Another day of traffic chaos on the way to Pico do Areeiro

Tobi Hughes·
Madeira News

My question.

Is Mass Tourism Ruining Madeira.????

Everywhere you go is over crowded, I can’t imagine the state in which this mountain trail is in, and yesterday again a tourist had to be rescued by helicopter after rocks fell and hit her, causing injuries to her arms on this walk. 

History repeats itself and complaints continue to increase. Access to Pico do Areeiro is once again chaotic and the queue of cars no longer extends beyond Poço da Neve this morning.

As has happened in recent times, there are buses that are unable to carry out the maneuvers, and some drivers are opting to ‘return’ on the road that leads to Eira do Serrado.

The parking lot that was created in Pico do Areeiro is also overcrowded, essentially with rent-a-car vehicles.

“It looks like a jungle” says the DIÁRIO reader who reported the video to us, stuck in traffic for over an hour.

See the video on the link below.

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Tobi Hughes

15 Responses

  1. It would be a better solution to install a cable car there while restrict the access on the road for private vehicles.

  2. Up until Dec 2019 you could arrive and the car park would only have 30 cars. Other times there were only two or three cars. What was the tipping point to change this. Was it the Pandemic when Madeira advertised itself as being the only place you could ‘safely’ holiday ? Has it all kicked off since that point ? Since then flights to Madeira have become more widely available in other countries, most recently USA. Is that the reason. It’s all happened so quickly and will it, or has it already reached the point of unsustainable numbers.

  3. Before the pandemic I was in Madeira many times a year for about 10 years, I bought an apartment in 2015 and then I couldn’t travel after 2020. I was able to start coming back this year and I’ve been shocked at the number of hire cars. Everywhere I travelled to regularly with ease is becoming so difficult. At first I thought, “well, it’s good for the island” but I wonder if that’s true. I think it’s starting to erode all the natural spots. Look at Guindaste… that was just a rock, now it’s an attraction. New viewpoints springing up and cable cars. I’m not sure Madeira is big enough to sustain such rapid expansion or mass tourism. I hope I’m wrong, but I do miss the quieter island I remember so well.

  4. I suppose it’s the inevitable consequence of developing Madeira into a mass market holiday destination. I recall Madeira in the 1980’s, before the fast roads and expansion in the numbers of tourist hotels and flights. Then it was relatively quiet and quaint , and I heard nothing then about homelessness , the need for food banks and drug problems. Sad to see.
    Somehow the numbers drawn to Madeira need to reduce – perhaps the escalating cost of staying on Madeira will do this.
    I’m staying in an Airbnb Jan-Feb and I anticipate it may be my last opportunity to visit this wonderful island, as I see costs only going up.

  5. It is so sad to see this beautiful island being ruined by too many visitors who seem to have no consideration for anyone else. There has to be a limit on the number of cars and buses each day, or a hefty fee needs to be charged.

  7. Guided tours lobby doing its job. They want to force government to ban individual cars from getting there so people have to pay for guided tours.

  8. Can Madeira continue to sustain the huge number of tourists that arrive every day I wonder? Obviously the island benefits from tourists BUT there has to be a limit I’m sure otherwise the very things people come to the island for will be damaged. Do the irresponsible tourists have to pay for being rescued from places they shouldn’t have been? If not, they certainly should. The number of times Tobi reports tourists being rescued would appear to be disproportionate to the size of the island.

  9. I’ve losteverything I just wrote.
    However, perhaps a security gate at Poiso mght work, limiting the number of cars allowed through.
    My other comment related to our shock at the many cars parked on the road leading to the teleferico at Achadas da Cruz, we’ve never seen anythng like it in our 25/26 years visiting the island.
    It seems the island hit a self-destruct button when it organised itself so well after COVID..!

  10. For months I have been reading here about the extremely increasing tourism with all of its, unfortunately negative, effects. When we came here for the first time 10 years ago, it was the “ideal world” that I missed here.
    The beautiful, diverse nature, nice people and cleanliness, even in the city.
    It’s a shame that mass tourism has now arrived here.
    With every new negative message from Tobi, I now think of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Goethe.
    Let’s see if our next vacation at the beginning of next year will be our last encounter.
    Hopefully it just reads worse than it is. ?

    1. If you have been coming for 10 years you probably won’t be going to all the tourist hot spots, where you will really notice all the tourists, mess, rubbish, ect.

  11. Well like I said the way the things are going eventually the Madeira government and the forest commission the will be obliged to restrict the numbers of visitors and hikers to the popular hikes with a control number every day .And a charge applied to maintained the trails that will be damaged and destroyed with such influx of people . The other thing will be a creation of a bus system that operates only to collect the tourists over the island to transport them to these areas and eventually this will be happening .

  12. My wife and I visited in 2016, 2019 and 2022. Madeira certainly seems to have issues associated with so-called “mass tourism”. Our personal concerns would be the increasing number of flights, airport queues, overcrowding, late night noise, speeding on main roads. These may well put us off revisiting this lovely island. Lets keep an open mind, and see.

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