Old Town
First-timers and nightlifeInside the walls: hostels, bars, restaurants and the noise. Everything within five minutes.
Lagos city guide
Things To Do In Lagos
Gold cliffs, hidden coves reached by kayak, and the busiest backpacker town on the Algarve. Beautiful, and it knows exactly what it is.
31
Hostels in the city
8.5
Average, from 28,551 reviews
20+
Beaches within walking distance
1444
Europe's first slave market, here
€15
A grotto boat tour
A small town with a very big summer
Lagos is a walled town of 30,000 people that quadruples in July and August. The old centre is compact, whitewashed and easy to walk, and the cliffs start where it ends — Ponta da Piedade, fifteen minutes south, is the stack of gold rock arches that sells the Algarve.
It also has a harder history than the scenery suggests. The first European slave market opened here in 1444, and the building still stands as a museum, which is worth an hour and rarely on anyone's list.
Three or four days is right. Two if you only want beaches, a week if you are surfing or settling into the hostel scene, which is the strongest in southern Portugal.
Where to stay
The town is small enough that anywhere central works. The question is how far you want to be from the noise.
Meia Praia side
Beach days and sleepEast of the marina along the four-kilometre beach. Quieter, cheaper, ten minutes from the centre.
Porto de Mós
Families and calmSouth of town near the cliffs, with a long beach and a walk along the top to Ponta da Piedade.
Orange labels are neighbourhoods, dots are the 12 top-rated hostels. Map © MapTiler © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Things to do
Things to do in Lagos
Ponta da Piedade is the reason people come: a headland of gold rock arches and sea caves, reached on foot in fifteen minutes or by boat from the marina. The small boats at €15 to €25 go inside the grottoes where the big catamarans cannot.
Kayaking and SUP tours do the same coastline more slowly and get into the smaller caves, and they are the better version if the sea is calm.
Praia Dona Ana and Camilo are the postcard beaches, both down long staircases, both small and both full by eleven in August. Meia Praia is four kilometres long and never full.
The Mercado de Escravos, Europe's first slave market, is a small museum on the square and the most important thing in town.
Free things
Free things to do in Lagos
The cliff walk from Porto de Mós to Ponta da Piedade and on into town is free, takes about ninety minutes, and is the best thing in Lagos.
Every beach is free, including the famous ones, and Meia Praia's four kilometres never fill.
The old town walls, the church of Santo António's gilded interior and the Saturday market at the edge of town all cost nothing. Sunset from the lighthouse at Ponta da Piedade is the town's nightly ritual and free.
Food and drink
Eating and drinking in Lagos
Grilled fish is the point. Sardines in summer, dourada and robalo year round, sold by weight and cooked over charcoal, typically €10 to €16 for a whole fish with potatoes.
Cataplana is the Algarve's shared dish, a copper pan of clams, prawns and pork, usually €30 to €40 for two.
The restaurants on the main pedestrian streets are aimed squarely at visitors. One street back, the prato do dia is €8 to €11 and the fish is the same.
Piri-piri chicken from a churrasqueira costs €8 to €12 for a whole bird and is the best cheap dinner in town.
Nightlife
Going out in Lagos
Lagos has the most concentrated nightlife on the Algarve and it is all in a few streets of the old town. Hostel bar crawls run most nights in summer and are how a lot of people meet each other.
It starts around ten, the bars fill by midnight, and a couple of clubs run until four. In winter about a quarter of it stays open.
Beer is €2 to €4, sangria by the jug is the default order, and the beach bars at Meia Praia do sunset drinks before anyone moves into town.
It is a young crowd and an unapologetically party town in July and August. If that is not the trip you want, Tavira or Sagres are an hour away.
Getting around
Getting around Lagos
You walk. The old town is ten minutes end to end and the nearest beaches are fifteen.
The train station is across the river, a ten-minute walk from the centre, with the regional line running east along the Algarve to Faro in about an hour and three quarters.
Buses to Sagres take an hour and cost about €4.50. The Rede Expressos coach to Lisbon takes four hours.
Bike and scooter rental is cheap and useful for Praia da Luz and the beaches west. Taxis and Uber both work and cost a few euros across town.
Costs
What Lagos costs
Lagos is seasonal and the price swing is enormous. A dorm is €14 in May and €35 in August, and some places double over the first two weeks of August.
A day is €40 to €60 in season, less outside it.
Boat tours at €15 to €25, surf lessons at €35 to €45 and kayak trips at €25 to €35 are the discretionary costs. The beaches, the cliff walk and the sunset are free, which is most of what makes the place good.
Safety
Staying safe in Lagos
Lagos is very safe, and the risks are the sea and the cliffs rather than people.
The Atlantic here has strong rips and sudden shelves. Lifeguards work the main beaches in season and the flag system is not decorative — red means do not go in, and people drown on this coast every year.
The cliffs are limestone and they collapse. Stay behind the fences and off the overhangs at Ponta da Piedade, and do not sit under a cliff face on the beach.
Petty theft happens in the summer crush and on the beach while people swim. Emergency number is 112.
Day trips from Lagos
The western Algarve is emptier and wilder than the coast east of here.
Sagres and Cape St Vincent
The south-western tip of Europe: a fortress on a headland, enormous cliffs and the best sunset on the continent, with serious surf beaches either side.
Benagil Cave
The sea cave with a hole in the roof. Only reachable by water, and better by kayak than on a packed boat.
What's on
What is on while you are there
A small town calendar, and the summer season is the event.
6–8 November
Walk & Art Fest
Barão de São João in Lagos hosts the Walk & Art Fest, celebrating the bond between nature and artistic expression. The event engages the…
27–29 November
Baja de Lagos
One of Portugal's most iconic off-road motorsport events returns to the Algarve, sending competitors tearing through the trails of five municipalities across the western…
2 October
Fado & Jazz
Two musical worlds meet when fado's deep soul collides with jazz's restless freedom in this concert at Lagos Cultural Center. The Lagos Light Orchestra…
4 October
International Ocean Film Tour
If you love the ocean and want to experience a film festival with stories from the seven seas, this event brings a fresh program…
4 October
International Ocean Film Tour
Europe's leading ocean film festival brings a fresh lineup of films exploring conservation, human rights, and stories from across the seven seas. The program…
5–11 October
W35 Lagos Open
Professional women's tennis arrives in Lagos for this ITF World Tennis Tour event, where players compete for a $30,000 prize purse on outdoor hard…
9 October
Tahiti!
Tahiti! combines two short operas in one evening, exploring the lives of its characters through music and puppetry. The program features Leonard Bernstein's Trouble…
18 Sep – 31 Oct
City of Memory Exhibition
A photographic project paying tribute to Lagos unfolds across 26 images taken between 2025 and 2026, each one a quiet meditation on place and…
Hostels
Where to stay in Lagos
Lagos has the strongest hostel scene in southern Portugal, most of it inside the old town walls. Live from Hostelworld.
Caravela House
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Casa das Laranjeiras
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Top City Hostel & Suites
Dorms from €33 a night
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Olive Hostel Lagos
Dorms from €26 a night
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Orange3 Hostel
Dorms from €20 a night
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Banana Beach House Lagos
Dorms from €15 a night
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Rising Cock Party Hostel
Dorms from €27 a night
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Cloud 9 Hostel
Dorms from €27 a night
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Boutique Taghostel
Dorms from €30 a night
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Ocean View
Dorms from €23 a night
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Sol A Sol Hostel
Dorms from €23 a night
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JJs Yard 2
Dorms from €15 a night
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When to go
May, June and September are the best of it. August is hot, full and double the price.
Jan
Mild, quiet and half shut. Walking weather
Feb
Almond blossom. Still very quiet
Mar
Warming. The town starts waking up
Apr
Good. Sea still cold, everything open by Easter
May
Excellent. Warm, affordable, not yet busy
Jun
The best month. Long days, warm sea, before the peak
Jul
Hot and full. Book weeks ahead
Aug
Peak everything. Beaches full by eleven, prices doubled
Sep
Superb. Warmest sea of the year and the crowds thinning
Oct
Still swimmable, much cheaper, and beautiful
Nov
Quiet, mild and mostly closed
Dec
Empty. Good for walking, not for swimming
Bar height is temperature. Colour is how busy it gets:
quiet
busy
peak
Average highs. The Atlantic stays cold until June and is warmest in September, which is why September is the best swimming month rather than July.
What your trip will cost
Pick how you travel. Per person per night, in euros, in season.
August runs well above these figures. May and October are roughly half.
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- Beds—
- Food and drink—
- Getting around—
- Doing things—
Lagos travel questions
The ones we get asked most.
How many days do you need in Lagos?
Three or four. Two if you only want the beaches, a week if you are surfing or you have found the hostel you like.
When is the sea warm enough to swim?
June to October, and September is the warmest. The Atlantic here is cold until late spring, which catches out people arriving in April expecting Mediterranean water.
How do I get to Ponta da Piedade?
Walk — it is fifteen minutes from the old town along the cliffs. Or take a small grotto boat from the marina for €15 to €25, which gets inside the arches. Kayaks get in further still.
Is Lagos just a party town?
In July and August it largely is, and the hostel scene is built around that. In May, June, September and October it is a beautiful small town with cliffs and beaches and a fraction of the noise.
Is it expensive?
It depends entirely on the month. A dorm is €14 in May and €35 in August. A day in season is €40 to €60, and considerably less outside it.
What is there beyond beaches?
The cliff walk, the 1444 slave market museum, Sagres and Cape St Vincent an hour west, the Monchique mountains inland, and surf schools along the whole coast.
Is Lagos open in winter?
Partly. Roughly a quarter of the bars and restaurants stay open, the weather is mild at 16 to 18 degrees, and the town belongs to the people who live there.
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