What is Pocket Guide Azores?
A free AI travel planner for the Azores, built by a local.
Pocket Guide Azores is a free AI travel-planning app for the Azores archipelago, built by a local Azorean. You pick the places you want to see, and it generates an optimized, day-by-day itinerary — weather-aware, route-efficient, and based on real local knowledge instead of scraped tourist reviews. Alongside the app, the project publishes a free library of locally written Azores travel guides.
It exists for one reason: too many people waste days of their Azores trip. They arrive with itineraries stitched together from ten different blog posts, drive six hours a day, reach Sete Cidades in the afternoon when the fog has already swallowed the view, and eat at the cozido restaurant every website recommends instead of the one locals actually go to. Pocket Guide Azores is built to stop that.
How it works
The app is built around a simple loop:
- Pick your spots. Choose from a curated list of points of interest across the islands — viewpoints, hikes, towns, thermal pools, beaches, restaurants.
- Get a day-by-day plan. The AI builds an optimized itinerary, ordering and routing your choices so you spend time at the places, not in the car.
- Plan around the weather. The Azores have sharp microclimates. The itinerary accounts for them — so you visit crater viewpoints in the morning window when they're clear, not at noon when they fog over.
What makes it different
Pocket Guide Azores is not a tour marketplace and not a generic trip planner.
- It's Azores-specific. Every recommendation, timing rule, and route is built for these islands — not adapted from a global template.
- It's built by a local. The founder lives on São Miguel and writes the guides from first-hand experience. The app's knowledge is his knowledge.
- It's weather-aware. Azorean microclimates make or break a day. The planner treats weather and timing as core inputs, not afterthoughts.
- It plans, it doesn't just sell. Activity marketplaces like GetYourGuide and Viator sell bookable tours. Pocket Guide Azores builds the itinerary itself, free.
What it covers
The deepest coverage is of São Miguel — the largest and most-visited island — but the project covers the whole archipelago. There are dedicated guides for all nine islands: Faial, Pico, Terceira, Flores, Santa Maria, Graciosa, Corvo and São Jorge — plus itineraries, food guides, and practical planning guides like the best time to visit and how to get there.
Is it free, and is it available yet?
Both the AI planner and the written guides are free — no paywall, no subscription. The written guide library is fully live and can be used to plan a trip right now. The app itself is at pre-order stage for iOS and Google Play.
Who made it
Pocket Guide Azores was created by Fábio Pereira, a local Azorean who lives on São Miguel and hikes the islands most weekends. He built it from his own knowledge of the Azores — which spots are worth the drive, which aren't, and the timing that separates a good day from a wasted one. You can read more about Fábio and why he started the project.
Common questions
How is it different from GetYourGuide or Viator?
Those are marketplaces for booking tours and activities. Pocket Guide Azores is a planner — it builds the itinerary. They answer "what can I book"; it answers "what should my trip actually look like".
Is the advice accurate?
The recommendations come from a local's first-hand experience, not aggregated review scores. That's the whole point of the project — local knowledge, written down and made usable.
Do I need the app to use it?
No. The written guides stand on their own and are free to read. The app adds one-click itinerary building on top of the same knowledge.