our visit to the Azores (by Luke, June/July 2024)

When I was telling people about our upcoming visit to the Azores the main question I got was ‘where’s that?’! It’s funny how you can be so keen on visiting somewhere and have done so much research but to other people it’s just a location on a map (if even that!). I guess being interested in different places and/or things is a big part of what makes us all unique!

The Azores are a collection of 9 volcanic islands on the Mid Atlantic Ridge, around 1400km west of Lisbon and 3800km east of New York. They are an autonomous Portuguese region first colonised in the 15th Century. There may have been prehistoric people on the islands as long as 2000 years ago. The total population is around 250,000 across the 9 islands.

It is thought that the Azores were formed by a volcanic hotspot. As the tectonic plates moved over this upwelling plume of lava individual islands were formed. Over time this became the Azores island chain that we know now. Because of the process involved all the islands were formed at different times. This is believed to have been in the following sequence – Santa Maria, Sao Miguel, Terceira, Graciosa, Flores, Faial, Soa Jorge, Corvo and then Pico. Santa Maria is approximately 8 million years old, and Pico is a spritely 300,000 years young!

Together with Madeira, the Canaries and Cape Verde, the Azores make up the region of Macaronesia. This collection of volcanic archipelagos in the north Atlantic has a broad range flora and fauna that can’t be found anywhere else in the world. Visiting the Azores was the final archipelago of the region for us. Based on how much we had enjoyed our time on the other islands of the region we were really excited to complete the missing piece of the puzzle!

I’m not 100% sure exactly how the obsession with the Azores started but I had wanted to visit for ages!

Overall I guess it played out like any other destination that makes it onto the list –

• one – you follow a page or two on social media which means that you start seeing posts about the place.

• two – the more you see, the more you want to see so you start to search for more inspiration.

• three – before you know it the location is everywhere. You’ve ordered brochures about it, you’re planning an itinerary, you’re interrupting watching TV to talk about it!!

• four – eventually I manage to wear Gill down and we get the trip booked!

I know that it must have been at least 2013 that the Azores came onto the radar but it just never quite fitted into our holiday plans for each year. We did plan to visit in 2020 but ended up cancelling due to the covid travel restrictions.

I’ve always liked islands in general. I’d say the smaller the better – the remoteness, the resourcefulness of the people, the totally different way of life. We’ve seen examples of this on so many trips and it just does something to draw me in!

The geological activity of the Azores was another big draw. I’d long regarded it as Europe’s version of Hawaii but it didn’t involve travelling halfway around the world, or jet lag! Interestingly the islands of the Azores sit across a triple junction of tectonic plates. Based on this we spent some of our trip in Europe (Sao Miguel), some in Africa (Faial and Pico) and some in North America (Flores). Three continents in one trip!! As more and more research was done I became increasingly excited to visit such a broad spectrum of geological features.

Marine life played a big part in wanting to visit. Fishing is obviously part of life when on an island so I fancied targeting marlin or tuna. There was also the chance of spotting whales and dolphins, and even a trip that would take you out to the deep sea to try to swim alongside dolphins!

Meeting locals and having a brief glimpse into their lives, comparing stories and experiences is always an interesting part of holidays. From the research I’d done it seemed the people on each island were different. This was due in part to the distance between them as well as when and why they were inhabited. Faial was cosmopolitan and non-stop due to its history as a stopping point for transatlantic voyages. Corvo had one village, around 400 inhabitants and the main industry was agriculture. Horta on Faial wouldn’t seem out of place today on the coast of America or mainland Europe. Corvo probably would still be recognisable now to the first settlers there from the 16th century!

I had a great big list of things that I wanted to do so the next step was finding the right excuse for the holiday and then a company who could help make it happen. I had a big birthday in 2023 so my present to myself was a couple of weeks of island hopping. The majority of this was arranged by a company called Archipelago Choice.

Using a travel agent may seem like a strange choice when there had been so much research involved over such a long period of time. For the trip that we lost due to covid restrictions we had booked a place to stay and arranged flights. This was just going to be a week based in one place on Sao Miguel with a hire car to get around and see as much as we could from there. This is easy when there are minimal transfers to arrange etc.

The trip that we decided on for 2023 was due to visit 5 islands over 2 weeks. Staying in 5 different hotels/guest houses, return international flights, 3 domestic flights, 2 return boat transfers between islands, multiple airport transfers and a hire car plus multiple excursions so using someone who knew how to tie all this together seemed like a no-brainer! In reality there wasn’t too much difference in the price of what we could have booked ourselves. There was definitely a lot less stress!

We booked the trip in February 2022, working with Paul from Archipelago Choice to modify an existing itinerary. The itinerary that they already had ticked most of the boxes. We just added almost all the optional extras and some excursions!! Once booked our trip was accessible on the Vamoos app. This was a great way to keep track of everything and have all the details in the same place.

I bought a new camera specifically for this holiday and I’m glad I did. I took the most photos ever – over 1700 pictures on the camera across a two-week holiday’ plus hundreds on my phone too. There was just so much to see!

Sao Miguel was the first island we visited, read about this part of the holiday here.