What Is a Levada? Madeira's Trail System Explained

The word every visitor hears and almost nobody has explained properly

Spend more than a day on Madeira and you will hear the word “levada” from your hotel reception desk, your taxi driver, and every leaflet in the tourist office. Most of what gets said is some version of “it’s a lovely flat walk by the water.” That description is not wrong, exactly, but it leaves out almost everything that makes a levada different from a normal hiking trail, and it skips the one fact that changes how you should plan and budget for it. This guide sets out what a levada actually is, why the walking experience is unlike anything most visitors have done before, how Madeira’s official trail numbering works, and the rule — in force since August 2021 — that now governs almost every well-known route on the island.

If you have come here looking for a shortlist of the best individual walks, distances and route times, that is not this page: head to our best levada walks guide for that. This page is about understanding the system before you book a single trail.

What a levada actually is

A levada is an irrigation channel. It was built to solve a specific geographic problem: Madeira’s rain falls mostly on the mountainous, forested north of the island, while the farmland, vineyards and, historically, the sugar cane plantations that made the island’s early fortune sit largely in the drier south. Someone had to move the water from where it fell to where it was needed, across an island that rises to nearly 1,900 metres in places and drops away in cliffs and ravines almost everywhere else.

The answer, starting in the 15th century as Madeira’s Portuguese settlers established the first sugar estates, was to cut channels directly into the mountainside, often by hand, often on cliff faces, and often at a scale that is difficult to grasp until you are standing beside one. The network that resulted now runs to more than 2,000 kilometres — cut, extended, and maintained over roughly five and a half centuries, with plenty still in daily use for exactly the purpose they were built for: agricultural irrigation, not tourism.

This matters because it changes what you are actually walking on. A levada trail is not a path that was designed for people to enjoy scenery. It is a maintenance track, built so that levada keepers could walk the channel to clear it, repair it and control its sluices. Visitors have simply adopted these service paths as walking routes because they are extraordinary: they trace the contour of the mountainside for kilometres at a time, cutting through laurel forest, along cliff edges, and into tunnels blasted through solid rock, all while a channel of moving water runs alongside you, sometimes at your feet, sometimes below a low wall.

Why a levada walk is not an ordinary hiking trail

Because the channel follows a single contour line rather than climbing and descending like a conventional footpath, many levada walks are close to flat for long stretches. This is the detail everyone repeats, and it is true as far as it goes. What gets left out is that “flat” on a levada rarely means “easy” or “safe,” for a consistent set of reasons that apply across the network:

• The path is narrow. In most places you are walking a strip no wider than the original maintenance track, often less than a metre across, with the channel on one side and open air, a rock face, or a drop on the other.
• It is frequently damp. Water seeps, splashes and occasionally overflows the channel itself, and laurel forest canopy keeps sections shaded and slow to dry. Wet stone and packed earth underfoot are the norm, not the exception.
• Barriers are inconsistent. Some exposed sections have a low wall or handrail; a great many simply do not. Where a levada runs along a ledge cut into a cliff, the drop beside the path can be substantial, and there is often nothing between you and it.
• Tunnels appear without warning on some routes. Several of the most popular levadas pass through short or long tunnels cut directly through the mountain to keep the channel’s gradient consistent. Some are unlit. A route description that does not mention tunnels should be treated with suspicion rather than trusted at face value.

None of this means levada walking is dangerous in the way that, say, scrambling up an exposed ridge is dangerous. It means the walks demand a level of attention and preparation that their gentle gradient can disguise. Sure footwear, a working torch where tunnels are involved, and honest awareness of your own comfort with heights matter more on a levada than they would on an equivalent distance of flat trail anywhere else. Our safety on the levadas guide goes through this in more detail, and what to wear in the mountains covers footwear and layers specifically.

The PR system: how Madeira’s official trails are organised

Not every levada is an official walking route, and this distinction matters. Madeira’s government maintains a network of roughly thirty signposted trails under the designation PR, short for Pequena Rota (“small route” in Portuguese). These are numbered PR1 through PR25 on Madeira itself, with PR1 PS and PR2 PS covering the two official routes on Porto Santo. Each PR trail has a name, an official difficulty grading, a marked start and finish point, and — this is the part that has changed the whole landscape of levada walking on the island — its own individual booking requirement.

Not every levada in the 2,000-kilometre network carries a PR number. Many stretches of channel path exist outside the official system entirely: unmarked, unmaintained for walkers, and not part of the booking scheme described below. These sections are not a loophole around the fee system. They are simply not set up for visitors, and walking them without local knowledge is not something we recommend. If a route is worth doing, it is very likely one of the PR-numbered trails, and it is very likely subject to the rule below.

The rule that changed everything: paid access since August 2021

This is the single fact most visitor guides to Madeira get wrong or leave out, and it is the one most likely to catch out anyone planning a levada-heavy trip on an old assumption. Since 1 August 2021, walking an official PR trail on Madeira requires a paid permit. The fee sits at roughly 3 euros per person, per trail, per day — inexpensive on its own, but a cost that adds up quickly if you are planning several different walks across a week, and one that needs to be booked, not simply paid at a gate.

Permits are issued online in advance, through the Madeira regional government’s official booking portal at simplifica.madeira.gov.pt, where you select the specific trail, the date you intend to walk it, and the number of people in your group. You are expected to have proof of that booking with you — on your phone or printed — because checks do happen at trailheads and along some routes, and a group without a valid permit can be turned away.

There is no official system-wide day pass or multi-trail bundle: the fee is levied trail by trail, day by day. A week that includes four or five different PR walks means four or five separate bookings, each carrying its own small charge. It is not a large sum in absolute terms, but it is real money and a real administrative step that a surprising number of visitors still arrive on the island not knowing about, because it postdates most of the guidebooks and blog posts still circulating online. Our dedicated guide to permits and trail fees walks through the booking process step by step.

Whatever else you take from this page: never describe or expect an official levada trail as free. It was, for centuries. It has not been since 2021.

Trail closures: the other thing that catches people out

Madeira’s north-facing slopes, where much of the levada network runs, catch a great deal of rain, and the terrain the paths cross is genuinely unstable in places — cut into cliffs, crossing streambeds, running below slopes that shift after heavy weather. Official trails close, sometimes for days, sometimes for longer, after significant rainfall or a landslide, and a closure is not always announced clearly enough to reach every booking page in real time.

The practical habit worth building before any levada walk is checking current trail status with the Instituto das Florestas e Conservação da Natureza (IFCN), the body responsible for the island’s protected trail network, particularly if there has been rain in the days beforehand. Arriving at a trailhead to find a closure barrier, having already booked and paid, happens often enough that it is worth building a status check into your morning routine on any hiking day, not just treating it as an optional extra.

Choosing where to base yourself for levada walking

Because the network spans the whole island, where you are staying shapes which trails are realistic as a half-day outing versus a full expedition involving transfers. Walkers based in or near Funchal have easy road access to some of the island’s best-known routes but will still need transport — a hire car, taxi, or organised transfer — to reach most trailheads, since almost none sit within walking distance of the capital itself.

The Laurissilva forest, the ancient laurel woodland that much of the north-facing levada network passes through, is itself a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the backdrop for many of the routes described elsewhere on this site, including those around Rabaçal and Ribeiro Frio.

For a first visit built specifically around walking, our Madeira hiking week itinerary sequences several different trail types — forest levadas, a high mountain route, and a shorter half-day option — across seven days, with rest and travel time built in rather than back-to-back full days on foot.

Getting a guided introduction rather than going it alone

Because permits, transfers, tunnel sections and trailhead access all add friction that a first-time visitor has to work out from scratch, a guided walk removes a lot of that uncertainty on your first outing, even if you plan to walk independently later in your trip. A guide who already holds the trail permits, knows the current closure status, and carries a proper torch for the tunnel sections takes several of the genuine risk factors described above off your plate.

For the forest and cliff-path side of the network, a guided walk to the Vereda do Fanal on PR13, with transfer included from Funchal combines a proper levada-adjacent forest walk with transport sorted for you, which matters given how few of these trailheads sit near any town.

Closer to Funchal and considerably shorter, a early-morning walk along the Levada dos Balcões, timed for sunrise over the peaks, is a realistic option even for visitors nervous about a first levada experience, since the route is short and well within easy reach of Ribeiro Frio. For something longer and more demanding, a full-day guided hike from Ribeiro Frio through to Portela covers a proper cross-section of levada path, forest and viewpoint in a single outing, with a guide managing the logistics.

What to check and bring, in short

Before booking any official trail, confirm three things: that the trail is currently open (via IFCN), that you have booked and can show your permit, and that you know whether the specific route you have chosen includes a tunnel section, in which case a head torch is not optional. Beyond that, sturdy shoes with real grip — trainers are a common and regrettable choice on wet stone — a light waterproof layer regardless of how the weather looks at sea level, and water are the basics that apply to nearly every levada walk on the island, short or long.

Levada walking is, without much exaggeration, the single activity that most visitors to Madeira come away naming as the highlight of their trip. It earns that reputation honestly: nowhere else offers quite this combination of forest, water, cliff and calm, often within a couple of hours of a beach resort. Understanding it properly before you go — what it costs, how it is regulated, and what “flat” does and does not mean here — is what turns a good walk into a well-planned one.