When we added the Algarve to our trip, one of the main reasons was to see Benagil Cave. But choosing to stay in Lagos without a rental car made a trip to Benagil a little more complicated. There were plenty of boat tours that left from Lagos to Benagil but I read that it was a long, bone-jarring, sea-sickness-inducing trip. I posted a question about alternatives on the Travel Portugal FaceBook group and Antonio from South Explorers responded that he offered a Benagil by Boat and Algarseco tour that included ground transportation from Lagos to Carvoeiro. It was exactly what …

Located in Lagos less than 5 minutes from Porto Mós beach, Belmar Spa & Beach Resort offers apartments of various sizes from studio to 3 bedroom. The resort has 4 pools, including an adults-only pool and an indoor pool. There is a full service restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as an indoor bar and a poolside bar. We had a standard 2 bedroom apartment and it was a great space for our family. The shared space included a living room with plenty of seating and a kitchen with a small dining area. The kids room had …

We hadn’t originally planned to spend a night in Sintra but thought it would be a good way to break up the trip from Porto to Lagos, as well as keep us from having to use one of our Lisbon days for a day trip to Sintra. We are so glad we ended up spending the night at Chalet Saudade. Chalet Saudade is more of a bed and breakfast than a traditional hotel. Built in the 1890s and completely refurbished starting in 2009, this beautiful old home is full of charm. There are 15 different rooms, all named after trees: …

When we booked 3 consecutive days with Igor Araujo of Porto Tours & Transfers, I knew that he had the potential to make or break a large portion of our trip. But I had read so many overwhelmingly positive reviews that I wasn’t too worried. And I was right not to be – he was phenomenal and definitely took our trip to the next level. I first heard of Igor on the FaceBook group, Travel Portugal. I had read some posts where people were glowing over his tours but what really attracted me were the posts that he made himself. …

Even though our boys are getting older (and bigger!), we still prefer to stay in the same room while we travel so we have to look for hotels that have larger rooms or suites. The Family Room at the Hotel Catalonia Porto worked great for us. This 86 room boutique hotel is located in an historic building just up the street from Batalha Square. While not close to the river, we liked the location. It was close to Rua de Santa Catarina, which was nice for dining and shopping (since I had no luggage!). We walked everywhere from the hotel …

While we booked all our tours and transfers as a package through our hotel on Isabela, we created our own itinerary for our time on Santa Cruz. After tons of research and trying to piece things together myself, I decided to reach out to Johanna at book-ec to help us book everything. And boy am I glad I did! Johanna can book any part of your Galapagos trip – inter-island flights or ferries, airport transfers, cruises, day tours. Even Quito tours for your stopover on the mainland. You name it, she can do it.  You can use book-ec for a …

While we knew from the beginning that we wanted to stay at Iguana Crossing during our time on Isabela, we did a fair bit of searching before settling on Hotel Fiesta on Santa Cruz. Part of this was because there are just more options in Puerto Ayora and part of this was because the really stand-out hotel on the island (Finch Bay) was well beyond our price range. So we read through lot of reviews and poured over pictures before settling on Hotel Fiesta. And it turned out to be a great choice! It was about a 5 minute walk …

From early on in our planning process, I knew that we wanted to spend the majority of our time in the Galapagos on Isabela Island, and after just a little bit of research I knew that Iguana Crossing Boutique Hotel was the only hotel on the island that I wanted to stay in. The hotel itself looked absolutely gorgeous and its oceanfront views were stunning. As my research progressed and I started prioritizing the activities we wanted to do on the island, I discovered that Iguana Crossing offered packages that included all of my top tours. Wanting to maximize our …