What’s first on your itinerary when planning your visit to Algarve? The cave with the hole in its roof that always pops up on your insta feed, right?
Well, spoiler alert: You can’t get in by boat.
All along the harbour you’ll find different companies selling very similar boat trips to the grottos and caves. All the trips sounded awesome, so of course we chose the cheapest company and enjoyed exploring Lagos’ wonderful rock formations.
Here goes the but… all the boats from all the different companies can enter Benagil cave, but they won’t let you exit the boat, so you can’t fully immerse yourself in this natural wonder. I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t just look at it from afar.
So, how does everyone get that cinematic shot that always pops up on your insta feed?
Easy – swim, kayak or paddle board.
To save money we chose to swim. We’d wake up at 6:00am and get there before all the tourists arrive. It’s only a 10-metre swim, so Ben would hold one arm up in the air to keep the camera from getting wet, we’d get the shot and spend however long we liked relaxing under the beam of light.
Luckily, we slept through our alarm and arrived in Benagil for 10 o’clock instead. I say ‘luckily’ because it was only when we got there that we realised swimming is a risky idea. It’s a 10-metre swim but that’s if there’s no current pulling you back and when reaching the cave, there’s so many boats that you’d be putting yourself in a lot of danger.
So, five minutes on the paddle board it was. Beware of the price though – €30 per paddle board for one hour, plus a €20 deposit for a waterproof bag and then some extra coins to put the stuff you don’t need in a locker.
From here, getting to the cave is super easy, everyone lines their boards or kayaks up on the sandbank and you can begin exploring this awesome site.
Tip: Try to arrive in Benagil before 10:00am, this way you can beat the boats, as their trips don’t start until this time.
Go to our instagram @rhyias_rucksack to read the nightmare we had at this cave!
Thank you for reading,
Rhyia & Ben
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