Madeira 5-Day Itinerary: How to Spend 5 Days on the Island
Five days is the most common length of a Madeira trip and it is the one that forces real choices, because the island has about seven days of obvious things in it. This plan takes the week we would give you and removes two days rather than compressing seven into five, which is the difference between a trip and a forced march. You get Funchal, one levada, the ridge, the far west and one coast day, from a single base, with nothing booked that you cannot move if the mountain is in cloud.
Five days in Madeira, day by day
- Day 1. Land, drop the bags, walk the Old Town and the marina, eat early.
- Day 2. Funchal: the cable car to Monte, the toboggan down, the market after two.
- Day 3. One levada, either Caldeirão Verde or 25 Fontes. Booked before you flew.
- Day 4. West in one run: Câmara de Lobos, Cabo Girão, Calheta, Paúl do Mar for the sunset.
- Day 5. PR1, the ridge from Pico do Arieiro to Pico Ruivo, then home.
One base in Funchal for all five nights, a car from Day 3, and two SIMplifica bookings made the week you book the flights. That is the whole plan.
What Five Days Costs You, and Why These Two Days Go
Our seven day itinerary is the same island with two more days in it, and the honest way to shorten a plan is to name what you are giving up rather than to speed everything else up. The two days that go are the north coast and the second west coast day.
The north coast goes first. Santana, São Vicente and Porto Moniz are wonderful and they are a two and a half hour loop with the stops, which is most of a day for a part of the island you will see once. On five days that time buys you a proper walk instead. If you badly want the lava pools at Porto Moniz, swap them for Day 4 rather than adding them, and skip the far west entirely.
The second west coast day goes with it. On the longer plan the west gets a driving day and then a slow day. Here it is one day that ends in Paúl do Mar for the evening, which gives you the arrival, the seafront and the sunset without the overnight.
What survives is deliberate. Funchal keeps two days because it is where you sleep and because arriving is not a day you can use. The levada and the ridge both stay, because two different kinds of walking is the thing Madeira actually offers that other islands do not, and cutting to one would make this a city break with a view.
| Day | The day | Driving | Moveable |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arrive, Old Town, first dinner | Transfer only | No |
| 2 | Cable car, Monte, the market | None | Yes |
| 3 | Levada walk, PR9 or PR6 | 1 h to 1 h 20 each way | Weather dependent |
| 4 | The west coast in one run | About 2 h 30 in total | Yes |
| 5 | PR1, then the airport | 45 min each way | Weather dependent |
What the table cannot say is which way to swap. Days 3 and 5 are the two the weather decides, so if the mountain is clear on the morning of Day 3, do PR1 that day and move the levada to Day 5 instead.
Five nights and a car for only three of them is the arrangement most of our guests land on. You do not need one for Days 1 and 2, parking in the Old Town is the hardest part of having one, and three days of hire is meaningfully cheaper than five.
Arrive, and Walk the City Into Shape
Madeira Airport is twenty minutes east of central Funchal and a taxi is a fixed 25 to 30 euros, so unless you land in the evening you have an afternoon. Do not spend it on an attraction. The walk that makes the next four days easier is down to the marina, east along the front into the Zona Velha, up through the painted doors of Rua de Santa Maria and back west along Rua da Carreira: about two hours, and afterwards you will know where everything is.
Do the shop on the way in rather than after you arrive, and eat early. On a five day trip the first dinner is worth booking rather than wandering for, because you will be tired and the good places fill. Peixaria da Avenida for fish or O Giro on Rua da Carreira for the local canon, both of which are in where to eat in Funchal.
Every way in from the airport, including the bus and the argument for picking the car up on Day 3 rather than today, is in the airport transfer guide.
Funchal: Up the Hill, Down in a Basket, Then the Market
Go up early. The cable car leaves the Old Town and climbs 560 metres to Monte in about fifteen minutes, over the rooftops and the bay, and on a clear morning it is the best quarter hour in the city. By eleven the cloud usually comes up the valley and the queue with it.
At the top, the Monte Palace Tropical Garden is worth the hour it will take from you: terraces down a ravine, koi ponds, tilework and a sculpture museum. The church of Nossa Senhora do Monte is two minutes away. Then take the toboggan down, which is a wicker basket on runners steered by two men in straw hats down two kilometres of public road, running since the 1850s. It stops at Livramento rather than in town, so take a taxi or the bus from there.
Come back for Mercado dos Lavradores in the afternoon, not the morning. Between ten and one it belongs to the cruise ships and the fruit sellers who price for them. At half past two the fish hall is still cutting tuna and black scabbardfish, the flower stalls are still there, and nobody will follow you up the stairs. It shuts around four and does not open on Sundays.
One Levada, and Which One to Pick
A levada is a hand cut irrigation channel carrying water from the wet north to the dry south, and the maintenance path beside it is why walking here is unlike walking anywhere else: nearly level, at altitude, with water on one side and forest or a long drop on the other. On five days you get one of them, so pick rather than rush both.
Both are classified PR routes and since January 2026 both need an advance booking through the regional SIMplifica portal, at 4.50 euros a person and tied to a date. There is no desk at the trailhead. The step by step is in our SIMplifica booking guide.
Levada do Caldeirão Verde
13 kilometres there and back from Queimadas, four to five hours, almost flat. It runs through laurisilva, the forest that has been on these slopes since before the last ice age, and ends at a waterfall dropping into a green bowl of rock. Four unlit tunnels on the way, so a head torch is not optional. Pick this one if you want the atmosphere.
Levada das 25 Fontes and Risco
11 kilometres return from Rabaçal, three and a half to four and a half hours, ending at a wide pool in a rock amphitheatre with two dozen springs coming out of the wall above it. Busier than PR9, and the climb back up to the car park is the part people forget. Pick this one if you want the photograph.
Both, and four more, are compared in the best hikes and levada walks in Madeira. If you would rather not drive an hour each way around a five hour walk, a guided day with Hiking Madeira takes the transport and the permit off your hands, which on a short trip is worth more than it costs.
The Whole West Coast in One Day, Finishing at Sunset
This is the compressed day and it works because the Via Rápida does the distance in tunnels. Leave by nine, be back by nine, and treat it as four stops rather than a drive. About two and a half hours of actual driving across the whole day.
Câmara de Lobos, twenty minutes out, is a working fishing harbour with painted boats on the shingle and the bars that invented poncha for the men who used them. Churchill painted the bay from the eastern promontory in the 1950s. Half an hour and a coffee, or an hour and a poncha.
Cabo Girão, ten minutes further, is one of Europe's highest sea cliffs at 580 metres with a glass floored platform hanging off the top. Two minutes is enough, and going before eleven means going without three coach parties.
Calheta, forty five minutes from Funchal, is lunch and a swim. One of the island's only two golden sand beaches, imported and held between breakwaters, which makes it the easiest water on the south coast and the only sand that is not black.
Paúl do Mar, twenty minutes further west, is the finish. The road climbs to Prazeres and then goes into the cliff: you drive down a tunnel bored inside the rock and come out at sea level in a village of a few hundred people under 300 metre walls. Walk the seafront, have something at Bar de Pedra, which is built into the rocks at the water's edge, and stay for the sun going into the Atlantic. This coast faces west, which is the entire reason to be here at seven rather than at two.
If this day sells you on the west coast, and it does for a lot of people, the answer on your next trip is to sleep out there rather than drive back. The village is written up in why stay in Paúl do Mar, and the three cottages in it are compared in where to stay in Paúl do Mar.
PR1, the Ridge, and Then the Airport
Nine kilometres one way from Pico do Arieiro at 1,818 metres to Pico Ruivo at 1,862, the highest point on the island, along a volcanic ridge cut and tunnelled through the rock, usually with the cloud layer somewhere below you. Three and a half to five hours, moderate to strenuous, and 10.50 euros through SIMplifica rather than the 4.50 the levadas cost.
Doing it on the last day is deliberate and it needs one thing to work: an evening flight. Drive up for sunrise, walk the ridge with the light on it and the cloud still low, be back at the car by early afternoon and at the airport by five. If your flight is before about three in the afternoon, move this to Day 3 and put the levada here instead, because the levada is the one you can start late.
It is one way, so either walk back the same route and double the day or arrange a pickup at the Achada do Teixeira end, which is what a taxi or a guided group is for. Take warm layers whatever Funchal says, a head torch for the tunnels, more water than you think and food. There is a shelter at Pico Ruivo and nothing else on the route.
PR1 is the slot that sells out. In summer it goes weeks ahead, the booking is dated and there is no on the day option, so book it the same week you book the flights. In cloud or high wind the right decision is not to start: the ridge has real exposure, and a levada twenty minutes away is the same day in worse weather.
If You Have Four Days, or Six
The plan above scales in both directions without being rebuilt, because it is a stack of whole days rather than a schedule.
Four days
Cut Day 5. One walk rather than two, and the levada is the one to keep, because it is weather tolerant, it does not need an early start, and it is the thing Madeira is actually famous for. You will leave wanting the ridge, which is a good reason to come back.
Six days
Add the north coast: Santana for the thatched palheiros, São Vicente for the volcanic caves, Porto Moniz for the lava pools, home over the Paúl da Serra plateau. Two and a half hours of driving as a loop and the best road on the island at the end of it.
Seven days
That is a different plan rather than this one with two days bolted on, and we have written it: the seven day itinerary gives the west coast two days instead of one and puts an optional night out there.
Five days without a car
Keep Days 1 and 2 exactly as they are, book Day 3 and Day 5 as guided walks with transport included, and replace Day 4 with a west coast day tour. It works, and it is covered properly in staying in Madeira without a car.
Five Days in Madeira, Answered
Is 5 days enough for Madeira?
Yes, for a first trip that accepts one real omission. Five days covers Funchal, one levada, the ridge walk and the west coast comfortably from a single base. What it does not cover is the north coast, which is a full day on its own. If you want Santana, São Vicente and Porto Moniz as well, you need six.
What should you not miss in 5 days in Madeira?
One levada walk and one high mountain walk, because two different kinds of walking is what this island offers that others do not. After that, the cable car up to Monte and the toboggan back down, Mercado dos Lavradores in the afternoon, and the drive west as far as Paúl do Mar for the sunset.
Do you need a car for 5 days in Madeira?
For three of the five, yes. Days 1 and 2 are entirely walkable from a Funchal base, and Days 3, 4 and 5 all start somewhere the bus either does not reach or does not reach early enough. Hiring a car for three days rather than five is what most of our guests do, and it also solves the Old Town parking problem for the first two nights.
Should you move hotels on a 5-day Madeira trip?
No. Everything in this plan is within an hour and a quarter of Funchal, so a second base would cost you a half day of packing and moving and save you very little driving. On five nights, stay put. A split stay starts making sense at about eight nights.
What is the best order to do these five days in?
Keep Day 1 and Day 2 where they are and treat Days 3 to 5 as a set you reorder by the forecast. The two walking days are the weather dependent ones, so if the mountain is clear on the morning of Day 3, do the ridge that day and push the levada back. Day 4 works in any weather and is the one to move into a grey slot.
Where to Stay for Five Nights
One base, and on a trip this short it should be Funchal, which is what all five of these days are built around. Carreira Solar and Carreira Vicente put you on Rua da Carreira with parking, which matters from Day 3 when the car arrives. Santa Catarina is the Avenida do Infante flat with a sea view balcony. Lido Branca and Lido Casa are the pair by the sea pools if swimming matters more than being in the middle of town. The three Paúl do Mar cottages are on the filter too, and they are the answer for a return trip rather than this one. Which end of Funchal suits you is broken down in where to stay in Funchal.
Three guides that go with these five days
Itineraries
Madeira 7-Day Itinerary
The same island with the north coast and a second west coast day put back in.
Read guide
Areas
Where to Stay in Funchal
Old Town, Avenida do Infante or the Lido, and which one these five days suit.
Read guide
Hikes
How to Book Madeira Hiking Trails
The SIMplifica booking for Days 3 and 5, step by step, before you fly.
Read guide