This post may contain affiliate links. If you book or buy through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.
Madeira is the only place in Portugal I know well that did not make it onto our May itinerary. We are doing Lisbon, Cascais and Lagos, and for about two weeks I went back and forth on adding four nights on the island at the end of it. I took it out. Not because Madeira with kids is a bad idea, but because Madeira is not a place you tack onto the end of a mainland trip, and pretending otherwise would have wrecked the parts of the trip I actually care about.
I went to Madeira before Lochlan was born, and I went as a hiker. That is what most people do, and it is what my old Madeira travel guide reflects. Reading it back now, almost everything I recommended is something I would not do with a two year old.
The short version
Madeira is good with small children, and it is a separate trip. Fly in, stay near Funchal for a week, rent a small automatic, and accept that you will see about a third of what the guidebooks list. The island’s draw is hiking and volcanic rock, not sand, so the water days happen in sea pools and on two or three engineered beaches instead of the shoreline the Algarve gives you for free. The roads are the real constraint, not the terrain. If you only have ten days in Portugal, do the mainland. If you have a week and want one island and no transfers, Madeira is a very good answer.
Why it is a separate trip and not three extra days
Madeira is a flight. From Lisbon it is about an hour and forty minutes in the air, which with a toddler means a morning gone on each end, plus a car pickup, plus a new place to childproof. That is two travel days spent on a fourth base. I did the math in how many days you actually need in Portugal with kids, and it came out the same way every time: three stops in ten days is already one more than I would like.
The other reason is that Madeira does not reward a short visit. The island is small on a map and slow in practice. Four nights would buy you two real outings. Seven buys you five with weather days built in, and weather days matter here more than anywhere else in Portugal, because the north coast and the mountains make their own clouds.
There is a cost side to it too. Food and lodging are broadly similar to the Algarve outside July and August, but the flight and the rental car are extra, and that showed up when I worked through what we are budgeting for this trip. So Madeira sits in my guide as its own chapter with its own week, and the 10-day itinerary we are actually planning stays on the mainland.
One base, and I would put it near Funchal
Everyone who writes about Madeira says one base is enough, and they are right. The island is about an hour across, so moving hotels would cost you a day and buy you nothing.
Where I would put that base has changed completely since I became a mother. I used to think the only reason to stay in Funchal was the restaurants. Now it is the obvious answer for a different reason, which is that it is the one place on the island where you can have a day without getting in the car. A market, gardens, a seafront promenade, and a cable car that a two year old would lose his mind over. Everywhere else, a day means driving.
I would not stay in the old town itself. The streets are cobbled and steep and the bars on them run late, and I have been burned by that combination before. I want the same three things I wanted in Lagos, in the same order: a kitchen, a washing machine, a bathtub. In Funchal that points you west of the centre toward the hotel zone and the Lido, which is flat, has a long paved seafront, and is a short taxi from the old town for dinner.
Calheta is the other one I looked at hard. Sunnier, one of the island’s made beaches, resorts with kids’ clubs. If someone wanted a sit-still week with a pool and one or two outings, I would send them there without hesitating. It is not what I would book, because I would end up driving to everything anyway and I would rather do that from a town I can walk around at six in the evening. More on how I weigh this in where to stay in Portugal with kids.
The roads are the thing nobody warns you about
This is missing from almost every family guide to Madeira, and it is the part that would actually shape my week.
Madeira’s roads are narrow, they climb hard, and they tunnel constantly. The main routes are good modern road, but good modern road here means a bridge over a ravine, then a two kilometre tunnel, then another bridge. The older coastal roads are a lane and a half wide with a drop on one side. Funchal to Porto Moniz is not a long distance and it is a long drive.
With a child in a rear-facing seat, that adds up. A toddler who is fine in the car at home is in a different situation on a road that turns every four seconds in the dark. I am planning around it rather than hoping: one outing a day and not two, long drives in the morning while he is fresh, and never the north coast and the mountains on the same day.
Two practical things. Book a small automatic, because the rental fleets are mostly manual and mostly too big for the village roads, and you will be reversing out of places. And if the forecast says fog in the mountains, do not drive up there. More on car seats and transfers in getting around Portugal with a toddler.
Where the water actually works for a small kid
Madeira is volcanic. The beaches are rock, pebble and black sand, and a few of the sandy ones were built on purpose with sand brought in. If you are picturing the wide gold beaches from my Algarve posts, that is not this island, and expecting it is how people come home disappointed. What it has instead is better than it sounds, and in some ways better for a two year old.
Seixal, on the north coast, is black sand with green mountains behind it and lava pools beside it. The pools are the draw. They fill from the sea and the shallow ends are calm in a way an open beach never is. The water is cold, cold enough that I would plan on a short dip and a long snack rather than an afternoon.
Machico has imported sand, a gentle slope into the water and actual facilities. It is not beautiful. It is the most usable beach on the island with a small child, and I would go twice. Calheta is the same idea on the sunnier south coast. The Lido and Praia Formosa near Funchal are the ones you can walk to, which on a day you do not want to drive is the whole point.
Water shoes are not optional here. On most of this coastline the thing between your child and the sea is rock.
What I would skip: Porto Moniz and the sunrise at Pico do Arieiro
Porto Moniz is in every roundup of Madeira, including my own, and the lava pools there are remarkable. They are also the most visited thing on the north coast, the car park fills by mid morning, the queue is real, and it is the longest drive on the island. You would spend three hours in the car and an hour queuing for a swim your child will do for eleven minutes in cold water. Seixal gives you the same thing closer and quieter. I would skip Porto Moniz and not feel like I had missed anything.
The other one is Pico do Arieiro at sunrise. It is 1,818 metres up, cold at the top before dawn in any month, and the whole appeal is being there in the half hour before the light comes. Waking a two year old at four in the morning to drive him up a mountain road in the dark so he can be cold is not a plan, it is a story you tell later about a bad day. The viewpoint is worth doing at ten with a coffee. Not at sunrise, and not the ridge walk to Pico Ruivo.
And the toboggan ride down from Monte. I loved it. Two men in white steer a wicker basket down a public road on wooden runners. There is no restraint of any kind. It is a no.
The levadas, honestly
The levadas are why people come to Madeira. They are irrigation channels, hundreds of years old, with footpaths beside them running through laurel forest, and walking one is one of the best things I have done anywhere.
Most of them do not work with a toddler, and I want to be specific about why rather than just saying “not suitable.” Some have an unfenced drop on the channel side for long stretches. Some go through tunnels low enough to make you stoop and narrow enough that the path is about a foot wide, which means a headlamp and a free hand, and you have neither with a child on your back. And almost all are out-and-back, so if it stops working an hour in, you still have an hour.
Instead, pick the short, wide, flat ones and treat them as a walk rather than a hike. The Fanal forest has gentle paths through the laurel trees, extraordinary when the fog is in and fairly ordinary when it is not, so it is a gamble worth taking only if you are passing. Cascata dos Anjos needs no walking at all, because the waterfall falls onto the road and you drive through it. Lochlan would talk about that for a month.
If you want a real levada, do it one adult at a time while the other has the stroller. That is the same answer I landed on for the Praia do Camilo stairs in Lagos with kids. A carrier does more work on this island than a stroller does. Funchal’s seafront is fine on wheels. Nothing in the forest is.
This is all in the guide too
Everything above is in my Portugal for Families guide as well, if you would rather have it in one place than in fourteen open tabs. It is a 13-page PDF covering Lisbon, Sintra and Óbidos, Cascais, Ericeira, Lagos, Albufeira and Madeira, with the full 10-day itinerary and a “with kids” section in every chapter, including this one.
Eating in Funchal with a toddler
My old best restaurants in Madeira list is close to useless to me now, and I say that with affection. Two Michelin stars at Il Gallo D’Oro, a tasting menu at William, a rooftop at Uva. Those are real recommendations and I stand behind every one of them for a trip without a child.
What I would do now is make lunch the meal out, because Portuguese kitchens are warm and busy at one and nobody minds a loud toddler then. Dinner is at six, before most Portuguese people eat, which means a quiet room. Or dinner is in the apartment, which is the real reason for the kitchen.
The food that works is already there and it is cheap. Bolo do caco is a flat griddle bread served warm with garlic butter, and it is the most toddler-proof thing on the island. A prego is a steak sandwich on it. Grilled fish comes plain. Mercado dos Lavradores is worth a slow morning with a stroller, and you can buy lunch there and eat it outside, which solves day one when everyone is tired.
Where the nap goes
Lochlan naps around one. On the mainland that is a solved problem, because the towns are flat and long enough to walk a stroller nap out. Madeira is the one place where I would plan the day backwards from it.
The shape I would use: out by nine, one thing, back by half twelve. Lunch. Nap in a cot with the blind down. Out again at four for the seafront or the pool. The reason to be strict here and not elsewhere is that the alternative is a nap in the car on a mountain road, which is a nap he will not take and a drive I will not enjoy.
Nothing here needs a timed ticket, which is the saving grace. The cable car runs all day, the pools do not book, the viewpoints are just there. Being wrong about the morning costs you nothing, which is not true of Sintra with kids, where the ticket time is the whole problem.
A few things I am packing for this one
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
🛒 What is going in the bag for Madeira
- Toddler water shoes, because the swimming here is on rock, not sand.
- A child hiking carrier, which will get more use on this island than the stroller will.
- A wide-brim sun hat. The light on the south coast is stronger than the temperature suggests.
- A portable blackout blind, which is the single thing that makes the one o’clock nap happen in a rental.
- A stroller with bigger wheels if yours has the small hard ones, for the cobbles in the old town.
The full list, with the things I would leave at home, is in what I’m packing for Portugal with a toddler.
Questions I get about Madeira with kids
Is Madeira good for toddlers?
Yes, with the right expectations. It is safe, people are kind to small children, and the pace is slow. What it is not is a beach holiday, and the driving is more work than anywhere else in Portugal. If you want a week in one place with a pool, a market, a cable car and a few outings, it is very good. If you want sand, go to the Algarve.
Does Madeira have sandy beaches?
A few, and most of them were made. Machico and Calheta have imported sand and a gentle entry, which is what you want with a small child. Seixal has natural black sand, and Praia Formosa near Funchal is black sand and pebble. Everything else is rock or sea pool. The long golden beach people picture is on Porto Santo, a separate island and a ferry ride away.
Do you need a car in Madeira with kids?
If you stay in Funchal you can do a week without one, using taxis and the odd tour, and you will see less. I would rent a small automatic for part of the week rather than all of it, because parking in Funchal is genuinely difficult and a car you are not using is a car you are paying to park.
Can you do a levada walk with a toddler?
Not the famous ones. The tunnels need a headlamp and a free hand, several of the channels have an unfenced drop, and they are out-and-back, so there is no short version. Pick a short flat section, or do the real one with one adult while the other takes the morning off. The Fanal forest paths are the gentlest option.
What is the best time to visit Madeira with kids?
Late April to mid June. The weather is settled, the island is green from the winter rain, and it is before the July crowds. November to February is the wet stretch and I would not take a toddler into it, because a rainy day on Madeira is a day in the apartment. The reasoning behind this is the same as for the mainland, which I laid out in the best time to visit Portugal with kids.
Is Madeira or the Algarve better for families?
The Algarve, if your week is mostly about the beach and you want it simple. Madeira, if you want one island, dramatic scenery and a slower week, and you do not mind driving. The Algarve comparison I get asked most often is between the two towns, and I went through that one in Albufeira with kids.
So, not this May
We go to Lisbon, Cascais and Lagos in May, and Madeira goes on the list for when Lochlan can walk a levada himself. When we do go, I will rewrite this from the other side of it.
If you are going sooner than that, start with whether Portugal is good for families, then come back here for the island. The rest of it is in the Portugal archive.
