Vegan Glamping in South-West Portugal | Joke Geertsma

Link for the Show Notes

In today’s episode, we’ll be talking to Joke Geertsma, co-owner of Portugal Nature Lodge, a beautiful vegan-friendly glamping site nestled in the Alentejo region of South-West Portugal.
Joke will share what makes this lesser-known region of Portugal so special, from its stunning natural landscapes and quiet beaches to its authentic local culture. We’ll also talk about the growing availability of vegan options in Portugal and how visitors can embrace a slower pace of life, reconnecting with nature and themselves. Whether you’re seeking relaxation, adventure, or a meaningful travel experience, this episode has something for everyone.

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Transcript

Brighde: Hello, Joke. Thank you for joining me on the World Vegan Travel Podcast.



Joke: Thank you very much, Brighde, and I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for the invitation.



Brighde: No problem. Listeners, you will have no idea of all of the technical issues that Joke and I have had to make this conversation happen. So it's really exciting to have you with us, Joke, and you're today going to be talking about five reasons why Portugal's south-west is such a fantastic destination to go to.



So before we get into that, Joke, would you mind telling us a little bit about what you do in the vegan and the vegan travel space?



Joke: My husband Peter and I, we run a glamping site in the Alentejo, close to the coast. The Alentejo is a province in Portugal that's just a little bit above the Algarve and below Lisbon. It's not very well known yet, but it's really beautiful. We started Portugal Nature Lodge or glamping, around 16 years ago, and it's a 7.5 hectare property. How much is it in acres? I think 30 acres, and we only have four glamping tents. So every tent has its own space, a lot of space around it. And it's really like having your own place in nature.



 How lovely! And is it a vegan glamping site?



Joke: Yes and no. Every tent has its own kitchen. So everybody can cook, and what we prefer, of course, is people cook only vegetarian or vegan meals, but we can check that. So everybody is welcome. I serve breakfast three times a week. I serve dinner, and that's all vegan.



Brighde: Wow, I'm just absolutely loving this idea of having a hybrid of like self-catering, and also being able to have breakfast and dinner for everyone as well. Could you describe to us what the actual glamping tents are like?



Joke: Yes, we have four tents and one is a real South African safari tent. Sixteen years ago, when we started this, there was not so much on the market yet. So we bought this one in South Africa, and we have two yurts that come from Mongolia. And then we have one lodge tent that's more for families. The safari tent is more for couples. It is big, but mostly the outside space is very big and the inside space is nice to be with just two persons. The yurts can have little kids, but they're also very romantic tents, so it's also nice for a couple. And the lodge tent, it's more for families. It also has three bunk beds and one single bed. All tents have their own outside area with a beautiful view and a kitchen, and their own bathroom with everything that you need.



Brighde: Who are the kinds of people that will come and stay at the glamping site? Are they young people, old people? Are they Europeans from North America? What age? What are they interested in?



Joke: Up until now, they're mostly from Europe. Sometimes we have people from the States or from Africa, but mostly they come from Europe. Mostly, couples; 45 plus. But on the other hand, we also have families with young kids and also young couples who like it here. So it's very diverse, and people who are also already above 65. So it's mostly people who are looking for a place that's quiet, where they can spend some time in nature, have time for each other, and are not looking for a lot of events or things to do, more for comfort. Yeah. Just being here in nature.



Brighde: Wonderful. And you mentioned that you sometimes provide dinners several times a week, and you also do breakfast as well. Do you deliver it to the glamping tents or do you have a restaurant or a common eating area where everyone who's staying can sit and eat together.



Joke: The breakfast, we always bring to the tent. For dinner; if people like it, there are more, yeah, couples or families staying for a longer time. They like to have dinner together, or sometimes people book several tents. We have a communal space close to the swimming pool where we can serve dinner, but otherwise we just bring it to the tent, yeah. So people can just have their catering, and have their own place, their own view, and it's the most beautiful place to have dinner, so most people like it, yeah.



Brighde: Is the venue open all year or do you close at certain times of year?



Joke: No, we're just having our last weeks now. So we close end of October, and then we open again, beginning of April. The winter days can be very nice, but of course, the evenings are much longer, and sometimes it can be really humid and a little bit colder, and then it's not so nice to stay in the tent. Spring, and autumn, and summer are best. Yeah.



Brighde: Does it get very hot in the tents in summer? Because I'm imagining that South-west Portugal can be very hot in the summer.



Joke: That's not too bad. We have the Atlantic ocean close by. The temperature mostly is around 30 degrees during the day, and sometimes it gets hotter, of course. But normally it's around 30 degrees Celsius.



And in the tent, yeah, sometimes it can be hot in the tent, but you normally spend your days outside. We never need air conditioning or whatever. And the evenings always cool down, so it's perfect for sleeping.



Brighde: I love it. Fantastic. All right. So, you're going to share with us some information about the South-west of Portugal. I'm not very familiar with Portugal at all. I've been to the North a little bit, but I certainly don't know this part of the world. So could you just orient us a little bit?



Where is it? What are the big geographical features nearby? What's the climate like? Just let us know what we can expect when we go to this part of the world.



Joke: Yeah, so Portugal is, of course, the western part of Spain. So it's on the North and on the East border. It's all enclosed by Spain and there's a very long coastline. It's a long country. It's not so wide, but, I must say, I think it's about 170 kilometers wide or something, but it's very long. And Lisbon is halfway. Where we live is below Lisbon. So Lisbon is, of course, the capital, and it's very well known. It's a nice city to visit. Then there's Porto in the North. It's also a very nice city. And then the Algarve in the South is the most well known part of Portugal. That's where most people go for holiday, where you have the big holiday complexes and, of course, beautiful beaches, but also very crowded. And then the Alentejo is the province where we live. That's the part between the Algarve and Lisbon. This is a province that's always very rural. The interior can also be very hot. It can really cut to 50, 40 degrees and more. But that's about also the part where there's most culture. There are big plains with also only cork trees and olive trees, and there's not so many people living there. The coastal part is also very unexplored, and I think that's what makes it so special. Especially here in Europe. But I think most parts of the world there's not so many coasts in Southern Europe which doesn't have big hotels and a lot of buildings. This part of the coast is really, yeah, unexplored.  



Brighde: It's really a nature park. So you can really walk here along the coast, and just don't see any buildings or whatever. It's all nature, and that is what makes it so special. It was always the poorest part of Portugal, and I think, yeah, it still is because the interior is undeveloped, very hot and there's not so much. Along the coast, there's a little bit more to do, but still, it was always the area where the Portuguese came for holidays, and not so many foreigners. Now there are more foreigners. It can be very quiet on the beaches, apart from August, maybe. There's more development now. So there are more restaurants, and there's much more to do. I love it. Joke. Thank you so much. I'm sure you've already alluded to some of the five reasons to visit Portugal's South-west, to visit this part of Portugal, rather than other parts of Europe. So why don't you tell us, the first reason why you think that people should check out this part of the world?



Joke: The first reason people mostly come is because of the beautiful beaches. Yes. There's a lot of rock formations in the sea, and they're mostly, beaches that are little coves. The sea is pretty wild here. It's more like a surf coast than a swimming coast. A lot of people also come here for taking surfing lessons. And so it's beautiful, and still natural beaches. That's the first reason. The other reason is that it's so authentic still. Maybe along the coast, it's a little bit less, but you only have to go a little bit inland, 5 kilometers, to come in these little villages where the Portuguese still have these little bars, where you can buy a coffee for a few cents, and where everybody comes together. So it's really authentic and that's also what makes it very special. 



Brighde: So when you say it's authentic, like I've got a vision in my mind of the old guy sitting on the bench and spending all day just chatting. What are some of the other sort of authentic things that you can see when you go to this part of the world? Maybe farming life or arts and crafts, things like that.



Joke: Yeah, farming life is one thing that was really a part where everybody has his own garden and his own pig, and that's not very vegan, but that's us. And all the villages are really little communities where people share a lot of things. It's still the way it is. So there are no big farms here. Everybody has his own cork trees for the cork, and olive trees, and orange trees, and there are no big developments here, no big agricultural lands. So that's very nice. The culture here is the authenticity. Of course, there are people making bowls and tiles, and things like that, and they're making things out of cork. You can do workshops. If you go a little bit inland, say, for a day trip, you can go to Beja or Ephra, which are big cities with a big Roman heritage. So you can find a whole lot there. Here in the coastal there's not so much culture. A little bit north of us is an old Roman castle with a racetrack which is also very special. So there is something, but it's not the thing that you come here for.



Brighde: Wow. That sounds so cool to have all of this Roman stuff in Portugal. I don't know why, but I just didn't really think of Portugal as having a lot of Roman ruins, but I stand corrected. Yeah, it does sound really lovely. It sounds like you could get a real sense of Portugal by coming to this part rather than going to the Algarve and other places for sure. Have you got any other reasons why people should come to this part of Portugal when they're considering a European holiday?



Joke: Yes,one thing, it's maybe for people from the U. S. It's not such a big reason. On the other hand, maybe it can be during your European holiday. The slogan from this area is also 'time for each other and time for yourself.' This is really a thing that people maybe don't come for here, but they find it out when they're here; that it's such a beautiful place just to be.



Unspoiled nature, the beautiful beaches, but also being here; just enjoying life like it is, and just to be, and don't having the thing, 'Oh, I need to go there, and I need to see that, now I'm here.' That's just having some time for yourself and for each other. There's a lot of people that come here that live in communities, and so there are lots of hippie markets. I don't know exactly why, but it mixes very good with the Portuguese lifestyle, the authentic Portuguese lifestyle. So you see a lot of markets where Portuguese people come and they sell their things. So there's vegan restaurants. Every restaurant now has his vegan options also, and when we came here 16 years ago, vegan, even vegetarian, was almost a word they'd never heard of. Now you can eat vegan or vegetarian dish in almost every restaurant, so that's very nice.



Brighde: That really is quite remarkable. When you compare it to other places in Europe, usually in rural areas, it will be very un-vegan-friendly, and we want to go to rural areas, and because it's quiet and for all of the reasons that you have already shared, but then it's just not very vegan-friendly. So I'm imagining staying in your glamping site. You've got a fantastic vegan breakfast. You go out and have lunch, and at one of the restaurants around, because there's so many vegan options, and then you can either come back, enjoy the evening where you cook for them, or they just pick something up from the supermarket. And I'm sure there's a lot of great vegan options at the supermarket. That's so cool! Yeah.



Joke: It's really often not like that at all. You want to go to a rural place and it's, well, thank you hippies. Thank you hippies. 



The last thing I haven't mention yet, is the Rota Vicentina. The Rota Vicentina a walking route that goes from a place a little bit North of here, along the coast, all the way to the most South-western point of Europe here in Portugal. It's a long hiking trail, and they have one along the coast and one a little bit more inland. And you can, of course, walk just small stretches of this when you're here. This really added to get this area more known, because of the hikers that come here, of course. There are more vegetarian and vegan options because a lot of the hikers like more vegetables. The Portuguese cuisine was always rice, chips, and meat or fish. Very little vegetables. And that's also why now you can get more vegetables in the restaurants. It's very nice. Yeah.



Brighde: That is so cool. I believe that just quite recently, Portugal opened up a very long walking route that goes around the whole of Portugal. It's like 3, 500 kilometers long, is that right?



Yeah. I don't know a lot about the whole route. It's very recent. Yeah. But it's very beautiful. Yeah, I love it. I keep a very close eye on all of these announcements for these new long distance paths because I really like to hike, and it's very interesting seeing just how that increases visitors to a certain region. So I'm sure this is going to be really great for Portugal's tourism industry. 



Any other really great reasons to come to this part of the world?



Joke: A lot of people go to the Algarve, the most Southern Province of Portugal, also has some beautiful coastline. But a lot of people come there really for the coast, and for the sea, and partying. Here you can also have the beautiful beaches and the nice villages on the coast. All the tourists that come here really come for nature because there's no partying and yeah, just very small things. No high rise buildings. No all-inclusive tourism. So that also still makes it very special, yeah.



Brighde: I love it. If there are people that really like to be very active, I mean, you talked a little bit about the hiking. But are there any other specific things that people who love adrenaline, love to be active, like to push themselves physically, that they might do? Because right now it just sounds very relaxing, but maybe, people like to really get out there and push themselves a little bit.



Joke: A lot of people go surfing, of course, because of the surf coast here and surfing is very beautiful. You can spend all day on the water and on the beach and be very active. So that's really nice to do just for an afternoon or for a day, or you can take a several day course. Then the hiking, of course, is beautiful. The reason we came here. We came from the Netherlands, of course. We were on a biking trip, and we were fond of mountain biking, and the mountain biking is also really good here. Of course, the summer is a little bit too hot for that, mostly, but in the spring and in fall, it's amazing. There's so many tracks and roads to take, and you can cross to all these beautiful villages. And so mountain biking is really good. And of course, there are other activities that you can do. You can jump off the rocks in a little lake, or there are activities on the coast where you can jump in pools, and there's a lot to do. If you like the adrenaline rush, you'll also find something.



Brighde: And is your glamping site located on the beach or is it a little bit inland?



Joke: We're a little bit more inland, yeah. The advantage is that the coastal area is a bit barren because of the wind that always comes from the Atlantic Ocean. And because we're just a little bit more inland, there's a river in between us and the coast. That's also an activity. You can go canoeing on the river. It's a very easy river. Because we're a little bit more back, we don't have this big winds. It's more in the hills, much more. It's very green compared to being closer to the coast.



 Sounds absolutely lovely. I can't wait to check it out. It just sounds like such a dreamy place. So if people did want to come and stay at your accommodation that's very vegan-friendly, in a very vegan-friendly part of the world, how can they find you, and how can they book a tent at your site.



Yeah. You don't really need a car, but it's advisable because the public transport here is horrible. So if you want to go to the beach, you really need a car or call a taxi. You can find us, of course, on the internet and on Google Maps, Portugal Nature Lodge. It's close to a little village, 800 meters from it. It's a dirt road, the last track, but that makes it even more special. It's very hidden, but the little village is also very nice. There are two cafes where you can have a drink or have a meal and also vegetarian or vegan.



Brighde: That sounds lovely. All right. Well, listeners, all of the things that we've talked about are going to be linked in the show notes. So please go and check it out and check out Portugal Nature Lodge. It just sounds absolutely lovely. Joke, thank you so much for joining me on the World Vegan Travel Podcast.



Joke: Thanks for having me!