I got my bags packed on a roll heading out there and I'm ready to go looking real good

in my passport photo.

Oh no!

Amateur Traveler episode 661. Today the Amateur Traveler talks about beaches and

sea caves and surf lessons, craft classes, slave markets, and the end of the world as we go to the Algarve region in southern Portugal. Welcome to the amateur traveler. I'm your host Chris Christensen. Let's talk about

Portugal. I'd like to welcome to the show Eileen Cotter Wright from Pure Wander.com who's come to talk to us about

southern Portugal.

Eileen, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

And why are we talking about southern Portugal?

Why should someone go there?

It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen and I've been very fortunate to go to a lot of places and I think that there's something really

special about this sleepy but also lively place down in southern Portugal for sure.

Excellent and do you have an itinerary that you're going to recommend for us? Southern Portugal is really known for its beaches especially in the Algarve.

There's over a hundred of them to choose from so that's the main draw but they also have some

amazing initiatives happening inland in the algarve where they're trying to bring

tourism to some of the smaller villages and that comes in the form of

protecting their traditions when it comes to handicrafts food and other mediums so I think that's super interesting to dive into if you have a couple

extra days as well.

Sounds great. So I assume we will go through each of the 100 beaches in painstaking detail.

Absolutely.

To be honest, I've been about four times now to the Algarve and I've hit maybe 10 beaches and I picked my top four so it also kind of depends on your

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