Azores next June
 

We are retired, experienced travelers looking to explore a new spot after 8 days in Sicily next May on a culinary tour. We can do limited hiking, enjoy the outdoors and like small cafes, locals and charming lodging. Shall we go it alone or get someone to plan/guide us? Seems like ferry schedules et al will be necessary.

You will be fine either way. The islands and their people are wonderful. We let a company plan a cycle tour for us but would have been comfortable doing it ourselves.

Are you travelling to the Azores direct from Sicily or is this a separate trip? If it's from Sicily, then AFAIK there is no direct flight and you'd probably have to make a couple of stops to get to Horta. I think it will be a real PIA to do this, not least because of the time involved. Somehow you'll need to get to Lisbon and take a flight from there.

If it's a separate trip, how long will you have "on the ground", because that will govern how much you can do on the islands. We stayed firstly on Faial, then Sao Jorge and lastly Terceira. We had a wonderful 14 days, enjoyed lovely food, lots of walks and fantastic accommodation.

Forgot to mention, we used a Tour Operator in the UK, but they do deal with the US.

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