My wife and I spent a month in the Azores recently; it was our first visit, and we loved it. In appreciation of all the good information I gleaned from this sight, I wanted to in turn post a few thoughts about our experience that might be useful to other first time visitors.

Our visit was mid-May to mid-June. We visited Sao Miguel, Pico, Faial, Sao Jorge, Tercieira, and then finished up with on Sao Miguel again. We flew three legs and took the ferry on two legs. We rented cars on all of our stops, and were always glad we had one. So with that context, here are my take-aways:

-People told us the weather is variable, but I didn’t grasp how variable until we did our visit.

In our shoulder season of spring becoming summer, many days would start with clouds, break into sun, then cloud up and pour rain. Or wake up to rain, then have it turn to sun and then rain again. Winds came and went rapidly; one calm morning saw us take the ferry from Pico to Faial. Shortly after arrival, we watched the winds increase to 75kph and all the afternoon flights and ferries canceled. So bring gear for all conditions with you on every outing, you never know.

-The app “Spot Azores” was very useful. It gives you access to a number of live web cams on each of the islands. We ended up often planning our day based upon those cameras. For example, we woke up one sunny morning in Ponta Delgada and planned on going up to Sete Cidades for the view and a hike. But a look at the cameras showed us that Sete was a complete whiteout, in the cloud, with no views and damp conditions. Further scanning showed that the north eastern edge of the island was sunny and clear. So we changed plans.

-Adaptability of itinerary based on weather really improved the experience. If you have something that’s a must-do and weather dependentfor your vacation (Sete Cidades, a whale watch, etc), build a plan that gives you a couple of chances to do so and then go with the one that the weather cooperates with. Whale watching in windy choppy seas isn’t very productive, and hiking fantastic trails isn’t much fun when it’s slippery from drizzle and visibility is only 20 yards. Being stubborn and doing those things because it’s the only day you have to them won’t really result in a very positive experience, in my opinion.

-If your hotel offers to help you arrange a rental car, let them. Most of the smaller places we stayed at made this offer. We found that the price they quoted us was comparable to what we could find online. But there were two bonuses booking with them. One was how easy it was. One less call to make, one less contact to remember. And this was also true due to the fact that we’d often pick up the car at the airport but drop it at the ferry, or pick it up at our hotel but drop it at the airport. Knowing that the local innkeeper had arranged it for me gave us peace of mind. And though it may not have been true, I also took some comfort in thinking that the innkeeper knew the car renter, they do business regularly, so there’s going to be less chance of my getting bumped on a reservation. (I heard a lot of stories 6 months ago, when we were planning this trip, about people who arrived to find their expected rental car not available. May not be an issue now.)

-Book early. There simply isn’t that much infrastructure on some of the islands to support large numbers of tourists, so stuff sells out, especially in high season. The growth of the tourist population just between our arrival in mid-May and our departure in mid-June was pretty amazing. I can’t, and really don’t want, to think what it would be like in August. By going in shoulder season, we exchanged less perfect weather for less crowds. Also better prices. As an example: I picked up my final car on Sao Miguel, on June 10. The staffer met me at the airport to give it to me. As we were doing paperwork, he looked at the form and said “Wow, you really booked early! Almost 6 months ago. Smart. The 7 day rental you’re getting for $340 would be $775 this week…IF we had any left to rent.”.

-Drive carefully. Assume that there will be either a vehicle or a cow around the blind corner ahead. There often is. In the countryside, people just stop as needed. Blind corner mountain road and the guy parks his truck right there in the street? Well yes, because that’s where the gate is to access his paddock and milk the cows. Duh tourist, you don’t know this? And cows often get transferred from one field to another via the roads so it’s common to come upon 50 taking over the road. Just sit and wait; eventually it will be your turn to proceed. The Azorean traffic jam.

-Book restaurants. Coming from the US, I don’t typically think of booking dinner reservations unless it’s a special occasion, or a fancy place. But it seems to be very much the norm in the Azores. Even in small casual places they would typically ask me if I’d booked. It surprised me at first, because I’d say no and they’d seat us anyway, and then we’d have dinner with only 4 tables out of 15 occupied. I came to think that on the smaller islands that they want to have an advance sense of how many guests are coming that night, how much staff and product to have ready, etc. We began booking all of our dinners in advance after that, as a courtesy if nothing else.

-Portions were big. Big. And I say that by US standards. Not always, but usually. We got in the habit of looking around at our fellow diners and checking out their plates to get a sense of how big a particular restaurant’s portions were. We also frequently ordered soup or appetizers, then split a dinner. We never left hungry.

-People are very nice, everywhere. But on the smaller islands and outlying areas, perhaps a bit more reserved. I don’t think it’s the nature to give a big smile and greet a strange tourist who’s walking by their house or hiking through their field as they work. But I found that greeting them with a bon dia or boa tarde always, always resulted in a returned greeting. The ice breaker really seemed to get conversations going. It wasn’t uncommon for us to stop and ask someone about, say, the local church, to have them then stop what they were doing, walk us to the church, and spend a half hour telling us all about it

-Similar to being adaptable to the weather, be adaptable to the unexpected. Some of our best memories are from things we had no plan of doing. For example, the Holy Ghost Festivals and their attendant celebrations. One morning we were driving on Sao Jorge when we came to a small village, and the road was blocked by a half dozen people waving frantically. Concerned there had been an accident or a protest, we stopped. Turns out they only stopped us to insist that we join them to celebrate with their community. As part of the Holy Ghost Festival, the custom is to share locally made bread, cheese, and wine. So we did. Parked the car, went into a tent, and spent the next 90 minutes talking to the locals, making new friends, learning about the community. That resulted in them alerting us to a parade component in 2 days, which we returned to. That then resulted in being invited to a lunch the next day that was attended by virtually the whole village of several hundred. It was one of those things that just happens, and we were very glad we leaned in and did it.

Have a great trip. It is an incredibly beautiful place and were so glad we visited.TUR