3 Days in Porto Solo: The Trip That Made Me Want More

I spent 3 days in Porto in 2014, before my first long solo backpacking trip around Europe, and that little trip ended up meaning much more to me than I expected.

I hadn’t traveled for around eight months because university and work had taken over, and I was desperate to go somewhere again. I finally had four days off, so Porto became my little test before the much bigger solo trip I was planning.

At that point, even traveling alone within Portugal still felt like an adventure. Getting somewhere without getting lost, figuring out public transportation or simply finding whatever I was looking for felt like a small victory.

Those 3 days in Porto gave me exactly what I needed: a few days of freedom, a reminder of how much I loved exploring somewhere new, and even more certainty that I wanted travel to become a much bigger part of my life.

They also involved getting on the wrong train, being approached by a guy trying to sell me weed at 7am, accidentally walking into a funeral and insisting on sightseeing while Portugal was under a weather alert.

So apparently my travel style was already developing nicely.

I managed to get on the wrong train before the trip even started

I had slept about two hours before waking up at 4am and leaving home around 5am to catch the earliest train.

Despite using that station practically every day at the time, I somehow got on the wrong train.

I realized too late, missed the one I actually needed and immediately had to change the plan. I was annoyed with myself, but also far too tired to have a proper crisis about it, so I caught the next train, took the metro and eventually got where I needed to be.

With about an hour to kill before leaving for Porto, I went for a second breakfast and sat outside waiting. All I wanted was to get on the bus and sleep, but apparently I looked like exactly the right person to approach at 7am because a guy sat beside me and started trying to sell me weed.

I remember wondering why this man was even awake.

Eventually I escaped, got on the bus and headed north.

Arriving in Porto immediately made everything worth it

The second I arrived in Porto, my mood completely changed.

I bought something sweet, started walking around and went looking for a tourist information office. I found it almost immediately, which at the time felt like an achievement.

That was something I noticed a lot when I first started traveling alone: every tiny thing felt important. Finding where I needed to go, buying the right ticket, working out public transport or reaching my accommodation without ending up on the opposite side of a city could genuinely make me proud of myself.

I decided to play tourist and spoke to the man at the information desk in English, despite the fact that I was very much Portuguese and traveling in Portugal. I hadn’t planned much of the trip, so he gave me an entire itinerary of places I could visit and sent me on my way.

I started exploring and almost immediately remembered why I had missed traveling so much.

I was much happier wandering around than following the itinerary

One of my first stops was around Batalha. I wasn’t particularly interested in going inside everything, but I loved the views over the city and remember having this little moment of happiness simply because I had my camera with me again and somewhere new to explore.

Instead of immediately following the map, I decided to put it away and walk down some stairs without really knowing where I was going.

Best decision.

The colorful buildings and little streets immediately caught my attention. I remember thinking parts of Porto almost felt Italian, and I was perfectly happy walking around without any particular destination.

Apparently this part of the way I travel hasn’t changed much.

I’ve always liked watching places as much as sightseeing. I can sit on a bench somewhere and spend ages looking at people, watching normal life happening around me and getting a sense of where I am without actually doing anything.

At one point, I sat by the river doing exactly that when somebody suddenly called my name.

It was a friend from Lisbon I hadn’t seen in four years.

Of all the places I could have sat in Porto, she happened to be right beside me.

Travel is full of completely random coincidences like that, and somehow they often become more memorable than whatever attraction you were supposed to be visiting.

Even traveling in my own country felt like a challenge

The friend I was staying with didn’t actually live in central Porto. She lived around 20 km away, which meant I had to figure out how to reach her place by metro.

This really shouldn’t have been intimidating considering I was in my own country.

Apparently it was.

I struggled with the ticket machine, asked people for directions repeatedly and treated successfully reaching her place like I had just navigated across another continent.

Slightly embarrassing, but I was still figuring out how comfortable I was traveling somewhere unfamiliar by myself.

That was actually one of the reasons I liked this trip so much. I had part of every day completely to myself, so I could walk wherever I wanted and do everything at my own pace, but I also had my friend there for part of the trip.

It was the perfect combination of solo travel and having company.

My friend also informed me that my outfit made me look like I was about to go skiing and made me change before we went back out.

There is nothing quite like an honest friend.

I was already spending money on food for absolutely no reason

Another thing that apparently hasn’t changed much is my ability to walk into somewhere intending to buy one thing and somehow leave with three.

At one point I went into a café for a simple coffee and ended up buying a chocolate muffin and a hot chocolate as well.

I remember having a whole internal debate about whether I deserved the expensive snack.

I did.

Food was actually one of the things that impressed me about Porto at the time because it felt incredibly affordable. I remember having a lunch with a drink for around 5€ and wondering whether I could simply move there.

Those are obviously old prices and absolutely not useful for planning a Porto budget now, but at the time I thought I had discovered paradise.

That night, my friend and I went out for Portuguese food and decided we were going to forget about life for a few hours and have fun. At some point, a restaurant worker ended up cleaning sangria off my friend’s jeans, which probably explains how that evening was going.

Despite the fact that I had only slept two hours before starting the trip, we still went out afterward.

One thing that surprised me was how much I liked Porto at night. I remember noticing so many people in their 30s and 40s out having drinks, talking and enjoying themselves and thinking that the city actually felt very alive.

By the time we finally went home, I was exhausted but extremely happy I had decided to come.

Then I made the mistake of planning my last day

The night before my last proper sightseeing day, I took out my map and started marking everything I still wanted to see.

I loved maps.

Actually, I still do.

There was something about looking at a map filled with unfamiliar streets and places I hadn’t visited yet that made me ridiculously excited. All those possibilities were sitting there in front of me, waiting for me to go and see them.

So naturally, I planned a full day.

We were supposed to leave the house at 8am.

We left at 11.

That was problem number one.

Problem number two was that the weather was absolutely terrible. Portugal was under an actual weather alert, my friend looked outside and reasonably decided she wasn’t interested in participating in my tourist marathon, and I decided I had made an itinerary and therefore I was going sightseeing.

Whether that was determination or stupidity is open to interpretation.

Bolhão made me briefly forget about the storm

My friend dropped me near Bolhão Market, and I continued alone.

I loved it there.

There were old women selling fruit and vegetables, lots of color and exactly the type of normal local activity I like seeing when I travel. For a while, I completely forgot about the weather.

Then I started walking again and resumed my usual habit of having absolutely no idea where I was.

Eventually I became annoyed enough that I decided the problem was obviously the map.

Not my sense of direction.

The map.

I was trying to find Livraria Lello and somehow managed to walk past it around three times without realizing where it was. Eventually Google Maps helped, although the enormous line outside probably should have been enough of a clue.

I thought the bookstore itself was beautiful. I could completely understand why people loved it.

I also wanted to leave because there were far too many people inside.

That part of me has not changed at all.

Porto taught me to stop postponing things I actually want to do

One of the places I really wanted to visit was Clérigos Tower.

I had apparently passed it earlier in the trip, seen that going up cost 2€ and decided that was too expensive.

Two euros.

By the time I came back on my last day, the weather was so bad that going up wasn’t possible.

That was an extremely efficient way of saving 2€ while also missing the thing I wanted to do.

Lesson learned: if you actually want to do something and it costs 2€, pay the man and climb the stairs.

I ate a francesinha while waiting to see if the weather would improve.

It didn’t.

So eventually I decided I was going back outside anyway.

At one point I briefly hated Porto

Eventually the weather became so bad that I needed to find somewhere to shelter.

I tried going into a restaurant and was told that places around that area closed at around 3:30pm.

This information did not improve my mood.

Portugal was under a weather alert, the wind was throwing things around outside, I was soaked and suddenly I couldn’t even find somewhere to sit.

I had a small moment of panic and temporarily decided Porto was horrible.

Sorry, Porto.

It didn’t last long.

I eventually found somewhere to sit with a coffee and started debating whether I should just give up on my plan to cross into Gaia.

Then, completely unexpectedly, the sky started clearing.

That was enough for me.

Crossing into Gaia completely changed the day

I crossed the lower level of the Dom Luís I Bridge and immediately felt like I had achieved something.

After hours of rain, getting lost, closed buildings and increasingly questionable sightseeing decisions, I had actually made it across.

Suddenly the entire day felt different.

I kept going toward Jardim do Morro and then climbed higher toward Serra do Pilar.

And that was the reward.

The view over Porto was incredible.

I remember standing there and feeling ridiculously happy that I hadn’t given up earlier. Everything annoying about the day suddenly seemed irrelevant.

I had made it.

That feeling of pushing through something uncomfortable and eventually reaching the moment that made it worthwhile became very familiar to me later in my travels.

At the time, though, I was still learning it.

Porto was teaching me something about fear

There were several moments during that trip when streets, staircases or unfamiliar routes looked intimidating enough to make me wonder whether I should continue.

Most of the time, nothing was actually wrong.

Things just looked unfamiliar.

I would start walking somewhere thinking, where the hell am I going?, keep going and eventually realize that there had never been anything to worry about.

That distinction became increasingly important once I started traveling farther from home.

Being outside your comfort zone can make completely normal things look threatening simply because you don’t recognize them. You don’t necessarily stop feeling nervous, but eventually you become much better at working out whether something is genuinely wrong or whether your brain is just panicking because everything looks different.

Porto was one of the first trips where I remember noticing that.

This was also a test before my first big solo trip

The entire Porto trip had another purpose in the back of my mind.

The following year, I was planning to leave on my first major solo backpacking trip around Europe.

Eighty days.

Entirely overland.

Alone.

Porto was only a few days away from home, but it gave me a small preview of what spending that much time traveling independently might actually feel like.

Could I spend hours alone and enjoy myself? Yes.

Could I navigate somewhere unfamiliar? Eventually.

Could I deal with getting lost? Apparently repeatedly.

Could I handle things going wrong without immediately giving up?

Mostly.

But the trip also made the bigger journey suddenly feel much more real. If a few days in my own country could involve wrong trains, getting lost, moments of panic and unexpected problems, what was going to happen when I started crossing Europe alone for months?

I genuinely didn’t know if I was ready.

I just knew I wanted to try.

Looking back at my Porto trip now

When I read what I wrote after this trip, one thing stands out more than anything else.

I was obsessed with the idea of being free to explore.

At the end of the trip, I wrote about wanting to spend my life with a map, a pen, a notebook and my camera, going to unknown places and exploring every corner I could find.

At the time, that was just me coming home from a few days in Porto feeling excited about travel again.

I had no idea what my life would look like afterward.

I didn’t know how many countries I would eventually visit, how much time I would spend traveling alone, or that more than ten years later I would still be trying to build my life around seeing the world.

Porto wasn’t the trip that started everything, but it came at a moment when I needed to remember how much I wanted it.

And apparently 2014 me already knew exactly where this was heading.