Simplifying My Trip: Portugal by Train

Starting tomorrow, I’m heading to Portugal for 15 days, my first of what I hope will be two trips across the Atlantic to Europe this year. I don’t have any plans yet for the second trip, but I always try to travel at least twice a year, as time and budget allow.

Planning this trip to Portugal involved more back-and-forth than I expected. I had a lot of options on the table, and I tend to get a bit ambitious when it comes to flights. In my mind, once you’re in Europe, it feels easy to bounce between cities and destinations. Flights are plentiful and often affordable, so it’s tempting to try to fit in as many places as possible in one trip.

But while flights are definitely available, that doesn’t always mean they’re convenient. Many of the options I looked at had awkward departure times, either too early or too late in the day. If flights were the only factor, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But once you factor in accommodation logistics, such as check-in and check-out times, it becomes more complicated. I kept running into situations where I’d be leaving an Airbnb or hotel with nowhere to go for hours, or arriving far too early to check in. With so many possible destinations, I didn’t want to deal with that kind of inconvenience or end up paying for an extra night to make the timing work. That quickly started pushing the budget beyond what I was comfortable with.

Time was another big consideration. Even a short flight can take up a good chunk of your day once you factor in getting to the airport, waiting around, and potential delays. I didn’t want to spend my time in Europe sitting in airports; I’d much rather be out exploring.

Porto - 2022

It Had to Be Direct

It really irks me when I need to travel West before ultimately heading East across the ocean. When choosing a destination, you may see that Montreal or Toronto is the first stop on connecting flights. However, with new European destinations popping up, that can more easily be avoided. There are still connecting flights to many destinations; you land somewhere in Europe before continuing.

I did not want any connections. There is always a chance of delays or cancellations, but taking the connecting flight out of that equation eliminates at least one of those possibilities. My first destination was going to be a direct flight, and, as a rule, direct flights over the Atlantic are overnight. Many people hate these overnight flights, and I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of them; I don’t mind them, nonetheless. However, this depends on whether I can sleep on the plane. I don’t usually have much issue doing this, but when I do, it makes for a pretty brutal first day upon arrival. Doing something constantly, though, helps, as I can power through the first day, but once I sit down in the hotel or Airbnb, I’m wiped. It’s usually an early night, which results in getting an early start on the next day.

I had various options for my flight, and this is what took me a while to figure out, as I was looking at connecting flights in the arrival airport. I knew that I would be spending time in the direct destination city, but would be moving on to other places from there. Since I had to return to the destination I was arriving at, as I would be flying home from there, I looked at flight routes that would take me to various locations while still leaving plenty of time to fly back home.

Choosing Lisbon

Paris was one of the most convenient in terms of flight schedules. Plenty of options for getting out of Paris and many arriving in, however, I was just in Paris last year, and even though it’s great, the previous visit was too recent to warrant another few days in Paris. Barcelona was similar after a recent visit, and Madrid was enticing because it’s well-connected. Madrid is a place I want to visit at some point, and so are Copenhagen and Zurich; however, they are quite expensive.

As a result, I was zoning in on Lisbon. It’s been four years since I was in Lisbon, and with plenty of other places in Portugal I’d like to see, it seemed like a good option. The last time I was in Portugal, we took the train to Porto, too, and honestly, that visit was a bit compromised. The weather was awful, with a storm going through on the days we were there. So there was plenty of rain and gloomy weather. Leaving, I knew I wanted to come back with hopefully better weather.

So my thought was, I’d get to explore Lisbon again and get back to Porto on the trip. As a result, I booked the trip to Lisbon. I wasn’t going to spend all my time in those two cities, so I still had other things to consider. Where else to go and how to get there. What were flights going to cost? Did the flights actually work for my timing? How expensive was it going to be to stay there?

Deciding Next Stops

Since I was flying into Lisbon, that, along with Porto, was the two definite spots: I’ve been to Porto before, so I know how convenient it is to get there from Lisbon. This is where things started to get tricky. I initially thought that flights were cheap. That I could pretty much go anywhere that lets me return to Lisbon eventually. I will say flights are somewhat affordable, but once you start the booking process, costs add up. Also, convenient flight times come at a premium.

The flight time itself was reasonable, at most, probably taking three hours to get anywhere I was considering. However, I would need to factor in time to get to the airport, wait for the flight, and handle everything else required there. It may sound like I’m really particular here with time, but even one delay can eat up an entire day. I wanted to maximize my time on this trip while minimizing the tedious parts as much as possible.

I looked at Split, Prague, Ljubljana, Lake Garda, and even some places in southern Italy and as far as Greece. I think I was being a bit ambitious here with destinations; a few of them would have worked out, but I realized that I had other areas in Portugal and Spain I wanted to see, so why not just stay close as much as possible, and look at other destinations, hopefully another time?

The closest I got to booking a flight from Porto was to Valencia, Spain. In fact, I tried to book with two airlines. The first was with TAP Portugal, and I went through the booking process with ease; however, once I tried to complete my transaction, the price increased, and I had to start again! I’ve never seen a price change in the minutes it takes to book a flight, but whatever. I started again. I searched for the flight, and it was gone. The flight didn’t increase in price; it was outright cancelled.

Although flights were still available, the only option left was Ryanair, but booking turned into a frustrating experience. The website wouldn’t let me select Canada as my country of residence, making it impossible to enter a phone number, a required field. The option was available in the app, but I ran into issues checking out. The whole thing was beginning to discourage me from trying to fly anywhere else.

After some deliberation, I decided to skip flights and expand my options by train. As a result, I was looking at what was next in Portugal.

Staying in Portugal

So I have Lisbon and Porto decided, and my next step is to choose the other stops. After my attempts, and the more I thought about it, I wanted to stay relatively close to Lisbon and avoid additional flights. As a result, I started researching what I wanted to do in Portugal. In addition to its most popular destinations of Lisbon and Porto, Portugal has numerous smaller cities and towns worth visiting. Sintra, Coimbra, Braga, Aveiro, Óbidos, Nazaré, and the Algarve region, to name some. And with Portugal being a relatively small country, everything isn’t too far away.

With the train connecting many, I decided to stay in Portugal and book trains between my stops. I’ll be travelling north and stopping in Coimbra, Aveiro, and Porto, then heading back to Nazaré and then to Lisbon.

Train travel in Portugal is great. It’s not only well-connected, but also much less stressful. No airport security, no long waits, no expensive airports, no traffic, and no long check-in times. For Portugal’s small size, trains are often more time-efficient. And train tickets are affordable, especially when booked in advance, and more spacious and comfortable. The train stations are closer to the cities as well. While airports usually require transportation into the city with Uber, for example, train stations are situated in the city, making it convenient to arrive and depart without extra transportation costs.

Conclusion

The foundations for this trip started not long after my return in September last year. Sometimes my plans seem a little too ambitious for the time I have there, and, looking at the flight times, costs, and overall inconvenience, I’m glad I decided to stay in Portugal and travel by train within the country. I’ll be travelling north by train from Lisbon through Coimbra, Aveiro, and Porto, then heading back through Nazaré before returning to Lisbon. Those train journeys will free up some time and give me a more relaxed experience of the country.