What a Decade on Sao Miguel Taught Me About the Azores (A Local's Perspective)
Ana Ferreira left Lisbon in 2015 for what she describes as a "two-year experiment." She's still on Sao Miguel. She runs a guesthouse in Ponta Delgada, leads informal food tours, and has watched the Azores transform from a little-known Portuguese outpost to a genuine international travel destination.
She also has strong feelings about when tourists should visit, where they should eat, and why everyone needs to stop complaining about the weather.
"Why did you leave Lisbon for the Azores?"
"Lisbon was getting expensive and crowded — even back in 2015, before it became the tech-bro capital of Europe. I visited Sao Miguel for a friend's wedding and couldn't stop thinking about it. The pace, the green, the ocean being everywhere. Two months later I bought a one-way ticket.
The first year was hard. I didn't know anyone. The island felt tiny. I missed Lisbon's energy. But by the second year, I'd found my rhythm. By the third, I couldn't imagine going back. There's a Portuguese word — saudade — longing for something. I had saudade for the Azores while living in Lisbon, which I didn't expect."
"What do tourists get wrong about the Azores?"
"The weather. Everyone complains about the weather. 'It rained on my day at Sete Cidades!' Yes. It rains here. It also stops raining thirty minutes later. The Azores don't have bad weather — they have all the weather, all the time.
The trick is flexibility. Don't plan 'Tuesday is Sete Cidades day.' Plan 'I'll go to Sete Cidades on the first clear morning I get.' Check the SpotAzores webcams every morning before you drive anywhere. I've been here eleven years and I still check them daily.
The second thing tourists get wrong: spending their entire trip on Sao Miguel. This island is beautiful but the Azores are nine islands. Pico is extraordinary — the mountain, the vineyards, the whale watching. Faial has the best marina town in the Atlantic. Terceira has Angra do Heroismo, which is a UNESCO city that nobody visits. For another underrated Portuguese gem, consider Porto."
"Where should visitors eat on Sao Miguel?"
"Not at the tourist restaurants on the waterfront in Ponta Delgada. I mean, they're fine, but they're charging mainland Portugal prices for mainland Portugal food.
Go to the mercado — the municipal market in Ponta Delgada. Upstairs there are small lunch counters where locals eat. Plate of the day with fish, rice, salad, and a beer for 8-10 EUR. The fish was caught that morning.
For the cozido das Furnas, don't go to Tony's unless you're prepared to wait. Restaurante Miroma in Furnas village does it just as well and is half as crowded. 15-18 EUR for a huge plate. The meat falls apart. The cabbage tastes like the earth it was cooked in.
And please — eat the queijadas da Vila from Vila Franca do Campo. Small cheese tarts, about 1 EUR each. Buy a box of twelve. You'll eat six in the car.
The local cheese — Sao Jorge, from the island of the same name — is aged in volcanic caves and has a sharp, peppery flavor that's completely different from mainland Portuguese cheese. Buy a wedge at any supermarket for 4-5 EUR. It's extraordinary with local bread and a glass of verdelho wine from Pico."
"What's your favorite spot that tourists don't know about?"
"Mosteiros on the west coast at sunset. It's a small village with volcanic sea stacks offshore. The sunset from the natural swimming pool there — with the sea stacks silhouetted and the steam from the nearby hot springs visible — is better than any viewpoint the guidebooks recommend. And there's almost nobody there.
Lomba da Fazenda on the north coast has a waterfall that drops directly into the ocean. You can only see it from a boat, but fishermen in Ribeira Quente sometimes take visitors for 20-30 EUR. It's not commercialized at all.
And the Caldeira Velha hot springs in the forest — they're popular, yes, but go at 8AM when they open and you'll have the warm waterfall pool to yourself for 20 minutes. 8 EUR entry. After 10AM, it's tour buses."
"What about the whale watching? Is it overhyped?"
"It's underhyped, if anything. People don't understand what's happening out there. The Azores are on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The deep water around the islands is incredibly nutrient-rich. We have resident sperm whale populations — they live here year-round. They breed here. This isn't a migration stopover.
I've been on maybe forty whale watching trips with guests. The operators are excellent — Futurismo, Terra Azul, Picos de Aventura. They use hydrophones to listen for whales before approaching. The biologist guides are genuinely passionate.
March to June is blue whale season. The largest animal that has ever existed, passing through waters you can reach in a 20-minute boat ride from Ponta Delgada. I've seen blue whales three times. Each time, my brain refused to process the size. You see the spout first — a vertical column of mist — and then this unimaginably long back surfaces and it just keeps going.
The trips cost 55-65 EUR. Bring Dramamine. The Atlantic doesn't care about your stomach."
"Has tourism changed the Azores?"
"Yes, and it's complicated. The direct flights from Boston and Toronto opened everything up. Before 2015, the Azores were mostly visited by diaspora Portuguese and European hikers. Now we get everyone.
The economy has improved. Restaurants have multiplied. Young people are staying instead of leaving for the mainland. My guesthouse employs four people who would have moved to Lisbon a decade ago.
But the roads to Sete Cidades are sometimes gridlocked in July. Some trails are eroding from overuse. Airbnb is driving up housing costs in Ponta Delgada. The sustainability conversation is just starting.
I'm not anti-tourism. I run a guesthouse. But I wish more visitors would spend time on the other islands, visit in shoulder season (May-June or September-October), and understand that the Azores are a living place, not a backdrop for Instagram."
"What's the one thing you'd tell every visitor?"
"Don't fight the weather. Seriously. Every guest who has a bad time is the one who planned a rigid schedule and then got angry when it rained.
The Azores reward the flexible traveler. Wake up, check the webcams, go wherever the weather is clear. If it's foggy at Sete Cidades, drive to Furnas instead — the hot springs don't care about cloud cover. If the coast is stormy, go to the tea plantation.
The best day I ever had on Sao Miguel was a day when it rained until 2PM and then the clouds broke and the double rainbow over the Furnas valley was so vivid I pulled over and sat on my car hood for twenty minutes.
That's the Azores. The rain is part of the beauty. The fog is part of the mystery. And the clear sky — when it comes — feels like a gift.
Stop fighting it. Lean in."
Ana's guesthouse, Casa do Atlântico, is in central Ponta Delgada. Doubles from 55 EUR/night including breakfast with local cheese, bread, and freshly squeezed passion fruit juice.
