After publishing our Portugal Travel Planner last spring, we received such great intel from all of our contributors that we decided we had to do a Lisbon-focused Black Book this fall. Since then, we’ve gathered even more great info from friends (and friends of friends) who live there or know it really well, and as soon as we Google map all these suggestions, we’ll be making a bee-line for this city.
Our Contributors
Annie Waterman is the founder of artisan-sourcing AOW Handmade, which links artisanal producers to global markets. In previous newsletters, Annie has shared her travels through Spain, Normandy, and Northern Portugal with YOLO, and written about the best artisanal shops in Madrid, Paris, and Lisbon.
Amir Mortazavi is a Lisbon-based hospitality entrepreneur and architectural/interior designer by day, and DJ by night. Currently, he is developing a wellness adventure hotel that he designed just outside of Lisbon.
Claire Scoville is a frequent Yolo contributor and New York-based creative who works with Jenni Kayne Home. Her family has longtime connections to Portugal, and she has been visiting the country her whole life.
Izabella Bray is the co-founder of The Startup Stack, a discount marketplace for founders building their tech stack. Born in the US to Brazilian parents, she began her career in New York media before pivoting to tech. After five years in San Francisco, she and her family relocated to Lisbon in February 2022.
Julia Coney is a wine writer and educator based in Houston & DC who I know from the wine world; I’ve always loved the way she talks about wine. She’s the founder of Black Wine Professionals and travels to Portugal often. We’re so grateful she let us excerpt some of her amazing guide to Lisbon, which she just posted last week on her Substack–you can see her complete post here.
José António Uva is the founder of São Lourenço do Barrocal, one of our favorite hotels in the Alentejo.
Lisa Borgnes Giramonti and Meghan McEwen are our friends behind the Substack In Hand. They’ve both been writing about travel, design and craft for years (Lisa for “A Bloomsbury Life,” Meghan at “Designtripper”), and their newsletter is full of meticulously researched travel advice and design pilgrimages.
Miles and Gail Curley, who previously had an ecological farming business in Mallorca, are the owners and proprietors of the Palácio Príncipe Real in Lisbon.
Mary Lussiana is a travel journalist who has lived in Portugal’s Algarve for 22 years and has spent much of that time exploring the country from top to toe.
Sabrina Buell is an art consultant I’ve known for years; she and her husband, designer Yves Béhar, split their time between San Francisco and Lisbon.
Amanda Blakely is a writer who focuses on family travel.
Vanessa Vodant is a born-and-raised Parisian who moved to Lisbon five years ago. After 25 years of working in fashion, she and a friend started Symbols, a concept store that aims to be a place of discovery, sharing and exchange.
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2 responses to “Lisbon Black Book”
[…] You asked and we answered! And by we, I actually mean the people who really know this lovely country well, because I certainly do not! I know I’ve said this before, but as a chronic repeat traveler (Italy/France/Greece), I just haven’t spent enough time here. But Yolo isn’t about me being the expert on everywhere—it’s about identifying interesting people to tap who do know a place well, to narrow it down for you. A bunch of your questions were about road trips and day trips from cities (which, given Portugal’s small size, practically take you across the country for lunch). But the responses from locals and frequent travelers we asked make it clear that Portugal is not a place to race around. Instead, it’s about slow-travel around the small villages of the Alentejo with their traditional artisan cultures, or hiking through Arrábida National Park or the Azores, or staying in a small fishing village away from the summer resort towns…though we’ve got great intel on the chicest stays in Comporta and Melides as well. And just to give you a mini table of contents here so you don’t have to scroll endlessly, we’ve structured the questions more or less from north to south, with deeper dives on Porto and Lisbon. (Our Lisbon Black Book is here.) […]
[…] so we made a plan to spend a month in Portugal, and a few months later (mid 2021) we arrived in Lisbon. We rented a beautiful flat on Rue de Sao Paulo, near Cais do Sodré, found a nanny service (our […]