How are the stores and shops in Algarve? How's the shopping in Algarve?

Shopping in the Algarve is good but not excellent. It’s not like 5th Avenue and it’s not Oxford Street, nor is it the Champs-Elysees, although the Champs-Elysees is quite complicated. You wouldn’t come to the Algarve to do your super-duper Christmas shopping. You wouldn’t come here to find a huge variety of high end luxury items. I can think of only one or two locations where there is a little bit of a cluster of high end stores and people might go there if...

Shopping in the Algarve is good but not excellent. It’s not like 5th Avenue and it’s not Oxford Street, nor is it the Champs-Elysees, although the Champs-Elysees is quite complicated. You wouldn’t come to the Algarve to do your super-duper Christmas shopping. You wouldn’t come here to find a huge variety of high end luxury items. I can think of only one or two locations where there is a little bit of a cluster of high end stores and people might go there if they are visiting and they need a special present.

 

The main focus on the shopping here in Algarve is pragmatic. There are half a dozen or more shopping centers across the Algarve. The largest ones are in Faro and just outside Albufeira in a place called Guia and also in Portimão. Those are the more obvious locations in which to find malls. Then there are smaller shopping centers in next level of towns going down like in Tavira, Loulé, Lagos, etc. And then there is still the existence of smaller shops like the bakery, the green grocer, and the like.

 

For clothes shopping, electronics, and furniture, we have medium-sized stores scattered in a retail park, which tend to be in bigger cities or alternatively, in the center of town. You might find a special clothes store in the center of Lagos or a special jewelry store in the center of Tavira, or a cork store that sells products made of cork in Silves. You will find these kinds of specialty stores in the towns and villages around the Algarve.

 

Generally speaking, the prices depend on the basis of comparison, but anyone coming from North America and Northern Europe find that shopping in the Algarve to be generally cheap. However, there are some exceptions. They would never find it more expensive than where they came from but they would quickly get accustomed to the lower cost of living and what they would see is that certain items are more expensive than others. Electricity, cars, fuel, and electronic items are not as cheap in the Algarve as one would expect, given the low cost of living in Portugal, particularly if you are coming from the US, where electronic good are so cheap. Electronics products might be even more expensive in the Algarve than they would be in the US. But generally speaking, if you are coming from the UK, you could easily cut 30% to 40% off your cost of living to live as a good as, if not a better quality of life.

 

(Moorish castle and hillside town of Silves, Portugal, pictured.)