2.3 Where You're Staying

I just live in the area, so have little current experience of staying over.

HOWEVER there are sensitivities you need to appreciate, although this applies less to hotels.

Hotel and Pensão

A hotel chain should be a good bet - you know what you’re getting. A good Pensão can be very good indeed, but what you get can be variable. Maybe check that little bit more thoroughly before booking.

Airbnb

This is where you may be best advised treading carefully. By all means book this way, but bear in mind that almost every Airbnb means one more place that has displaced the resident population.

Apartments in central Lisbon districts were affordable to rent or buy, until the city became the Must Visit Destination that it is today. Now, locals are being priced out of their own city, as more and more properties become Airbnbs, because that generates more money.

The cost of apartments has not yet reached London levels of silliness, but give it time. Talk to bar staff and waiters and it won’t be long before you find that they have to come in from Almada or even Montijo (across the river).

It is a problem that successive Governments have been most reluctant to even admit, never mind address. Because they, too, need the tourists to keep coming, and spending all that money. Please be aware of the situation.

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