A Fresh New Year in Albufeira

In this article I’ll share with you my top destination for my New Year’s Eve. It’s not a fancy city like Paris nor a giant celebration like in Madeira, but it is very dear to me. The celebrations near the beach in Albufeira are in my opinion, a must.

Me and my group of friends from my hometown, ever since 2010, have been going almost every year to Albufeira for the New Year’s Eve Celebrations. This type of events are very common in Portugal and specially in Algarve, even in our hometown of Faro. But part of the experience is to be away for some days, while still enjoying the Algarvian weather.

So, for this I recommend renting a house, in this time of year, and with Airbnb and all of those services, is much easier to get a nice house for a couple of days, and if you’re with friends is even better (and cheaper). Of course hotels are also booming with service (some even offer a New Year’s Dinner). But be cautions, Albufeira is a known tourist attraction so these accommodation can fill up!

Now, why this destination? For me, when we were younger, it was a far enough place to have fun but still close enough to easy to travel there, but along the years it became tradition due to it’s* two main factors: The light show at the beach and the afterparties in Oura. The fireworks are at the Pescadores beach**, and are always accompanied by a concert from a popular Portuguese artist/band. It is really nice to enjoy the view of the lights while near the fresh ocean wind, and after it’s over and the crowd dissipates, to get your feet wet by the waves.  The afterparties are where a lot of the crowd goes after the New years has officially begun. The area of Oura, near the beach with the same name, is almost entirely dedicated to bars and discotheques,* it’s huge in the summer but for the New Years its real crowd pleaser (if you’re into that).

Well, this was my (kind of) personal recommendation for you. It may not seem as much in the surface (at least compared with some other, bigger, celebrations) but sometime the small things stick out better int he end.

Banner picture taken from Reverso Magazine.