip to Sintra/1 night in Cascais
You don’t want to miss Sintra! It can be the perfect day trip from Lisbon or you can do what we did and spend the night in nearby Cascais for a totally different feel.
Sintra is home to five major palaces plus some minor ones. With the right guide, you can see several of them in a single day – we had a great experience on this private tour since we were able to pace the day in a way that worked for our family.
We visited the exterior and grounds of Peña Palace and the fantastical Quinta da Regaleira, plus we had a delicious traditional lunch in the village of Sintra.
Our tour guide also took us to see the wild and rough Atlantic coast, which is worth a stop if you have an easy way to get around.
We opted to stay at this lovely hotel in the heart of Cascais, a charming seaside town. That gave us the flexibility to see more of Portugal’s rugged Atlantic coastline the following day as well.
4 nights in Porto
While Lisbon has the big reputation for history, culture, monuments and more, our whole family liked Porto better so I’m glad we gave it four full nights.
While most parts of Lisbon come across as being 100% tourist oriented at this point, Porto felt like it had a much better balance of tourism and real life as a contemporary European city. You can walk through areas that have interesting things to see and still encounter Portuguese people there. Will that be the case in 10 years? I can’t say. But I’m glad we visited and I’d be happy to return.
Here are a few highlights of our visit to Porto with kids, and you can read more in my guide to the best things to do in Porto with kids:
- I initially booked this tile painting workshop for out daughter’s benefit, but it ended up being a highlight for all of us! There are a few workshops that offer similar experiences, but this one has a novel technique that allows you to pick up your tile an hour after you finish painting – important because some of the others require shipping your tiles back at for additional (expensive) fee.
- One of the highlights for my guys was attending an FC Porto match – we’ve been to matches around Europe and it’s a great opportunity for cultural immersion. The fans were lively without being rowdy, though getting a ride after the game was as difficult as you’d experience anywhere. FC Porto is one of the top teams in Portugal and it was an exciting game to watch!
Fun fact: The team is nicknamed the dragons after the Porto city crest, which includes the dragon as reference to the city’s resilience in the face of siege during the civil war that occurred from 1832 to 1834. - Yes it’s touristy, but the panoramic view from the Torre de Clérigos is 100% worth the 225 steps up.
- Speaking of touristy, Livraria Lello is the most famous bookstore in Portugal thanks to the supposed inspiration J.K. Rowling took when writing about Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series. It is a pretty bookstore and has been open for more than a century, so I think it’s worth a visit – and my kids definitely agree. Buy the mid-tier ticket to skip the very long line outside the store and you can apply the cost of the ticket to one of the special editions published by the store.
Don’t skip a visit to the Duoro Valley, home of Port wine. We partnered with DayTrip for a customized private tour and it was a wonderful experience. Our driver shared so much fascinating history about Portugal during our ride in his comfortable car, and the sequencing and details of the day were perfect. We had a few scenic stops and then a fun boat ride on the Duoro River with a very informative captain – the kids even got to drive the boat most of the time – followed by a lively traditional lunch. We capped off the day with a stop in charming Amarante at “golden hour”.
Where to stay in Porto with kids
A moment of honesty here: I think I booked six different places in Porto before settling on our final option. There was nothing wrong with the other places I booked, but I was really trying to minimize our out of pocket costs. Unfortunately there aren’t any great points hotels for families in Porto – nearly everything that can be booked on points only allows two or perhaps three people per room.
The good news is that the city is compact and walkable. While we took plenty of Ubers and Bolts in Lisbon, we were almost exclusively on foot in Porto (other than the soccer stadium, train station and airport).
But I really love the place we stayed in the end. It was a great choice for our family thanks to the excellent, walkable location and space for us to spread out. We opted for the 2 bedroom apartment, which was on the top floor but had elevator access. It could only have been better if there was laundry in the unit!
If that property isn’t the right fit for you, check out my other curated suggestions for where to stay in Porto with kids.
What I would have done differently
While our family is overall happy with how the trip went (except for the absurd challenges getting home), there are a few things we could have done differently… or that you might want to do differently! None of these are hard and fast but they can give you ideas for ways your family trip to Portugal might look a little different.
Speed up our time in the cities
For a variety of reasons, I left our days in Lisbon and Porto pretty open ended. While I’d usually have a firm plan for our sightseeing order and priorities, I opted for a different strategy this time: I allocated more than enough time and figured we’d kind of plan on the fly. I did ask my wonderful husband to fill in some of the details, but he mostly didn’t get around to it.
We brought this guidebook and this guidebook with us and I had pre-booked one tour or activity for each day, then we filled in the blanks based on things we read in the guidebooks or places we heard about from different guides.
Honestly even though we didn’t use our time very efficiently, my husband and kids were really happy with the looser pace and plans! With a few exceptions, Portugal is surprisingly a place where you can play things by ear in the low seasons – I’ve heard that Portugal in summer is much busier so I’d recommend having a firmer itinerary if that’s when you plan to visit.
I’m still on the fence about the pace of our time in the cities. On the one hand it was so nice to feel like we could sit back and have a drink on the waterfront in the afternoon, but on the other hand there’s a part of me that feels like an under-planned itinerary is a squandered opportunity. Let me know in the comments what your take is!
Add in a smaller city in Portugal
When we first started planning our Portugal trip itinerary, I had planned for three nights each in Porto, Lisbon and the Algarve. That definitely would have forced us to pack our time in the cities more!
But due to the non-existent flight options and questionable weather in March, we scrapped the Algarve and decided to save it for another trip. I feel comfortable with that choice, as the days we would have been there were cool and rainy. And while Lisbon and Porto really shine in nice weather, you can still have a good time even without the sun. If you’re visiting Portugal between mid-April and mid-September, adding the south is a great option for you.
As I shared in our itinerary above, we spent one night in the lovely town of Cascais after visiting Sintra. We all loved the relaxed vibe and ultimate walkability, though even there it began to pour as we were leaving town – that’s a real challenge if you’re visiting Portugal in March, so I’m jealous of the families who get spring break in April.
Trimming a night from one or both of the big cities would have allowed us to spend a night or two in Coimbra, which still has ancient architecture showcasing the many layers of Portuguese history – Roman baths, Moorish arches and more. There’s also the opportunity for a day trip from Coimbra to Tomar to visit the restored Medieval synagogue. Another option would be to stop in Aveiro for quiet strolling amid beautiful architecture and a ride on the canal boats.
Again, my family really appreciated the slower pace of our trip in this harried season of life but if you’re more of a go-go-go kind of traveler then don’t be afraid to speed things up and add another destination to your family’s Portugal itinerary.
Flip our itinerary (maybe)
We booked our itinerary to begin in Lisbon and end in Porto. There were two reasons I booked our trip that way rather than in the reverse order.
First, many people had warned me that the Lisbon airport is really a mess. They’re not wrong! Passport control for outbound flights can take between 30 minutes and three hours if you’re in the main line. There are faster lines available for Europeans, families with children under 2(ish) or people who have electronic passports (including the US and Canada) as long as everyone traveling is 18+. We don’t fall in any of those categories so we have to use the regular line.
Second, since our flight to Portugal would be overnight I was really hoping to score premium economy or business class tickets on points. There are more flights into Lisbon and they’re bigger/nicer planes than the ones that fly to Porto, so in theory there would be more availability in nicer seats.
Joke’s on me! We couldn’t get premium seats for our flight into Lisbon, though I did opt to pay a little extra for us to have “comfort” economy on TAP Air Portugal with a little extra legroom and slightly nicer seats.
Even worse, because of disruption to our flights we had to fly from Porto to Lisbon to get home at the end of our trip. So we ended up with three legs instead of two. If we’d started our itinerary in Porto and ended in Lisbon we would have had more options to get back to the US.
You can hear all about our flight saga – and what I’m doing to resolve it after the fact – in this podcast episode:
Wrapping up
Want to plan your own trip to Lisbon with kids? Check out these additional resources:
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