Madeira and Porto Santo: A One-Week Split Itinerary

Seven days is not quite enough to do justice to all of Madeira and Porto Santo, so this itinerary does not try. It gives Madeira three or four days built around Funchal and Monte, then crosses to Porto Santo for the back half of the week, where the draw is a single nine-kilometre beach rather than a list of sights. Anyone chasing the north coast, the Rabacal levadas or a sunrise on Pico do Arieiro should look at the full one-week Madeira itinerary instead — this one trades that ground for sand.

Trip overview at a glance

Day	Base	Focus
1	Funchal	Arrival, old town, first poncha
2	Funchal	Monte, cable car and toboggan
3	Funchal	Ecological Park hike, Camara de Lobos, Cabo Girao
4	Funchal → Porto Santo	Crossing day: ferry or flight
5	Porto Santo	Vila Baleira, Columbus House, beach
6	Porto Santo	Guided walk and boat trip
7	Porto Santo → Funchal	Return crossing, flight home

Day 1: Funchal’s old town

Land at Madeira airport and settle into Funchal, the region’s capital of roughly 105,000 people. Spend the afternoon in the Zona Velha, the old town, where the Rua de Santa Maria is lined with painted doors from the long-running Arte Portas Abertas project and fills with restaurant tables after dark.

Walk the marina and the promenade before dinner. This is also the evening to try a poncha — rum, honey and lemon stirred with a wooden caralhinho — either in the old town or on a short taxi ride out to Camara de Lobos, the fishing village where the bars around the harbour are the real reference point, not the touristy versions served everywhere else.

Day 2: Monte and the cable car

Start at the Mercado dos Lavradores, the 1940s Art Deco market, for fruit and the fish hall where the black scabbardfish, espada preta, comes up from deep water. Be wary of stallholders offering tastes of fruit before weighing and charging for it — a known trick worth knowing before you nod along.

From the old town, take the cable car up to Monte, roughly fifteen minutes and 560 metres of climb. In Monte, visit the Nossa Senhora do Monte church, where the exiled Austrian emperor Charles I is buried, and the Monte Palace Tropical Garden. This is also where riders line up for the wicker toboggan run — two carreiros in white and straw hats steering a basket sledge on wooden runners down the hill. It is worth knowing before you queue that the descent stops at Livramento, a couple of kilometres short of Funchal, so factor in a taxi or bus for the rest of the way down; it is a novelty ride, not a transport link.

a private 4x4 tour that covers Monte, the toboggan run and Pico do Arieiro in one day is the efficient way to see all three without juggling buses and taxis, and it’s the one concession this itinerary makes to the high mountain it otherwise skips.

Day 3: Ecological Park, Camara de Lobos and Cabo Girao

Rather than push into the high peaks, spend day three on gentler ground closer to Funchal. A guided walk through the Funchal Ecological Park introduces the island’s laurel-forest habitat and native flora without the logistics of a full levada day.

a guided hike through the Funchal Ecological Park keeps the pace easy and includes transport from the city.

In the afternoon, loop back through Camara de Lobos, where Winston Churchill painted in 1950, and on to Cabo Girao, a cliff of around 580 metres with a free glass-floored skywalk opened in 2012 — one of the highest sea cliffs in Europe and a genuinely vertigo-inducing stop. Spend the evening back in Funchal packing for tomorrow’s crossing.

Day 4: crossing to Porto Santo

This is the hinge of the week, and the day this itinerary treats most carefully. The Porto Santo Line ferry from Funchal takes about two hours fifteen minutes and runs once or twice a day depending on season — but it is genuinely, not theoretically, cancelled by Atlantic swell in winter, and disruptions happen at other times of year too. The 15-minute flight is the real backup, not a footnote, and worth pricing in from the start rather than discovering the need for it at the port.

Option	Duration	Reliability
Porto Santo ferry	About 2h15	Cancelled by heavy swell, mainly in winter
Flight	About 15 minutes	Weather-dependent but far less swell-sensitive

Whichever crossing you take, arrive in Vila Baleira, the island’s small capital, by early afternoon. Check into a hotel near the beach and use the rest of the day to walk the seafront and get oriented — this is a nine-kilometre stretch of continuous golden sand, the only real sand beach in the whole archipelago, and the reason half the week is being spent here.

Day 5: Vila Baleira and the beach

Visit the Columbus House in Vila Baleira, where Christopher Columbus is said to have lived after marrying Filipa Moniz, daughter of the island’s first captain-donatary, around 1479. Beyond that one sight, Porto Santo does not ask for a checklist — the rest of the day is the beach itself.

a guided walking tour of Porto Santo’s Unesco biosphere reserve is worth building into the morning if you want context on the island’s landscape and dune systems before switching to beach mode for the afternoon.

In the late afternoon, head up to Pico do Facho for the best overview of the island and its coastline, ideally timed for sunset.

Day 6: boat trip and open water

Spend the morning on or in the water. A short boat ride shows the island’s coastline and cliffs from a different angle, and the water off Porto Santo tends to be calmer and clearer than the more exposed coves around Madeira itself.

a rigid inflatable boat ride around Porto Santo covers the coastline in a couple of hours and works well paired with an afternoon back on the sand.

Use the rest of the day exactly as most visitors do here — beach, a long lunch, and no fixed plan. This is the point of putting Porto Santo in the second half of the week rather than squeezing it into a single day trip from Madeira.

Day 7: return and departure

Book the return crossing for the morning where possible, since it leaves a buffer if the ferry is cancelled and a flight has to be arranged instead. Back in Funchal, use any remaining hours for last-minute shopping in the old town or a final walk along the lido promenade before heading to Madeira airport for the flight home. Given the airport’s reputation for wind-related delays, especially in winter, building in a couple of hours of slack rather than cutting the connection close is worth the inconvenience.

What this itinerary leaves out

Deliberately, quite a lot. The north coast — Porto Moniz, Sao Vicente, Santana — the Rabacal levadas and the high routes around Pico do Arieiro and Pico Ruivo are all absent, because fitting them in would mean cutting Porto Santo back to a rushed day trip instead of the proper stay it gets here. Travellers who want Madeira in full, without Porto Santo, should follow the standalone one-week Madeira itinerary; those who want to compare the two islands directly before committing to a split week can read the dedicated Porto Santo versus Madeira guide, which lays out what each side of the crossing actually offers.

Madeira and Porto Santo split itinerary FAQs

Is the Porto Santo ferry reliable enough to plan around?

Not entirely. The Porto Santo Line crossing runs once or twice daily depending on season, but it is cancelled by heavy Atlantic swell fairly often in winter and can be disrupted in other months too. Book the outbound crossing but keep the return date flexible, or budget for the 15-minute flight as a genuine backup rather than a last resort.

Why only three or four days on Madeira if it’s the bigger island?

Because this itinerary deliberately trades depth on Madeira for a proper stay on Porto Santo. It covers Funchal and Monte well but skips the north coast, the Rabacal levadas and the high mountain routes around Pico do Arieiro entirely. Anyone who wants the full island should follow the one-week Madeira itinerary without the Porto Santo crossing instead.

Is Porto Santo’s beach really nine kilometres of continuous sand?

Yes. The south coast of Porto Santo carries an unbroken run of golden sand for roughly nine kilometres, which is unusual in the archipelago since Madeira itself has almost no natural sand beaches.

Do you need a hire car on both islands?

On Madeira, yes, for Monte and the east coast beyond the tram-friendly centre of Funchal. On Porto Santo, no: the island is small enough to cover by bike, scooter or on foot, and most visitors leave the car behind for those days.

How much luggage can you take on the ferry or flight to Porto Santo?

Both the ferry and the short flight handle normal holiday luggage without issue, though the flight has standard small-aircraft weight limits, so check the airline’s baggage allowance before booking if travelling with more than one case per person.

Is the Monte toboggan a way to get back down to Funchal?

No. The wicker toboggan, steered by two carreiros, only runs from Monte down to Livramento, a couple of kilometres short of the city centre. From Livramento you need a taxi or bus to finish the journey into Funchal.

What’s the best order: Madeira first or Porto Santo first?

Madeira first works better logistically, since Funchal’s airport is the main international gateway and Porto Santo is easiest to treat as a relaxing finale before flying home from Madeira at the end of the week.