Portugal, Denmark & Sweden = 2025 Travel Blog!

Our 2025 International Trip: Portugal, Denmark, and Sweden!

We visited our 15^th country on this trip, which is sooo much fun! (Just in case you want to look back at past trip blogs for ideas, click HERE!) My family jokes that I’m either a complete homebody… or away on a trip – there’s no in-between! Planning a trip feels like my entire personality sometimes, haha! I had been planning this trip for a long time, and we were so excited to experience it together! :)

(Side note – If you’d like our full itinerary & places we stayed, let me know & I’ll email it to you!)

I’ll start off with the bad to get it out of the way: Unfortunately, this trip was hit with some disappointments – starting off with United Airlines / Newark CANCELLING several of our flights due to not having enough workers (tip: try to avoid Newark at all costs in the future) and we sadly MISSED 1.5 days of the beginning of our trip because of that!!! Then, when we finally arrived, Phillip was sick – so our first 5 days of the trip were at half-speed so he could rest. One more big disappointment happened, you’ll read that below for Sintra, Portugal!

Now for all the GOOD + FUN stuff about our trip!!! Here is the timeline and locations so you can follow along and see a basic itinerary:

• Porto, Portugal (1 night, but was supposed to be 2 nights before our flight was canceled!) 
• Nazare, Portugal (1 night) a beach & fishing town where surfing is huge: home of the “100 Foot Wave” documentary on Netflix
• Obidos (day trip) – a WALLED medieval city where we could walk ON the wall around it. So cool!
• Quelez, Portugal (day trip) to see the beautiful Palace of Quelez
• Lisbon, Portugal (2 nights)
• Sintra, Portugal (3 nights) 
• Cascais (day trip)
• Malmo, Sweden (day trip)
• Copenhagen, Denmark (3 nights) 

We were completely blown away with LOVING Portugal!!! It was absolutely PERFECT weather, beautiful architecture in soft “sherbet” shades of pinks, oranges, & yellows, stunning handpainted tiles all over their buildings, unique sidewalks and streets made with patterned mosaic cobblestones, the food was delicious and inexpensive, they had beautiful beaches & coastlines, we felt safe, and it was so easy to get around by walking and using SUPER cheap Ubers (or their version: Bolt!) So, 10/10 we would totally go back to Portugal, and add on seeing the Azores in south Portugal, or the island of Madeira (if I could stand the scary airplane landings there, haha) 

Some Portugal tips: We brought 300 Euros for tipping / “just in case” – and there were only 2 instances where we needed cash in smaller towns. Everywhere else uses credit cards just fine! Plus there are ATMs, so you can always bring a debit card just in case too.

The car rental we used was called Guerin, and it was a smooth and easy process with them! We rented a car after our time in Porto (you don’t need a car in the big cities!), we drove down to Nazare, Obidos, Quelez, and then dropped off the car in Libson! (A few more towns you could add on, but we didn’t have time: Aveiro, Evora, and Coimbra)

After Lisbon, we spent 3 days in Sintra. I was EXTRA excited for this city. I had pre-booked all our tickets in advance for Sintra – to see the Pena Palace, Moorish Castle, Quinta da Regaleira, and Monserrate Palace…but sadly the DAY we arrived they closed down ALL the locations in the mountains due to chances of wildfires. In fact, most of August they have been closed! So sadly, we missed out on all these magical places – but if you go, you HAVE TO SEE THESE!!!! They are just fairytale-looking!

Next we flew to Denmark & a day trip by train to Sweden! My family on my mom’s side is Danish, so I was really excited to go to Denmark for the first time. We stayed in Copenhagen for 3 nights at a beautiful hotel (Hotel Phoenix) with an amazing location central to everywhere! The city was stunning with a mixture of old + modern architecture, extremely walkable and safe, a great metro + train system, (although biking is their main mode of transportation) and we really loved our time here! It was also Copenhagen Fashion Week, so everyone was extra chic and stylish! I will say that Copenhagen was a very EXPENSIVE place to eat – so we were thankful to not be there longer than 3 days! For example – just 1 coffee & 1 slice of cake at “Espresso House” (their version of a chain starbucks) was $18!!! 

One day, we took a direct train to Sweden, and spent the day exploring Malmo, Sweden (you can hop on another train to Lund, Sweden next, but we didn’t make time to do that!) and it was fun to experience our 15^th country so easily! They didn’t even check our passports on the train!

The weather was usually overcast and cooler (with 2 windy days), in both Denmark + Sweden, but only a few sprinkles of rain that lasted only a few minutes. We enjoyed walking around the waterfront areas, shopping (they have GREAT shopping) touring different places, and of course – eating their amazing pastries!

Even with all the unexpected “bummers” of flight/Sintra cancellations + Phillip’s sickness, we had a great trip making the most of it & hope someday you can also experience these places! (Especially Portugal! Let me know if you have any questions for us! Thanks for reading, friends :)

P.S. Photos are in order of the trip itinerary: Porto, Nazare, Obidos, Quelez, Lisbon, Sintra, Denmark, Sweden!