Where to stay on Faial: Horta, Praia do Almoxarife or the west, the hotels, rentals and rural houses

On Faial the choice is mostly between Horta and everywhere else. Every hotel on the regional tourism list is in or just outside the town, and so are the ferry to Pico, the restaurants and the marina. The rest of the island has rental apartments and old stone houses turned into rural lets, which suit a stay with a car and long days on the Caldeira and the western trails. Below is what there is, what each base costs you in driving, and when rooms are hard to find.

The regional statistics office counts every licensed bed. On Faial in 2025 there were eight or nine hotels with between 849 and 970 beds, depending on the month, and between 216 and 243 local accommodation lets (alojamento local, the licensed private rentals) with about 1,400 to 1,550 beds. The island has no youth hostel.

Two figures from the same tables matter for planning. Hotels took 53.9% of Faial's overnight stays in 2025, more than the rentals. And most rentals stop taking guests in winter: 205 of them had guests in August 2025, against 60 in January.

Visit Azores, the regional tourism site, lists 44 places to stay on Faial, from hotels to campsites. It is a good starting point, but it is not complete, and it gives no prices.

Stay in Horta if this is your first visit, if you have no car for part of the stay, or if you plan to cross to Pico more than once. The ferry to Madalena leaves from the terminal in town, takes about half an hour and cost €8.20 one way for an adult non-resident in 2026. With a room in the centre, you walk to it.

These are the hotels Visit Azores lists in and around Horta:

• Hotel do Canal, in the centre. It has a restaurant, a bar, a fitness centre and private parking, and some rooms look over the marina.
• Hotel Horta, with 79 rooms and a suite, a few metres from the regional parliament building. It has a pool, a garden and parking.
• Pousada de Santa Cruz, inside the sixteenth-century Fort of Santa Cruz on the bay. It opened as a hotel in 2004 and has 28 rooms, two of them suites, most with a sea-view balcony, and a pool.
• The Book Hotel, a five-star boutique hotel with 25 units on Largo do Bispo D. Alexandre, with an outdoor pool and a sauna.
• Azoris Faial Garden, the largest, with 131 rooms in a main building and villas just outside town, 10 km from the airport. It has an indoor and an outdoor pool and tennis courts. Check how far your room is from the centre if you want to walk in for dinner.

For a smaller budget, the Largo do Bispo Boutique Hostel near the Conceição beach and the market has seven rooms and 22 beds: private doubles and shared rooms for up to six, each with its own bathroom, and a shared kitchen. Horta also has guesthouses and apartments, including some at the Porto Pim end of town, by the beach and the foot of Monte da Guia.

The drawback of Horta is that the beach at Porto Pim is a short walk from the centre rather than outside the door, and the seafront avenue carries most of the town's traffic. Our Horta guide compares the parts of town.

Praia do Almoxarife is a dark-sand beach on the east coast, facing Pico across the channel, about ten minutes' drive from Horta. Rentals here suit a summer stay built around swimming, with the mountain in front of you every evening.

You will want a car. A Farias bus loop links the beach with Horta, but on the timetable checked in September 2026 it ran only a few times on weekdays, twice on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays. The beach is open to the channel and gets choppy in an easterly wind.

West of the Caldeira, around Capelo, Varadouro and Praia do Norte, you are close to Capelinhos, the western trails and the Varadouro sea pools. Most places here are houses rather than rooms. Three examples from the Visit Azores list:

• Casas do Capelo, in Capelo village: basalt buildings more than a century old, rebuilt in 2000 as rural houses that each sleep four or five, with a kitchen and a washing machine.
• Casas da Fajã, in the Fajã below the cliffs in the parish of Praia do Norte: two houses, one for five people and one for three, with a wood-fired oven and a barbecue.
• Casa das Areias, on one of the oldest lanes in Cedros on the north coast, with walking paths from the door.

Quinta das Buganvílias, a farm that has taken guests as rural tourism since 1994, offers rooms instead: seven doubles in two buildings, with kitchenettes and a sitting room in the stone house.

The cost of a western base is the drive. Dinner in Horta, the ferry and the shops all become a trip by car, and the buses do not run on Sundays. The airport, in Castelo Branco 9.5 km south-west of Horta, is on the way, which helps on the last day.

If you are thinking of a tent, Faial has two staffed summer campsites, at Varadouro and Praia do Almoxarife, open from June to September, and three free sites by small harbours. Our camping guide has the details.

August is the month to plan around. In August 2025 Faial's hotel beds were 66% occupied, against 12% in December, and the average price per room sold was €129.66, against €48.60 in January and €93.65 across the whole year. Those are averages over every hotel room on the island, not what you will be quoted, but they show how much the season moves prices. Semana do Mar, Horta's sea festival, fills the town for about ten days around the start of August (31 July to 9 August in 2026); book as soon as your flights are fixed if your dates overlap it.

Winter has the opposite problem: fewer rentals take guests, and the Caldeira can sit in cloud for days. The hotels keep going, with eight taking guests in December 2025 and January 2025.

Leave room for the weather either way. A cancelled flight or ferry means another night, so book a room you can extend, or spend the last night in Horta.

Guests stayed 2.28 nights on average in a Faial hotel in 2025 and 3.15 nights in a rental. Three nights is enough for the Caldeira, Capelinhos and a day on Pico; our guide to how many days to spend on Faial goes through each length of stay.

What is the best area to stay on Faial? Horta for most visitors: the hotels, the restaurants and the Pico ferry are all there. Choose the west or the north for a walking holiday with a car.

How many hotels are there on Faial? Eight or nine in 2025, according to the regional statistics office, with between 849 and 970 beds. All the hotels on the Visit Azores list are in or close to Horta.

Is there a hostel on Faial? There is no youth hostel, but the Largo do Bispo Boutique Hostel in Horta has shared rooms for up to six as well as private doubles.

Do I need a car if I stay outside Horta? Yes, in practice. Buses run a few times a day on weekdays, rarely on Saturdays and never on Sundays.

• SREA: Estatísticas do Turismo, Açores, 2025 (tables 1.7, 2.7 and 4.7, Faial)
• Visit Azores: where to stay on Faial
• Visit Azores: Hotel do Canal
• Visit Azores: Hotel Horta
• Visit Azores: Pousada de Santa Cruz
• Visit Azores: The Book Hotel
• Visit Azores: Azoris Faial Garden
• Visit Azores: Largo do Bispo Boutique Hostel
• Visit Azores: Casas do Capelo
• Visit Azores: Casas da Fajã
• Visit Azores: Quinta das Buganvílias