I am a female who will be traveling on my own in Portugal. I don't plan to stay out late (I'm not interested in clubs and night life), but it will probably be dark or getting dark by the time I finish dinner and head back to my hotel. In Lisbon my hotel is a little outside the main tourist area and about a 10-15 min walk from the Cais do Sodre metro station - it's between the Jardim de Sao Bento and the Ave 24 de Julio. Is anyone familiar with this area? Is it well lit and populated at night?

To be safe I will probably end up taking a taxi or Uber back to my hotel. I've read that taxi drivers in Lisbon are known for being dishonest but I've also read just the opposite. Does anyone have experience with either taxis or Uber in Lisbon and Porto? Is one or the other preferred?

A good way to learn about safety in a neighborhood where you are staying is to go to Google Maps, put in the address of your hotel or apartment, and then ask google maps to show you the location of other hotels near there. Then read reviews on TripAdvisor or Booking.com or airbnb for those other places. If people didn't feel safe staying there or walking back from restaurants at night, they will usually be quick to say so.

I stayed near Cais do Sodre and ate several times at the waterside restaurants right near the station. I walked home after dark but in a different direction from where you'll be located and I wasn't a woman alone. In general, I felt Lisbon to be quite a safe city after dark -- but again, I'm not sure if my perceptions would be same as a woman alone.

I have plenty of experience of official taxis in Lisbon, and if the drivers were being dishonest, I have no idea because the rides were so inexpensive -- seriously -- that if I was being overcharged, it scarcely mattered. I admit I am politically against Uber in Europe, but that aside, I would be more concerned for safety about getting into an unregulated taxi with an Uber driver than with a city-licensed taxi driver.

One thing I recall vividly about using taxis in Lisbon is that drivers found it quite difficult to understand my attempts at giving addresses in Portuguese, since my pronunciation was so off-the-mark. I learned to write them down before getting into the taxi.

Never had a need to use Uber in Lisbon. As noted, taxis are inexpensive, but you may have to go to a taxi stand in order to get one, or order one (https://pt.mytaxi.com/index.html#). If you use the app, then like Uber, you have to have an account.

A few of the taxi drivers we used last fall where not from Portugal, but the EU, and many of the ones we used did speak English, a couple nonstop.

https://lisbon-portugal-guide.com/li...axi-guide.html