How Many Days Do You Need on Madeira – More is Better

What Are Your Intentions for Visiting?

To truly get an idea of how many days you need to visit Madeira, you first need to stop and ask yourself what your intentions are.

Are you going for a city vibe and only exploring in and around Funchal? Will you be renting a car or taking day trips? Are you prioritizing half-day hikes? Through-hikes? What about visiting the famed wineries on the island?

For any thematic reason for visiting the island, such as hiking or wine, you could easily spend three or four days on the island exclusively for that theme. We went on hikes over four days and hit most of the famous trails that were open during our visit (note: trails seemingly close regularly in Madeira due to damage and maintenance). We also went to wineries at various times over another four days, partly because we tried to avoid drinking fortified wine more than once on any given day as well (sprinkling in some time in Funchal and nearby towns around those, as most wineries are located near the major city).

We saw cruise ships come in, with guests who only visited Funchal, booked a day trip, and enjoyed one part of the island in eight or so hours. You can also get a car and drive pretty much around the entire island in one to two days, too. As such, it’s worth taking a look at your interests and working backward to determine how many days you may need for exploring.

That said, given the weather on the island, there are some serious considerations to keep in mind, which is truly what has made us stick with our core theme when visiting here- more is better.

The Airport Has Frequent Canceled Flights

We would be remiss if we did not spend some time talking about the logistics of getting into (and out of) Madeira itself, as this should be a consideration when planning how many days to stay on the island. While we personally had no issues with our flights, saying we saw a lot of canceled flights is an understatement- so let’s dive into that now.

Being an island in the Atlantic, Madeira is, naturally, very windy. Couple that with requiring a fairly strategic landing move plus a short runway (I’m not diving into those here, but be warned- reading about it isn’t for those who are afraid of flying), and flights are known to get delayed, diverted, or canceled outright when the wind picks up a nominal amount.

When we arrived at our second Airbnb on the island, our host was very enthusiastic about us messaging her to say we got out okay. It turns out the previous guests had their outbound flight canceled and were stuck on the island for at least four additional days. We then looked at the flight logs and, yep, a lot of flights were canceled or diverted elsewhere, like Lisbon, because planes couldn’t land in the intense wind (taking off seemed easier, but you need a plane to arrive before it can leave, as it were).

As such, we have one final recommendation- be sure to have more days to account for any possible delays. This includes more days on Madeira itself (in case you get delayed coming in) and more days elsewhere before another onward flight, if required. We only had two days in Lisbon after our time on the island before returning to the States, for example, and if our flight had been delayed, this could’ve become a serious problem.

So more time for each is always recommended!

• Note: In my limited evaluation of this, we noted flights from the UK, Germany, and further abroad were seemingly impacted the most during our stay. Whether that is related to the size of the plane or just the weather conditions during our visit remains to be seen. That said, we had no issues with our Ryanair flight to Lisbon when others were getting canceled. Your mileage may vary, but if you’re cautious, you may want to watch historic Madeira flight arrivals over time.
• Weather considerations also extend to exploring the island, because odds are you won’t want to hike in a downpour, either. So being flexible with your days can have benefits for a number of reasons. That recommendation for four days of hiking is implied that you really would do well with four nice days for hiking. A couple of rainy days can really put a damper on plans!

So How Many Days Do You Need on Madeira?

As you can tell from this article, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to how many days you need in Maderia. If you’re only into one element of the island, such as hiking but not wine, or wine but not hiking, you may be able to get by in fewer days than others.

For us, we think the minimum amount of time to justify a trip to Madeira is at least five days. You may be able to drive around the island over the span of a few days (or take a couple of day trips if you don’t want to rent a car), take a couple of hikes, maybe visit a winery or two, and spend some time in a few cities and towns. This, of course, has little safety margin against the possible delays noted above.

You may not be able to do everything you want in five days, but it certainly would make for a decent starting point for your trip (assuming you don’t have any travel delays).

If you want to try a bit of everything, a week or more is better. During our visit, we had seven full days on the island, split four nights in the north and four nights in the south, and got to do just about everything we wanted, apart from one or two wineries we missed to squeeze in another hike. Could we have had more time? Absolutely. Did we get lucky that we also had mostly perfect weather, and also didn’t have to change any plans? Also true. A week with perfect weather is ideal- you just can’t control that part.

Given that, we could’ve just as easily booked a full two weeks on Madeira and had just as good a time- adding more hikes, more wine tastings, and more time exploring Funchal, while also baking in time for leisure, possible changes of plans due to rain, and any potential delays with our flights, too.

We don’t want to give a one-size-fits-all answer here, but, when in doubt, more is always better, if only because of the possible risks of delays when traveling to the island. The last thing we would want anyone to do is book three or four days, then get delayed for two, and have most of your plans changed due to weather. When in doubt, add more time!

Have you visited Madeira? How many days did you spend on the island? Comment to share what you thought about the choice!