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2021 Portugal Travel Tips

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We spend the month of October in Portugal, and learned a few things that were not quite clear in the guidebooks.  I share them here:

 Discounts:  Most subways, trains, museums, offer senior (65+) discount up to 50% -- sometimes requiring i.d. (drivers license okay); or Student or Child discounts as well.


SIMcards for phones: evidently only Vodafone maintains an official shop at the Lisbon airport: I bought 2 cards @20euros each, providing 100minutes of talk and 5gb data in Europe, for 30 days...perfect timing for us!  Lycamobile offers cheaper deals on Portugal-only cards: they have card-tables set up at busy metro stations (if I had known, I would have bought their deal).


Duty-Free On Arrival:  Lisbon airport duty-free sells within the arrival area (contrary to internet statements), so you can wait and buy duty-free in the Lisbon airport, where it’s cheaper than the US.  In any case, the customs officials seemed quite loose though watchful.  And in-Europe passengers were mixed with non-Schengen passengers.


Departure: note that all departing passengers are funneled through the primary duty-free shop to entice us to buy everything quickly -- but several other nice shops are located inside the secure area.  Also, remember that passport-checkout (for outside-Europe flights) happens just before the gates -- in our case there was no queue, but need to be prepared in case of a long queue to get your passport stamped.  At our US-bound flight there were no additional searches, but several i.d. checks and obvious security presence.  


Public transport: all drivers accept cash and make change for immediate tickets.  Some can even accept creditcard payment.  Metro in Lisbon uses turnstile entry and exit -- tap your metrocard on entry and exit.  Metro in Porto uses European honor system -- tap your metrocard upon entry to each platform (occasional auditors will check your card).  A similar system applies to the streetcars in Lisbon, and suburban trains in Lisbon and Porto. 

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