Unusual Things to Do in the Algarve
Eight that are not a beach - including one almost no visitor knows is possible
You will have had the beach days, and they are very good beach days. This is the list for the point in the fortnight when somebody suggests another boat trip to the same cave and everyone goes quiet.
One of the eight is ours. It is the last one and it says so.
1. Walk between islands at low tide, Ria Formosa
The lagoon behind Faro and Tavira empties twice a day into a shifting landscape of sandbanks and channels. At low tide you can cross on foot between sandbars towards islands like Ilha de Tavira - a completely different Algarve from the cliffs an hour west, and almost empty. Go with somebody who knows the tide, not on your own reading of it.
2. The zip line between two countries and two time zones
Limite Zero at Alcoutim runs 720 metres across the Guadiana river from Spain into Portugal - the only cross-border zip line in the world, and because the two countries keep different clocks, you land an hour earlier than you left. Worth the drive east for the fact alone.
3. The Chapel of Bones, Faro
Capela dos Ossos, built from the bones and skulls of Carmelite monks, set behind an ordinary church in the old town. Small, quiet and genuinely unsettling. Not one for young children.
4. The salt pans at Tavira and Castro Marim
A grid of shallow pans where salt has been harvested by hand for centuries, going pink, white and rust with the season. Some run tours; flamingos use them; and the fleur de sel that comes off the surface is the thing to take home instead of a fridge magnet.
5. Pick clams with a fisherman
Boats go out into the Ria Formosa for a morning of clam picking, usually with a fisherman and a marine biologist aboard. You come back muddy, having learned how the lagoon actually works and eaten what you dug up.
6. The Serra de Monchique
Twenty minutes inland from the coast the landscape turns to forested hills and villages where nothing is aimed at visitors. Foia at the top is the highest point in the Algarve. It is also the reason the beaches get 450 to 550 mm of rain a year while these hills take 900 to 1,200.
7. Stargazing inland
The interior has very little light pollution, and on a clear night the difference from the resort strip is startling. Costs nothing, needs no booking, and is best in the hills you drove through on the way to Monchique.
8. See the coast from a gyroplane
This one is ours, so weigh it accordingly. Coastal flights run from an airfield near Lagos in a two-seat gyroplane with an instructor - half an hour or a full hour, no licence, no experience, nothing to bring. It is the rarest thing on this list simply because almost no visitor knows it is possible.
Why the last one is the rarest
Everything else on this list is in a guidebook somewhere. The flight is not, and the reason is simply that people do not know gyroplanes exist as something a visitor can do.
Here is what makes it worth the hour. From the clifftop at Ponta da Piedade you see the top of the headland. From a boat you see it from the water, arch by arch. Almost nobody sees the shape of the whole thing at once - the stacks, the grottos, the coves running east and west, the water through the arches - and that needs height.
A gyroplane has a rotor above and a propeller behind and nothing between you and the ground - no wing, no strut, no doorframe. It flies low and slowly, which is what looking at something actually requires, and it is quiet enough to have a conversation about what you are passing.
And the detail nobody expects: a flight with an instructor is logged, and counts towards a pilot licence. No boat trip, zip line or salt pan tour does that. If you never fly again it changes nothing - and if you do, the whole UK licence takes about four weeks on this coast against six months or a year of British weekends.
Practical notes
The flight goes from an airfield near Lagos, as a half hour or a full hour. Half an hour covers the western end - Sagres round to about Portimao. Carvoeiro, Benagil and Albufeira want the full hour. Say what you most want to see and the route is built round it.
If you would rather hover over Benagil, a helicopter tour is the aircraft for that, and the two are compared honestly elsewhere on this site. Book ahead either way: there is one aircraft and one instructor, and August fills - though out of season you will get the slot you asked for.
Frequently asked questions
What are the most unusual things to do in the Algarve?
Crossing the Ria Formosa lagoon on foot at low tide; the Limite Zero zip line at Alcoutim, which runs from Spain into Portugal and is the only cross-border zip line in the world; the Chapel of Bones in Faro; the working salt pans at Tavira and Castro Marim; clam picking in the lagoon with a fisherman; the forested Serra de Monchique inland; stargazing away from the coast; and a coastal flight in a gyroplane, which is ours and which almost no visitor knows exists.
What is there to do in the Algarve for adults, away from the resorts?
Most of the list above. The salt pans, the lagoon, Monchique and the inland villages are all quiet, and none of them is arranged around families or nightlife. A coastal flight suits this too - it is two seats, one of them yours, and it is over in an hour.
What is unusual to do in the Algarve as a couple?
The zip line if you want to laugh, the salt pans and Monchique if you want to be somewhere quiet, and a coastal flight if you want the thing you will both still be describing at Christmas. A gyroplane carries two, so it is one of you and an instructor - you take turns, and the one on the ground gets the photographs.
Is a gyroplane flight better than a helicopter tour?
For looking at things, we would say yes - no wing or doorframe in the way, lower, slower and quiet enough to talk. A helicopter can hover, which a gyroplane cannot, so if holding still above the Benagil cave is the photograph you came for, take the helicopter. We sell both kinds of aircraft, so we have no reason to tell you otherwise.
Does a gyroplane flight need booking in advance?
Yes. There is one aircraft and one instructor, so it is not something to turn up for, and August fills. Mornings are usually the better slot and the late light makes the better photograph. No licence, no experience and no medical are needed for a sightseeing flight.