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Albufeira was the first place in the Algarve I ever stayed, and I have been back since. So when I started building the family version of this trip, I assumed Albufeira would be our Algarve stop. It is the easiest place in the region to fly into and then sit still for a week. Big resorts. Kids’ clubs. A pool you never have to leave.
Then I actually planned it out, and Lagos won.
That does not make Albufeira with kids a bad idea. It makes it a specific idea, and it suits one specific shape of trip. If you are flying into Faro for seven nights and you want one hotel, one pool, and a beach you can walk to, Albufeira is probably a better answer than anything I picked. If you are doing what we are doing, which is ten days moving between four places with a two-year-old, it is not. Both of those things are true at the same time, and most posts about Albufeira only tell you the first one.
The short version
Albufeira works with small kids if you stay out of two places: the Old Town and the Strip. Book east toward Santa Eulália and Olhos d’Água, or west toward São Rafael and Galé, where the ground is flat and the hotels are built for families. Use the Old Town for one morning. Spend the rest of your days on the beach. Skip the Strip completely. And go in knowing that Albufeira is a resort town that does resort things very well, not a town you wander with no plan.
If you want the wandering version of the Algarve with a toddler, read why I ended up choosing Lagos for the last three days of our trip instead.
Why I picked Lagos instead
This is the part I want to be straight about, because I am not going to pretend I am basing our family trip somewhere I am not.
Albufeira is spread out. The Old Town sits on a hill. The Strip, which is Areias de São João, is about a mile away. The Marina is another mile and a half west of the Old Town. Three centers, none of them walkable to each other with a stroller. On the trips I took before Lochlan, that did not matter at all. We walked it, we taxied it, we did not care what time anything happened.
With a two-year-old, the distance between the places you need is the whole game. Lagos has one small flat waterfront where the apartments, the market, the food and the beach footbridge all sit within about ten minutes of each other. That is the only reason it won. It is not that Lagos is prettier or better. It is that it is smaller.
The other reason is the Strip. I have walked Avenida Francisco Sá Carneiro at eleven at night and loved it in my twenties. I do not want to push a stroller down it now. If you stay anywhere near Praia da Oura, you are within earshot of that until two in the morning, and a toddler who does not sleep is the one thing that can sink a whole trip. I wrote more about how I am sequencing the stops in our 10-day Portugal itinerary with kids.
Where I’d stay in Albufeira, and where I wouldn’t
There are four areas people mean when they say Albufeira, and they are genuinely different holidays.
The Old Town. Whitewashed buildings, 18th-century churches, family-run restaurants, the daily morning market, and the main square at Jardim Público. It is the prettiest part and the most Portuguese part. It is also on a hill, with stone paving, and I would not book here with a stroller unless I was fine carrying the stroller as often as pushing it.
East, from Santa Eulália to Olhos d’Água. This is where the large resort hotels are, the ones with kids’ clubs and multiple pools and a quieter beach at the bottom of a lift or a ramp. If I were doing a one-base week in Albufeira with Lochlan, this is where I would book. It is the least romantic recommendation in this post and it is the right one.
West, around São Rafael and Galé. Purpose-built family resorts, a short taxi from town, and some of the better small beaches. Quieter again. You will use taxis more than you expect.
The Marina. About a mile and a half west of the Old Town, all colored buildings and apartments and pools. It is the launch point for every boat trip in the area. It is not where I would base a toddler, because the thing you walk to from the Marina is boats, not a beach you want to sit on all morning.
Where I would not stay: Areias de São João and Praia da Oura. The beach is good, the noise is not, and no amount of a good beach fixes a 4am wake-up. I go into how I am weighing all of this across the whole country in where to stay in Portugal with kids.
The Old Town hill, and the escalator nobody mentions
Praia dos Pescadores sits right below the Old Town, and you get down to it one of two ways. There are winding stairs, which are fine if you are carrying a child and nothing else, and there is an escalator, which almost no guide to Albufeira bothers to tell you about. Knowing the escalator exists is the single most useful practical thing in this post.
Even with that, I would walk the Old Town in a carrier and not a stroller. The streets are stone, they are narrow, and they tilt. This is the same call I made for Sintra with a toddler and for the old streets in Lisbon, and I have stopped pretending a stroller is going to work in any Portuguese old town.
Go early. The morning market is in the Old Town and it is a genuinely good toddler activity, because it is short, it is outdoors, and there is fruit. There is also a free guided walk on Thursdays if you want a bit of structure. By noon the square is full and hot and you will want to be at the beach.
The beaches I’d actually pick with a toddler
Praia da Falésia. If I had one beach day in Albufeira with a small child, it would be here. It runs about three miles, which means there is always space, it is backed by red cliffs that give you shade at the right time of day, and it has boardwalks, which matters enormously when you are pushing anything with wheels across sand. It faces west, so the late light is the best of the week.
Praia dos Pescadores. The main beach, right under the Old Town, Blue Flag, beach bars within reach. Convenient and crowded. Perfectly fine for a morning if you are staying nearby and you have found the escalator.
Praia dos Bicos. Just east of Praia da Oura, smaller and quieter. A good compromise if you want the main-drag convenience without the main-drag crowd.
Praia de São Rafael, Praia da Coelha, Praia da Galé. West of town, smaller, prettier, less pressure. Coelha in particular is a reasonable toddler beach because it is a contained bay.
Two things to budget for. Two sunbeds and a shade run roughly 15 to 20 euros a day in season, which adds up faster than you think over a week. And the Atlantic here peaks around 22 degrees Celsius, which is about 72 Fahrenheit, so in May it is cold enough that Lochlan would be in and straight back out. I went through the rest of the numbers in what I am budgeting for our family trip.
What I’d skip in Albufeira
The Strip. Not as a place to walk through in daylight, which is harmless. As a place to stay or to eat dinner. There is nothing there you cannot get better somewhere else in town.
The Benagil cave boat trip from the Marina. It is two and a half to three hours on the water from Albufeira. I said the same thing when I was planning the Lagos end of the trip, and I will say it again here. There is no shade, no early exit, and no nap. Benagil is beautiful and it is a thing to do when your child is seven.
Aqualand. Water slides are a six-and-up activity. You will pay full price for a toddler who sits in the splash pool, and you could have done that at your hotel.
The Windmill Restaurant. Lovely spot, and it is adults only with a required reservation. Worth knowing before you build an evening around it.
Castelo de Paderne. I would still go, honestly, because the ruins above the river are the only properly quiet thing within fifteen minutes of Albufeira. But it is uneven ground on a cliff edge, so it is a hand-holding visit, not a let-him-run visit, and it is short.
Zoomarine, and whether it’s worth it at two
Zoomarine is the big one here, and it is the reason a lot of families pick Albufeira in the first place. Dolphin and sea lion shows, a tropical butterfly garden, a wave beach, a rapid river, slides.
At two, I think it is a year or two early. The shows are long, the day is long, and most of the water sections have a height limit he would not clear. At four or five I would book it without thinking about it. I keep making calls like this as I plan, and it is why I would rather write down what I am weighing than pretend I already know how it went.
Everything I am working out here is in my Portugal for Families guide too, if you would rather have it in one place instead of eleven open tabs. It is a 13-page PDF with the full 10-day itinerary and a “with kids” section for every stop, including the Algarve.
Where I’d eat
I wrote up the Albufeira restaurants I like in my guide to the best restaurants in Albufeira, and rereading it as a mother, most of the list is a dinner-at-nine list. Here is what survives.
Jaipur, just west of the Old Town, is the one I would go back to first. Reasonably priced, the garlic naan and chicken tikka are good, and a mango lassi is an excellent bribe. Indian food is also the easiest thing in the world to order mild and share off one plate.
The Cockerel, near the Strip, does enormous portions of battered fish and chicken wings and it is the least precious restaurant in Albufeira. Book a few days ahead.
O Marinheiro, in a villa out near Praia do Castelo, is dinner only, which means it is an early-sitting-or-nothing decision with a toddler. The bacalhau is worth it if you can make 6:30 work.
O Lusitano, in the New Town, is quiet with a good wine list, and quiet is the whole point some nights.
And whatever else happens, there is a pastel de nata within two minutes of wherever you are standing, which has solved more of my travel problems than any plan ever has.
Getting there and getting around
Faro Airport is about 35km away, which is 45 minutes or so. Taxis run 45 to 60 euros one way, and I would pre-book a private transfer rather than work out public transport with a tired toddler and the luggage. The train station is six miles out of the center, so arriving by train still leaves you a taxi.
Once you are there, you may not need a car at all, which is one of Albufeira’s real advantages. The Turistrem, the open-air road train, runs between the Old Town and the New Town regularly, and a two-year-old will think it is the best part of the holiday. For anything west or inland, taxi.
I bring our own car seat whenever we are renting, and I explain why in getting around Portugal with a toddler. Portugal also sits at the easy end of the scale for travelling with a toddler, which I get into in my honest take on whether Portugal is good for families.
🛒 A few things I use for this
- A lightweight travel car seat, because rental seats are a gamble and this one goes on the plane.
- A toddler carrier for the Old Town hill and anywhere with stone paving.
- A pop-up beach shade, which is cheaper than renting a parasol twice.
- A folding beach wagon for the boardwalks at Falésia.
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The full list is in what I am packing for Portugal with a toddler.
The one way Albufeira might still end up in our trip
Our last morning is a drive from Lagos to Faro for the flight home, and Albufeira is sitting right on that road. So there is a version of this where we stop for a couple of hours, walk down the escalator, put Lochlan on the sand at Praia dos Pescadores, eat lunch, and get back in the car. That is probably what will happen. A two-hour Albufeira is a very good Albufeira.
And if you are looking at the island rather than the Algarve, I wrote up Madeira with kids and why I am making it its own trip.
Questions I get about Albufeira with kids
Is Albufeira good for toddlers?
Yes, if you book in the right part of it. The resort areas east and west of town are flat, have pools, and sit above quieter beaches, which is most of what a toddler holiday needs. The Old Town and the Strip are the two parts that make it hard, and both are easy to avoid.
Which part of Albufeira is best for families?
East toward Santa Eulália and Olhos d’Água for the big family hotels and the calmer beaches, or west toward São Rafael and Galé for smaller resorts and better small bays. Both need a taxi to get into town, and that is a fair trade.
Can you use a stroller in Albufeira Old Town?
Not comfortably. The streets are stone and the whole thing is on a hill, so a small-wheeled stroller will fight you. Use a carrier, or a stroller with real wheels, and take the escalator down to Praia dos Pescadores rather than the stairs.
Is Albufeira or Lagos better with kids?
Lagos if you are moving around and want everything within walking distance of one small flat waterfront. Albufeira if you are staying in one hotel for a week and want a pool, a kids’ club and a short walk to sand. We picked Lagos because of how our trip is shaped, not because Albufeira is worse.
How far is Albufeira from Faro Airport?
About 35km, so 45 minutes by car. Pre-booked private transfers are the easiest option with small kids, and taxis are 45 to 60 euros one way. The train station is six miles outside the center, so the train is not the simple arrival it sounds like.
When is the best time to go to Albufeira with kids?
May or late September. July and August are the hottest and by far the busiest, and the Strip is at full volume. The water is cold in May, which matters less than you would expect when there is a pool. I go through the whole year in the best time to visit Portugal with kids, and work out the number of nights in how many days you actually need.
If you want the version of Albufeira I wrote before any of this was a consideration, it is still here in my original Albufeira travel guide, along with the top 10 things to do in Albufeira. The rest of the Portugal planning lives in the Portugal archive, including Cascais, which is the day I am least worried about.
I keep coming back to the fact that Albufeira is the stop I almost picked. If your trip looks like one hotel and a week of pool and beach, book it and do not second-guess it. Ours just does not look like that this time.
