About Madeirawalk — first-hand hiking guides for Madeira Island
Madeirawalk is an independent publisher of hiking and levada-walk guides for Madeira Island, Portugal. We are two hikers — Artem Zymovets and Yuliia Buriak — based in Madeira, and every guide on this site is built from a hike we actually walked, photographed, GPS-recorded, and timed ourselves. No AI-generated text. No sponsored placements unless explicitly disclosed.
About Artem Zymovets
I'm a software engineer who has been hiking on Madeira since 2022. To date I've walked roughly 50 of the island's classified PR trails and most of the unclassified levada walks in between. My engineering background is what powers the GPS tracks and elevation profiles you see on every guide — I record each hike on a Garmin watch and pull the raw data straight into the site.
Favourite trails: PR1 Pico do Arieiro to Pico Ruivo on a cloud-inversion morning; Levada do Caldeirão Verde because the tunnel section never stops being fun; Ponta de São Lourenço in winter when the south coast is empty.
About Yuliia Buriak
I'm a writer and photographer. I've been walking on Madeira since 2022 and I'm responsible for most of the photography on this site, the Russian-language translations, and the on-trail observations that don't fit into a GPX file — light, weather, what the basalt actually feels like underfoot.
Favourite trails: Vereda do Fanal in fog (no photographer can resist those laurel silhouettes); Levada do Risco for the waterfall light at 11:00; Levada do Caldeirão Verde end-to-end when the tunnels are dripping.
How we make a guide
Every guide starts with the hike. We walk it, photograph it, record the GPS track on a Garmin watch, time each section, and note what changes between seasons. Where it matters we return at least once in a different month — fog, water level, and trail closures vary enormously across the year on Madeira.
Then we write. First-person, plural, British English. We cite the Parque Natural da Madeira regulations and the official SIMplifica fee schedule for anything booking-related. We disclose anything sponsored — at the time of writing nothing on the site is.
What this site is not
- We are not a booking platform. For trail permits use https://simplifica.madeira.gov.pt/.
- We are not a tour operator. For guided hikes we link to operators we have used personally.
- We are not a forum. For community Q&A see r/Madeira on Reddit.
Contact & social
Found an error? Have a question about a specific trail? Want to license a photo?