I spent 2 months in Madeira between November & December 2023. After staying for a solid year in Berlin & going through an exhausting professional period, I was looking for something more quiet & relaxed.
The end of the year was an amazing period to visit Madeira! The weather was mild with sunny 25° afternoons & the pace of life was comfortable since we were outside the tourist season.
Madeirians (can we even call them that way?) are also very fond of end-of-year celebrations like Christmas & New Year’s Eve so we could enjoy the luminous street decorations & Christmas markets starting in December, which was truly enchanting.
Funchal is the capital of the island & pretty much the only “city”. Most of the activity takes places here so we would strongly recommend staying there when you visit. It’s a fairly walkable city.
I highly recommend staying in Funchal, the capital, for your entire stay & rent a car over 3-4 days to visit the rest of the island at your own pace.
You’ll find plenty of places to visit & see in my Google Maps, where I tried to classify them in the following buckets:
⭐️ Starred Places: these are my must-dos who are forever linked to unforgettable moments
♥️ Favorites: these are my favorite places that I really enjoyed, too, & would recommend you to try
🏳️ Visited:
🚩 Red Flags:
As I mentioned above, I came to Madeira with a relatively low energy level so being able to visit the island with low organisational overhead & while remaining flexible was paramount to me. Staying in Funchal was probably the best idea because I could do most of the things I wanted by walking or taking buses. I needed to rent a car only for a few days to visit the rest at my own pace.