Spain was the first country we properly explored after setting off on our 18-month travels around the world at the end of May in 2018. After spending a few days in Paris, we took a train straight to Barcelona and from there we visited Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Cordoba, Granada, Ronda and Seville.
It was a fantastic 2 week trip, but we were traveling on a tight budget so we couldn’t see and do as much as we’d have liked. We enjoyed Barcelona, but we actually preferred the day trips near Madrid and most of all Andalusia, which we absolutely loved.
In this Spain travel guide we explain everything you need to know about planning a first trip, including top experiences, itinerary, when to go and more.
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Places To Visit
Barcelona – It might not be the capital, but it’s the most visited city in Spain. We really liked the contrast of going from the beach into the Gothic Quarter for dinner and drinks. It’s a fantastic city with amazing food, lots of Gaudi architecture, the Nou Camp and Montserrat an easy day trip away.
Madrid – What a fantastic capital city. It doesn’t get the credit it deserves in our opinion. Madrid has lovely architecture, museums, plazas and parks. What we love most is how easy it is to take short day trips to nearby strongholds like Toledo and Segovia. Don’t miss Madrid from your Spain itinerary.
Granada – Home to the second most visited tourist attraction in Spain called The Alhambra, Granada is a stunning place to visit in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the south of the country. We saw Flamenco dancing, ate excellent food and walked through the lovely town.
Cordoba – Best known for its famous mosque Le Mezquita, Cordoba is a diverse, picturesque and vibrant Andalusian city that shouldn’t be missed. We loved walking around the narrow maze-like streets in its world heritage old town, and we found some amazing places to eat.
Seville – The largest city in Andalusia is filled with delicious tapas, flamenco, stunning architecture and historic charm. We really liked the food in Seville, it’s one of our standout memories. Overall, it’s a lovely place to relax, walk around, grab a churro and take it all in.
Ronda – Perched dramatically on the edges of a deep gorge, Ronda is a small and easy to visit Andalusian city near Malaga and the popular beach resort of Marbella. It’s home to a famous bullring, lovely plazas and a gigantic stone bridge crossing between the gorge.
Ibiza – If you’re looking for a place to let loose for a few days when you visit Spain, you need to book a trip to Ibiza. Mark did it twice back in his twenties and had a blast. The island also has a family beach holiday side, but most people are going there to party in style.
Majorca – Now this is a classic European family holiday destination. Majorca is overflowing with resort style hotels that are always packed full in the summer months. But it also has lots of history and culture to unearth if you can tear yourself away from your sun lounger.
We’re only just scratching the surface here, there’s plenty more great places to see in Spain like San Sebastian, Valencia, Cadiz and the Canary Islands. And let’s not forget about beach trips – Mark grew up in England so family holidays to the popular Spanish holiday resorts in Costa Brava and Costa del Sol were pretty regular!
Top Experiences
Instead of looking at travel planning solely by which cities, towns or regions to visit, we like to know what experiences are worth doing when we visit new places.
Here are some of the awesome things we’ve either done or would love to do in Spain:
- Visit the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona
- See Gaudi’s unique architecture
- Watch a live La Liga football match
- Visit the Prado Museum in Madrid
- Day trip to a historic town like Toledo
- See the aqueduct in Segovia
- Explore The Alhambra in Granada
- See the Mezquita in Cordoba
- Take a food tour in San Sebastian
- Relax on beaches in the Balearics
- Watch a flamenco show in Seville
- See the Alcazar in Seville
- Eat tapas anywhere and everywhere
- Walk the Camino de Santiago
- Cable car or hike Mt Teide in Tenerife
Finally, one of our top tips is to attend a local festival because they’re so unique to Spain. The two most popular are Las Fallas in Valencia where they burn large wooden and paper sculptures and San Fermin bull running festival in Pamplona.
Mark once went to la tomatina festival near Valencia at the end of August and had so much fun throwing tomatoes at hundreds of people. It was like a snowball fight but with tomatoes on a red hot day wearing nothing but swimming shorts, flip flops, and goggles for eye protection. Sound ridiculous? It is, but it’s also a blast!
Getting Around
Spain is so easy to get around thanks to an excellent train network, cheap buses and plenty of low budget airlines serving its major airports. But it’s a bigger country than you might think, so travel times need to be factored into your itinerary plans.
We took trains every time we moved from one place to another or took a day trip because we had unlimited interrailing passes. Renfe is the major high speed train operator in Spain and we thought they were great – comfy seats, good amount of storage and mostly on time.
On the downside, we had to reserve seats in addition to our interrailing passes every time we traveled. It didn’t cost much, but it was frustrating having to do the extra admin.
Alsa and Avanza are the two major bus companies doing trips between cities if you’d prefer to travel by coach. If you’ll be flying to islands or it’s cheaper to do it over long distances on the mainland, you can fly for peanuts with Ryanair.
In Barcelona, most of the touristy stuff is walkable so we walked as much as possible. But there were one or two times we used the metro (here’s a Barcelona metro pdf) to cover longer trips. We found Madrid to be one of the walkable cities in Europe, but again there were a few times we hopped on a metro to cover a longer distance (here’s a Madrid metro pdf).
Itinerary
There are so many ways you can plan a first trip to Spain. It could be 10 days on the coast, a week in Barcelona or a month traveling the whole country. So there’s no way we could create a one size fits all route for everyone.
But here’s how we would plan a 4-week trip through Spain if it were our first time again, knowing what we know now:
- Barcelona – Days 1 to 3
- San Sebastian – Days 4 to 5
- Madrid – Days 6 to 10*
- Cordoba – Days 11 to 12
- Seville – Days 13 to 14
- Cadiz – Days 15 to 16
- Ronda – Day 17
- Malaga – Days 18 to 19
- Granada – Days 20 to 22
- Valencia – Days 23 to 24
- Ibiza/Majorca – Days 25 to 28
*We include 5 days for Madrid to allow for day trips to Toledo, Segovia and Avila. But remember, instead of day trips you could stay in any of the towns in addition to Madrid. We did a night in Toledo and it was great.
This would be an action packed itinerary taking in most of the country’s popular tourist highlights. It’s exactly how we’d do it if we wanted to spend a month in Spain.
Accommodation
Spain is one of the most established tourist destinations in the world, so there’s no shortage of quality accommodation available for any budget or travel style across the mainland and islands.
Overall, we were pleasantly surprised at the prices we paid for lodging in Spain compared with other popular countries in Europe. On the cheaper end we stayed in a few pensions (which are basically family owned hostels) to save some cash, but then we also splurged on a few lovely hotels that didn’t break the bank.
Barcelona was the most expensive place we visited, Madrid was surprisingly affordable and down in Andalusia we booked hotels that had even better value for money. We haven’t done any Airbnb’s in Spain, and a lot of new reports suggest they might not be around for much longer!
Finally, if you go to a holiday resort on the Costa del Sol or a family friendly hotel in the Balearics or Canaries, you can also look at package deals like half board and all inclusive for a different type of vacation. Mark did a few of these growing up and they’re always a lot of fun!
Food
Nos encanta la comida en Espana! We really do enjoy eating tapas in Spain, it’s such a cool and unique way to enjoy a great atmosphere with tasty food and an ice cold cerveza or warm glass of red wine to wash it all down.
We also ate a ton of paella (because you just have to), gazpacho, suckling pig in Segovia and so many naughty churros for desert. Oh, and we also got totally addicted to the strong, rich and sweet coffee during our 2 weeks in Spain.
Madrid, Barcelona and Seville are known for being top notch foodie destinations but they all have far too many great places to eat, so we kind of just followed locals and went in whatever looked busiest.
One thing you have to remember (that drove us mad at first) is the Spanish don’t eat dinner until 9:00-11:00pm. Seriously, a lot of places don’t even open until 8:00pm. It took us a few days to figure this out – after lunch we’d snack throughout the day even into the early evening so we didn’t get hangry before dinner!
When To Visit
Spain has amazing weather from April through October, so the peak visiting season is longer than a lot of other European countries. That said, July and August are by far the busiest two months of the year. But they’re also the hottest and most expensive, so it’s a trade-off.
Our 2 week trip to Spain was in the last week of May and first week of June, and even then it was so hot which made exploring a tiring business. Honestly, if we planned to do some serious traveling through Spain again we’d go in April or October when it’s even cooler. Plus, there would be a better balance between costs and crowds.
Mark has done a load of Spanish holidays in July, August and September, but they were beach and pool type trips with easy ways to cool off. We absolutely would not try to travel around the country in July or August!
Tours
We don’t necessarily think tours are essential in a place like Spain because most things are easy enough to do yourself. But there are some day trips and food tours that we absolutely would do to make life easier and let someone else do the driving or explaining.
Here are some of the top rated tours we would personally book in Spain:
Keep Exploring
Are you planning a longer trip with stops in more European countries? Once you’re finished reading about Spain, keep exploring nearby areas by heading over to the following pages:
We hope our Spain travel guide helps with planning your trip!
Happy Travels,
Mark and Kristen
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