Portugal is a country with great opportunities. I live just a block from the southern terminus of the N2 Road and have learned that it is a well-regarded route for motorcyclists. In 1945 the Salazar administration announced that it would build a national inland road, probably reasoning that a connected inland would increasingly take part in a modernizing economy. The route was an assemblage of preexisting roads that connected towns and villages all along the way from Chaves to Faro. It was all regraded, paved, and given the name N2 along its entirety. Some of these pathways have been in use since antiquity.
Over the years the towns-and-villages routing has been eclipsed by superhighways, advanced rail and air service. What has been bequeathed to the twenty-first century is 739 km of well-made, underutilized, twisty road through the heartland of a charming and rustic culture. On a recent Sunday morning I rode my ebike up to Sao Braz de Alportel to see for myself. There was very light traffic, smooth roadway and beautiful countryside scenery. While sitting at a small café I saw a loose grouping of about 100 motorcycles pass by northward, possibly a club run. There are lots of clubs of all kinds here.
This half-forgotten national treasure should be leveraged for tourism more effectively. I recently read in The Portugal News that the government is offering six million euros assistance to promising schemes that bring people from the tourist-glutted coastline toward the interior of the country and I thought that there would be an opportunity here. Also, expansions in tourism going forward should be much more sustainable than the status quo.
The idea is an ecycle (ebike/escooter/emoto) rental service that also provides swappable batteries along the entire length of the N2. Four rental service centers, located for transportation interconnectivity, will be where the cycles can be rented. Roadside service will also operate out of these four locations. Between the ends of the Road will be at least eleven battery swapping kiosks, spaced at 65 km or less and not connected to the grid. The swapping scheme supports the rental plan to bring in two streams of income. Clients can get new power right away and be on their way, with one mid-day battery swap.
Websites in English language and directed toward Americans compare the N2 to the Route 66 highway, which is a very inappropriate comparison. Route 66 is a very long and very boring drive, such that over the years art-kitch installations have sprung up to encourage travelers to stop. Think half-buried cars and giant balls of yarn. The presence of 66 brought about the attractions. On the N2 however, it was the waypoints that brought the road to its path. A better comparison and one to surely be more appealing to cyclists is the Blue Ridge Parkway that winds along the spine of the Appalachian mountain range of eastern United States, except that the N2 actually goes from place to place, whereas the Blue Ridge Parkway does not. The point here is that improved messaging can improve the touristic outcomes.
The idea is to create a limited, one dimensional (along the road), single-purpose electric utility, not connected to the grid. This utility will not need a grid because the clients will transport the power themselves. This utility can be factory-built, modular, and rest lightly on the landscape at locations where property rental rates should be affordable. If accommodations are projected to become problematic due to increased usage, then the PV arrays can also serve as camping shelter in what American campers might call an “Adirondack” type of shelter, bringing in a third stream of income.
This sustainable scheme of tourism will attract travelers inland from the coast where the journey itself becomes the destination. Cyclists can come to Portugal to “scratch their itch” without shipping any machinery. Riding the Road on an ebike from Chaves to Faro is longer than I want to spend in the saddle, so with the four service centers the ride can be done in two or three day stages over multiple visits.
Sustainable tourism is affordable tourism, attracting an expanded clientele. Also this form of tourism, showcasing a different aspect of Portugal could entice a slice of the domestic population to visit their own homeland and spent their holiday euros in Portugal
Brilliant!