The Azores are a fascinating archipelago of nine islands, located in the mid-Atlantic between Europe and North America. Lush and green, featuring immense volcanic calderas, rugged cliff coastlines, abounding in great scenery, interest, history and heritage, the islands are criss-crossed with a network of splendid signposted and waymarked trails.

The islands are easier to reach than most people imagine, and within the group there are regular inter-island flights and ferries. Best of all, every island has a system of signposted and waymarked trails, and some of them have stretches of a long-distance trail designated as the GR1. The walking routes vary from short and easy to long and difficult, taking in the rugged coastline, high mountains, forests, lakes and interesting geothermal areas. There are also intriguing lava tubes and amazing volcanic chambers to explore underground.

Researching routes in the Azores took three trips of a month apiece, with anything from two to four islands visited on each trip. All the islands offer bus services, which were good enough to allow most of the routes to be reached. The weather is pretty good all year round, often sunny, though it can rain at any time, which helps to keep things fresh and green. Snow in winter is restricted to Pico, which is Portugal's highest mountain, rising twice as high as anything else in the Azores.

GPX tracks are available for all the routes in this guidebook. They can be downloaded from the Cicerone website.