Who Are the People Living in Ericeira?
Ask ten people in Ericeira what the town is like and you'll get ten different answers. To a surfer it's a world-class wave. To a founder it's a laptop cafe with a sea view. To a retreat-goer it's a place of healing. To a family whose grandparents fished here, it's home, and it's changing fast. Behind those answers is a question the town rarely asks out loud: who actually lives here now?
A village that grew fast
Ericeira is a parish in the municipality of Mafra, and in 2011 it had an estimated 10,260 residents on about 12 km2. Lisbon has long treated it as a getaway: in the 1940s and 1950s it was a favourite summer escape for Lisbon families. Growth has accelerated since. Census data show Mafra's population rose 12.8% between 2011 and 2021, from 76,685 to 86,523, making it the second-fastest-growing municipality in Portugal. Tourism anchors the local economy, centred on the Mafra convent and on Ericeira's world-famous surf.
Ericeira was always right-leaning and not a left-wing town
It's tempting to read the newcomers' politics as a shift, but the area was never a left-wing stronghold. The center-right PSD won the council with 46.87% in 2013 and rose to 56.79% and an absolute majority in 2017. The 2025 local election did bring change. An independent movement, #HML 2025, narrowly took the council presidency with 33.5% against the PSD's 33.2%, and Chega secured third place in the municipal assembly. In the neighbouring parish of Mafra, Chega rose from 5.83% in 2021 to 16.73% in 2025.
That mirrors the country as a whole. In the May 2025 national election Chega took 23.74% and won 60 seats, overtaking the Socialists to become the main opposition party. Most foreign residents can't vote in national elections anyway. Whatever political mood newcomers bring shows up in cafes and WhatsApp groups more than at the ballot box.
The scenes
Longtime locals (50s-80s, plus a younger surfing generation)
Longtime locals are the oldest layer: Portuguese families with roots in fishing, trade and the parish church, plus a younger generation who grew up surfing the local reefs. Many Lisbon families still keep weekend houses here.
Surfers (20s-40s)
Surfers are Ericeira's backbone. The town's World Surfing Reserve status made serious surfing central to its identity. Local pros, shapers, shop owners and people who moved purely for the waves form a tight community. It can be protective of its breaks and is largely indifferent to the other scenes.
Surf camp visitors (late teens-20s)
Surf camp visitors bring a fresh wave of young Europeans every week, on one- or two-week packages. They fill the hostels and bars and are gone before they learn the street names.
Remote workers and founders (late 20s-40s)
Remote workers and founders have become a visible part of town since the pandemic, filling coworking spaces, laptop cafes, and villas bought by tech earners. This group leans pro-capitalist and entrepreneurial, increasingly excited about AI, and overlaps heavily with the surfers.
The spiritual scene (aka hippies, 30s-50s)
The spiritual scene has multiplied fast: yoga retreats, breathwork, cacao ceremonies, ecstatic dance and intimacy workshops. Many practitioners are serious and well trained. The scene also overlaps with anti-lockdown, institution-skeptical circles from the pandemic years, and leans somewhat further right than Ericeira's older base.
The "freedom" movers (30s-40s)
Some arrivals in the "freedom" movers category came around 2020-2022 partly to escape lockdown rules or a political climate at home they disliked. Bitcoin, fitness, alternative health and scepticism of institutions are common threads, and politically this group leans further right than the town's older base. It often overlaps with the spiritual scene, and to an outsider the two can look like one social circle.
Families (30s-40s)
Families, couples with young children, came for nature, safety and surf. Some are drawn to alternative or forest schooling. They're less visible than the nomads but increasingly shape the town's schools and weekends.
The people who keep it running (20s-50s)
The people who keep it running, Brazilian, Nepali, Indian and other immigrant workers, staff kitchens, cleaning crews, deliveries and farms. They're essential to the local economy.
Why some people don't fit
For a secular, progressive, left-leaning newcomer from a northern European city, Ericeira's expat mix can feel unexpectedly unfamiliar. The dominant scenes revolve around surfing, self-optimisation, entrepreneurship and spirituality, not the left-leaning urban culture many assume a "hip surf town" will have. Newcomers looking for that often end up in Lisbon neighbourhoods like Arroios or Anjos, forty minutes away.
Have a story about finding, or not finding, your people in Ericeira? Write to us.