The best things to do in Madeira, ranked by how often guests come back raving

We hear the debriefs. Guests come back to the apartment, drop the car keys on the counter and tell us what actually blew them away. After a few hundred of those conversations, a clear ranking emerges, and it does not match the order you find on the average travel listicle.

1. Pico do Arieiro at sunrise

Nothing else comes close. You drive up in the dark, you park at around 1,800 metres, and you watch the sun come up over a sea of cloud with the island's highest peaks poking through like islands of their own. It is a thirty five minute drive from central Funchal and it is worth every minute of the alarm clock.

Two practical notes. It is genuinely cold up there before dawn, often ten to fifteen degrees colder than the coast, so bring a proper jacket. And the car park fills early in summer, so aim to arrive at least forty minutes before sunrise.

If you are fit and properly equipped, the trail from Arieiro to Pico Ruivo is one of the great walks in Europe. It is exposed, it involves tunnels and stairs, and you should check trail status before setting off, because closures after rain are common and enforced for good reason.

2. A levada walk, almost any of them

Levadas are the island's irrigation channels, hand cut into the mountains over centuries to carry water from the wet north to the dry south. The maintenance paths beside them became a walking network that is unique in the world: mostly flat, mostly shaded, and threading through laurel forest that has been growing since before humans arrived.

• Levada dos Balcões: short, easy, and ends at a viewpoint that looks straight into the central mountain range. Perfect first walk.
• Levada das 25 Fontes: the famous one, with waterfalls at the end. Go early or go midweek, because it gets busy.
• Levada do Caldeirão Verde: longer, wetter, with tunnels that need a head torch. The most cinematic of the lot.
• Levada do Rei: quieter than its neighbours, deep in laurel forest, and a good choice when the popular trails are full.

3. Fanal on a foggy morning

Ancient laurel trees, shaped by wind into something out of a fairy tale, standing in mist on a high plateau. Fanal is the photograph you have seen even if you did not know where it was taken. Fog makes it, so counterintuitively the grey mornings are the good ones. On a clear day it is a nice field with old trees. On a misty one it is unforgettable.

4. The north coast road to Porto Moniz

Volcanic rock pools filled by the Atlantic, with a road there that clings to cliffs and passes waterfalls that fall onto the tarmac. Swim in the natural pools, eat lapas and fresh fish, then loop back over the mountains through Paul da Serra so you get two completely different landscapes in one day.

Seixal deserves a stop on the same trip. Black sand, green cliffs, and a small harbour pool that feels like a secret even though it is not.

5. Mercado dos Lavradores, early

Funchal's market is at its best before ten. Come for tropical fruit you cannot identify, scabbardfish that looks prehistoric because it is, and flower stalls in the courtyard. Be aware that fruit sellers on the upper level will hand you samples and then quote a price, so agree what you are buying before you accept anything.

6. Câmara de Lobos and the Cabo Girão skywalk

A working fishing village that Churchill famously painted, twenty minutes west of Funchal, with poncha bars that have not changed much in decades. Combine it with Cabo Girão, one of the highest sea cliffs in Europe, where a glass floored platform hangs about 580 metres above the water. It takes fifteen minutes and it makes your knees interesting.

7. The Funchal cable car and Monte

Touristy, and worth it anyway. The cable car climbs from the Old Town to Monte with a view over the whole bay. At the top, the tropical gardens are genuinely excellent, and the wicker toboggan ride down with two men in straw hats steering a basket on greased runners is a piece of local absurdity that has been running since the 1850s.

8. Whale and dolphin watching

The waters off Madeira are deep close to shore, which means resident dolphin pods and regular whale sightings without a long crossing. Pick an operator that follows responsible viewing distances. Morning trips are usually calmer.

9. Ponta de São Lourenço

The eastern tip of the island, and the one place that looks nothing like the rest of it. No forest, no waterfalls, just red and ochre rock dropping into blue water. Exposed, windy, spectacular, and roughly two and a half hours there and back at a steady pace. Take water, because there is no shade.

10. Doing nothing on the Lido promenade

The underrated one. A seafront walk, a swim in an ocean pool, a coffee, and an hour of watching the Atlantic do its thing. Guests who plan every day tend to report that this is the memory that stuck.

How to fit it together

1. Base yourself in central Funchal, where the restaurants, the market and the airport transfer are all convenient.
2. Rent a car for two or three days rather than the whole stay. Parking in the centre is the only real friction.
3. Do the mountains on clear mornings and the coast on cloudy ones, not the other way around.
4. Keep one day completely empty. The island always produces a reason to use it.

Staying longer than a week? The neighbourhood guide will help you choose a base, and the remote work month in the life explains how guests fit the mountains around a working calendar. Travelling with a dog: the pet travel guide has the walks that work on four legs.