A week is the right length for Madeira. It covers all four faces – Funchal, the high peaks, the levadas and both coasts – at a pace that alternates hard days with easy ones, and it leaves room for a Porto Santo beach day and a weather buffer. Keep one base in Funchal all week and run out from it.
The two bookings that cannot wait: the PR1 trail slot, which is a €10.50 timed reservation on the SIMplifica portal, and the pre-dawn sunrise transfer. Both go early for spring and autumn. Everything else on the week can be arranged as you go from the Madeira tours and tickets available in the city.
Before you go: base, season, car
Stay in Funchal for all seven nights. It is central, walkable and where the tours collect you, so the whole week runs from one hotel with no packing mid-trip. On a week you could justify two nights on the north coast, but you will drive more than you save.
April to June and September to October are the best months – mild, green, and short of the peak crowds. Run the week on tours and transfers, or hire a car for the rural days only. Sort your airport transfer first so Day 1 is not spent working out buses.
Day 1: Funchal and Monte
The shape: the gentle opener. Walk the old town and the Mercado dos Lavradores, then take the cable car up to Monte, €22 return, for the Monte Palace gardens and the view over the bay.
Come back down on the wicker toboggan, about €30 per sledge for one or two riders, cash only. There is plenty more to do in Funchal on foot if the flight was early. Car needed: no.
Day 2: The Pico do Arieiro sunrise
The shape: the headline day, and the one that owns your clearest forecast. Do the Pico do Arieiro sunrise, then the PR1 ridge to Pico Ruivo if you are fit and the trail is open.
PR1 costs €10.50 per person, needs a timed SIMplifica reservation, and has been one-way only – Pico do Arieiro to Pico Ruivo – since it reopened in April 2026 after nearly two years closed by the 2024 wildfire. It is €7 with an accredited operator, and under-12s pay nothing but still need a booked slot. A guided transfer handles the pre-dawn drive and collects you at the far end, which matters more than usual now the route runs one way.
If Day 2 looks cloudy, swap it. On a seven-day trip you have four other candidates.
Day 3: A levada walk
The shape: flat ground, deep forest, a complete contrast to Day 2. The signature route is the Levada das 25 Fontes at Rabaçal, finishing at a spring-fed lagoon, with the short Risco waterfall detour worth the extra half hour.
Classified PR levadas need their own paid SIMplifica reservation, €4.50 per person – a fifth of what PR1 costs. A moderate half to full day, and it still works when the peaks are under cloud.
Day 4: The west coast
The shape: the island's most varied day. The west-coast loop links the Cabo Girão skywalk, the Porto Moniz lava pools, the black sand at Seixal and the mossy Fanal forest.
A 4WD tour drives the switchbacks and reroutes around the weather. Pack a swimsuit: the natural pools at Porto Moniz are the part everyone remembers.
Day 5: A boat day, or a rest day
The shape: deliberately the slowest day of the week, placed midweek so you are not wrecked by Day 6. Take a whale and dolphin trip from the marina, or a sunset catamaran cruise in the evening.
Use the spare hours for a Funchal food tour, a second run at the market, or nothing at all. Car needed: no – everything leaves from the city.
Day 6: The east coast or a second levada
The shape: the other half of the island. The east Madeira tour takes in Santana's thatched houses, the Ribeiro Frio laurel forest and the Pico do Arieiro viewpoint.
Two alternatives if you would rather walk: the longer Caldeirão Verde levada, or the bare, wind-scoured coastal hike at Ponta de São Lourenço, which looks nothing like the rest of Madeira.
São Lourenço is the exposed one. The peninsula is treeless, so there is no shade and no water on the trail, and it takes the full force of the wind on a rough day. Start early, take more water than feels necessary, and skip it if the forecast is hot rather than mild.
Day 7: Porto Santo, or a flexible finish
The shape: sand, or your buffer. Porto Santo has nine kilometres of golden beach that Madeira itself does not, and it is the natural finish to a week.
Be realistic about the crossing. The ferry sails once a day – out of Funchal around 08:00, back around 19:00 – and takes about 2 hours 30 minutes each way, with a tourist-class return of roughly €68 to €81. That is a long day for a few hours on the sand, so this day works only if you are happy with a full boat day, or you fly instead – about 15 minutes each way. An overnight is better still. The beaches guide covers the alternatives if you would rather stay on the main island.
If you do go, the beach runs the length of the south coast and the sand is famously soft, and almost everything on the island sits along it or in Vila Baleira, the one town. A bicycle or a taxi covers the rest. There is no need to plan the day beyond deciding where to eat.
If cloud pushed the sunrise or a boat trip later in the week, this is where it lands. Otherwise keep it slow: a last swim, a last dinner in the Zona Velha.
Practical notes for a full week
- Alternate hard and easy days. The plan above already does: peak, levada, coast, boat, coast, beach. Two big walking days back to back is how people spend Day 5 asleep.
- Microclimates decide your week, not the forecast for "Madeira". Funchal can be sunny while Porto Moniz is in cloud on the same afternoon.
- The mountain fees and rules are new. €10.50 for PR1, €4.50 for other classified PR trails, all booked through SIMplifica, all dating from the 2026 reopening.
- Book Porto Santo ahead in summer, when Madeirans holiday there and both the ferry and the hotels fill.
- Shorter trip? The 5-day itinerary cuts the second coast and the beach day, and the 3-day version keeps only the city, the mountain and one coast.
Featured image: Sebastian from the EU / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
