Recap: Portugal, Spain, France Surf & Road Trip
We’re back in New Jersey now, so I have more time to recap our whole trip. We spent six weeks in July and August 2025 traversing the coast of Portugal, parts of Spain, and a quick dip into France. This was technically a “surf trip” in that we brought surfboards, but we weren’t expecting much for waves in Europe in the summer. We were pleasantly surprised! Most of the spots we found had at least a little bit of surf. Sometimes the wind was strong, but we made it work and were pretty happy with what we got.
We divided the trip into two parts, because our credit card rental car insurance has a max of 31 days, so we knew we would need to come back to Lisbon mid trip. That worked out well, and I would highly recommend either of these road trip routes. I think you would need a full month to do the first part. We spent 2-3 nights in each place, and we definitely could have spent longer, but I don’t think we could’ve done it in any less time and still enjoyed ourselves the same. We’ve determined that three nights is the ideal minimum stay to truly enjoy a place when you’re road tripping around. The second part of the trip on the southern coast of Portugal could probably be done in any amount of time. It’s a beautiful place, but I’m not sure if we would go back again in August, if given the choice, because of the crowds.
Here’s a list of the places we stopped and stayed:
Part One:
Part Two:
And a map of the whole route:
Some other details: We flew in and out of Lisbon airport on American Airlines, and we luckily didn’t have any trouble with the boards in a 7’6” board bag that actually measured a bit too long for their baggage limits. We worked remotely the entire time, and the only place we ran into any issues with wifi was in Alvor, which is pretty deep into the Algarve region.
Overall, it was a lot of driving and moving around, but I’m so glad we did it the way we did. We really got to see some amazing places, and it was a perfect mix of surf, nature, and culture. It was a really nice trip and one that will provide great memories for many years to come!
Thanks for following along on the journey.
Namaste,
Cori
**It’s always a privilege getting to surf in other countries. I make sure I’m always covered with affordable and reliable travel medical insurance in case anything goes wrong. I choose SafetyWing because their Nomad Insurance policy covers activities, including surfing, in 185+ countries. To sign up, visit this link.