Sonia, thank you for your willingness to help. My husband and I will be in Portugal (first time) April 21 - May 21, 2026. We want a little history, but mainly we love hiking, great walks, beautiful nature - mountains, beach cliff walks vs. mostly being inside a palace, museum, or castle. I have tried to come up with a first stab of a rough itinerary, and posted this on Trip Advisor's Portugal Forum, but got zero response. My questions for now is (1) does this 1st draft sound like a good plan; (2) is the order correct? I've read travel books, and looked at maps, and even tried Chat GPT for help, but I'd love it if some people who know Portugal could weigh in. My rough idea for itinerary:
Arrive Lisbon - 4 nights (we'd do a day trip to Cascais)
Train to Sintra - 3 nights - sightseeing and 1 day hiking
Back to Lisbon to rent car - drive to Porto, with stops along the way, (Obidos, Nazare, Coimbra, Tomar, Aveiro - ??? stay over in one of these places - ???)
Porto - 3 or 4 nights - day trip to Braga and/or Guimaraes
Duoro Valley - 3 nights? Pinhão stay in a Quinta - hiking ridge walk to Provesende village, train or boat ride, visit wineries
Drive to Serra da Estrela - 3 nights Manteigas (?) - hiking, village sightseeing
Drive to Evora - 2 nights (?)
Drive to Costa Vicentina - 2/3 nights - (stay Odeceixe, Vila Nova de Milfontes, or ???) - hiking
Drive to Argarve - 4 nights - Carvoeiro or Lagos?
Back to Lisbon - drop off car
Depart Lisbon for States

I would love to start booking accommodations, (we prefer ABNB's for our longer stays; hotels are fine for short stays), but first, I'd love advice on the itinerary. The only thing booked at this point are plane tickets, so I can make any needed adjustments. Appreciate advice on the bases I have, or welcome other suggestions. Thanks in advance for your help.

@ MomofSix: If you want only comments from soniabobrick, fine. If you want others to comment, I would urge you to start your own thread.

Created stand-alone thread and tagged for Portugal

Assuming you are interested in comments from people other than soniabobrick....

FWIW, you might want more than 4 nights in Lisbon, particularly if you have jet lag while there (but read on about whether to start in Lisbon) and particularly if you think you’ll do a day trip from Lisbon. There’s a lot to do there!

Personally, I prefer to be in my departure city the night before a flight. What if something goes wrong? So instead of starting in Lisbon, my recommendation is to end there. I see that you already booked your flights, and the good news is that you can go straight from Lisbon’s airport to Sintra. You can get very specific directions for doing so on seat61.com

Why return to Lisbon to pick up a rental car? I believe you can do that in Sintra.

I enjoyed Obidos (a few hours), Nazare (an evening), and Aveiro (a few hours). I thought Tomar worth most of a day. I’m very glad I had two days in Coimbra – two very full days.

IMO, Porto itself easily merits at least two or three days. I know that many people visit Braga and Guimaraes in a single day trip from Porto, but FWIW, I thought Braga and Guimaraes each worth a full day.

Two nights in Evora seems about right for most people.

I haven’t been to the other places you mention and so can’t comment.

A month in Portugal at that time of year sounds delightful -- enjoy!

kja, thank you so much. This is my first stab at joining Fodor's and posting anything, so I didn't know how to start my own thread. It looks like this might be that at this point?

I have booked tickets, and unfortunately do have to fly into/out of Lisbon. I had hoped to get good flights flying into Porto/out of Lisbon, but from DFW, they were too expensive. I will keep checking though. I thought 4 nights might be enough time, as we are less into history than we are beautiful walks, nature. I will do more research on Lisbon to see what we'd actually want to do there, and can add another night if needed. We do plan to be back in Lisbon the night before our flight, (to return the car and not be rushed the next morning getting to the airport). I had thought maybe sightseeing in Lisbon might be less crowded and/or hot, if we stayed here on the front end, which is why we were staying there first. Do you think there is no difference in those things between April 21-25 and May 17-21?

I was coming back to Lisbon (from Sintra) to rent the car because Lisbon is where we end up, so I didn't want to have a separate drop off fee. I haven't checked prices, but if there is no difference, I could do that.

Thank you for your thoughts on Obidos, Nazare, Aveiro, and Tomar. I had thought the same about those places. I will research Coimbra more.

I can add time in Porto to allow for 2 separate days to see Braga and Guimaraes. Thank you for that tip!

Last question, did you stay anywhere in the Douro Valley that you enjoyed/would recommend? And if so, do you think 3 nights is the right amount of time? I've read some people wanted 4, others thought 2 was plenty. We would like to do the train or boat ride, (I've read train is actually better scenery?), and do some hiking.

Thank you so much!

kja, I would love other's to pitch in, but I'm new to Fodor's forums, and didn't know how to start a stand alone thread. It looks like maybe this is that now? I also just typed a reply to you, hit "Quick Reply" and the whole thing disappeared. I clearly need some lessons here! I'll try again, hitting "reply" and hopefully this one will work.

I had thought starting in Lisbon April 21 would be less crowded/hot than ending May 16-21. Also, because we are more into nature than cities and history, I thought ending in the Algrave might be a fun and relaxing end to the trip. As far as the car rental goes, I thought there would be a drop off fee to pick it up in Sintra/drop off in Lisbon. I will check into that.
Also I haven't done enough research on Lisbon to know what all we'd like to do there, but knowing we don't love crowds or cities is why I thought 4 nights might be enough. I can add one more night, if needed. Either way, we will be in Lisbon the night before our flight, for all the reasons you mentioned. We'll return the car the night before, then have a nice dinner and not be rushed the next morning for our flight home.

Thank you for your thoughts on Obidos, Nazare, Aveiro, and Tomar. I had similar thoughts from my research. I need to read more about Coimbra. I know there is the University with the lovely library; I just don't know what else is there.

We can add a day to Porto. I will research more about Braga - I just didn't know if that needed a full day, or if it could be combined with Guimaraes.

Thank you again for your help! Hopefully I'll post this correctly this time!

hese twp trip reports should help you with some aspects of your itinerary. Some skimming might be necessary to skip the irrelevant portions.

Trip Report: Portugal, May-June 2019
Trip Report: Portugal and Galicia, June 2006

Thank you, Michael. I will check both of those out.

Yes, you have a separate thread now. And your first response didn’t disappear. Sometimes, there’s a delay when you are new to the site.

Personally, I don’t think the weather in Lisbon would be different enough at the end of your trip than the beginning to justify an extra change of hotels. YMMV. See weatherspark.com for some excellent climate data.

I picked up a rental in Lisbon and dropped it in Porto with no drop-off fee. I suspect that whether you would face one depends on the company, the actual start and end points, number of days, etc.

I didn’t stay in the Duoro Valley. I did take the train along part of it (from Pinhao to Pocinho and back) and thought that was delightful. From what I’ve read, 3 nights would probably be sufficient unless you have a serious interest in wine tastings … but then you need to plan for transportation after your tastings.

I hope that helps! And welcome to Fodor's.

Welcome to Fodor's MomofSix58. You'll get the hang of it.

Thanks so much! I'll research car rental companies as soon as I nail down our itinerary.

I don't know a thing about Portugal, but as a travel planner I think 16 places (if I counted correctly) in a country is too much for only 30 days.

I also don't know who's Sonia?

@suze: The OP originally attached her post to a thread started by someone named Sonia. As indicated in post #3, a moderator moved it to form a stand-alone thread.

I don't think the OP is contemplating staying in 18 different places -- some are stops en route or day trips. In any case, I've often stayed in 16 or more places in a trip of less than a month -- though I know many people would not want to change hotels that often.