I regret coming here as a tourist, my life goal is to visit all of natures biggest beauties. The nature is beautiful and people are awesome, that said as a nature lover i will definitely not be coming back or recommending it to anyone, as this is next level overtourism i wasnt aware existed. Had better experiences in east asia which has a very new hiking culture and mainland europe, and coming from a Balkan country i see the same patterns of late stage capitalism and badly implemented institutional systems. This whole island is gentrified and is already a parody of itself.
-Need a entry fee like everest, simplifica is a start but just annoying
-Real estate needs to be taxed to hell if you dont live 300 days on the island or you have no roots in Madeira, as well as every 2nd,3rd property. Zoning, too late for that.
-Having to sort through international cuisine tourists trap restaurants, too globalized
-Build build build, if its not an erosion prone hill just build
-As an avid camper its very expensive, i admit i didnt do a lot of homework since the flights are cheap, but the accomodation, necessary car rental, gas, trails, food are very expensive, every grocery store trip is 50eur, every restaurant 40 eur for two, im going on 3k for 2 weeks, car is rented for 1 week. Camping in europe comes out to 1200 eur for 2 weeks for two
-Car centric, cars suck. Parking app balance based on district, wasted 20 eur, should have just used coins. Buses to anywhere other than Funchal and a couple of most popular hikes are impossible to plan had to get a car
-Multi milion dollar villas next to folks selling 1e bananas and magnets just makes you hate life
-The stupid ass simplifica website, everything booked at all times, not being able to plan based on weather. Had an easier time planning italy rifugios. Just let me pay for PR entry for the week like a national park entry, i dont know where and when it will rain. Why am i even paying for trails
-Popular trails full to the brim, had to really do my homework to find similar quality trails, which wastes energy instead of being spontaneous and enjoying nature
-Rangers closing all PR trails based on weather reports that change every couple of hours causing people to flock to non PR trails causing them to be full and dangerous. Looked at cameras had very little rain in some areas, still closed, even very safe hikes.
-Considering how much money everyhing costs where are the rangers, there should be 2 shifts on every single PR, checking tickets and fining people for missconduct. I feel dumb paying for tickets wanting to support this beauty and others just ignoring warnings and the ticket system since no one is checking them
-Camping, forget about it, the island caters to people that are used to comfort, you have to get a permit in advance and campsites have no facilities, no fire to warm up, and you cant get to them without a car. You can do glamping for $$$ with all the hip digital nomads
-Toilet paper everywhere, how do people have money to get here but dont have a plastic baggy. Trash situation is ok but still saw red lip gloss left on a rock, cigar packages, foil from sandwiches in 1 day. But this is more of a popularity problem which can only be solved by rangers picking up trash and educating people.