2021 Portugal Travel Tips

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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