The Algarve, along with the rest of Portugal and Spain, is suffering a shortage of hire cars at the moment so unless you have pre-booked there is unlikely to be any availability until later in August.
We have contacted local company Auto Rent who we are now working with and they will have availability after 20th August. They have a policy of honouring their commitments with customers, so all reservations confirmed are currently being honored but this is why they unfortunately can't accept anymore reservations with pick-ups until the 21st of August.
The problem has occurred because companies were expecting a quieter season due to the current economic climate and reduced their fleet sizes, but at a guess no-one took into account the UK weather! Obviously it's great for Algarve tourism but not so good if you wanted a car and can't get one.
However - don't despair! The Algarve has a very good public transport network and it's cheap! The bigger resorts have local minibus networks with frequent service times. Details of these are available for the "Onda" buses in Lagos, including links to the timetables; "Vai e Vem" in Portimao / Praia da Rocha (which also connects to Alvor) and "Giro" in Albufeira. Tickets are either available as you board for between 1€ and 1,40€ or 50 to 65 cents if pre-paid at the ticket office. Daily tickets are available for between 3,00€ and 3,20€ and pre-paid books of 10 tickets for just 5€ on the "Giro" network. Other cities with their own local networks are Faro and Loulé . Quarteira has a regular round town service that also connects to Vilamoura.
The Eva bus network covers the Algarve enabling travel between and around resorts and the website is available in English. Frota-azul buses cover a limited area mostly in the western Algarve (website in Portuguese only). The tourist offices normally have copies of local bus timetables and can point you in the right direction!
Several resorts (Armação de Pêra, Carvoeiro, Faro, Lagos, Quarteira, Vilamoura and Vila Real de Santo António) also have "Tourist Trains" connecting key areas in the towns.
Apart from buses there are trains that run along the coast from Faro to Vila Real in the east and as far as Lagos in the west - again these are cheap! Faro to Lagos is just 6,15€. It's not the speediest journey in the world, but the trains are clean and more or less on time! The timetable lists all the stations on route. The only caution with the train is that some of the stations are a little way out of the town so may necessitate a taxi ride to complete your journey.
If you don't fancy bus or train then we would suggest you pre-book (if you haven't already done so) either a taxi from your resort or with a transfer company as it is probable that the taxis based at Faro airport are rapidly getting booked up. Check the "Useful Information" page on our resort guides for local taxi numbers or our "Holiday Extras" for transfer companies.
Taxis are not expensive for getting around once you are in resort, even if it's just to get the heavy shopping back from the supermarket so keep the number of the local taxi rank with you just in case.
If you are looking for car hire after the 20th August, try our new partner company Auto Rent! We used them for several years when we were tourists to the Algarve and we always had a very reliable service, which is why we are very happy to be working with them!
Get an instant quote and book online with Auto Rent!