Madeira Itinerary for Road Trips

Now, there are many places left out in this Madeira itinerary. For instance, I did not do more than one levada walk, which the island is famous for. Since I was staying longer on the island, I decided to save those for separate trips. Especially as quite a few of them start and end at very different places, making it a little complicated with a rental car. I also did not explore Funchal during this road trip, seeing how this was where I was based.

Day 1 (from Funchal):
1. Cape Girão (viewpoint)
2. Riberira Brava
3. Ponda do Sol
4. São Vicente
5. Seixal
6. Porto Moniz
7. Arco de São Jorge (overnight stay)

Day 2 
1. Santana
2. Ribeiro Frio (levada walk)
3. Canical
4. São Lourenço
5. Caniço (overnight stay)

Here are some snaps of what to expect:

Cape Girão

Ribeira Brava

Ponta do Sol

Sao Vicente

Ponta do Poiso

Seixal

Ilhéus da Ribeira da Janela

Porto Moniz

Santana

Levada dos Balcões

Ponta de São Lourenço

Road views

Want to do your own road trip?

To see the full beauty of this island, it is necessary to move around. It is possible to do tours, and there are quite a lot of tour companies willing to take you, but they split the island into different trips. Thus, you would need more than one tour. Another option is to rent a taxi to drive you around and help you with your Madeira itinerary. The best option, however, is to rent a car and go wherever you please at whichever pace you desire. This is what I did.

Now, finding reliable car rental companies can be a challenge. I can only vouch for the one that I chose, which was Auto Rent a Car. Note that the prices on the website are without VAT, you must leave a EUR 80 deposit for gasoline (which you get back again) and the insurance does not cover tires, windows and underneath the car. The rental experience itself was quite good, and there were no issues while road tripping nor upon returning of the car.