portugal and spain three weeks in October

I urge you to get guidebooks to Spain and Portugal and make lists of places you want to go, then check the travel times before committing to Porto and especially Malaga. Spain in particular is a very large country, and Malaga is at the extreme south. It is conveniently located for visiting a bunch of Costa del Sol coastal villages, but is that how you want to spend your time in Spain? Many of those towns are known for ticky-tacky holiday apartments, German sausage joints and British pubs.

However, if the beach is a major part of your plan, you may need to stick to the south coast from the weather standpoint. Even down there, I am not sure about October for going in the water (but I am not a beach person). It would be a good idea to Google for water temperature in that area.

Cordoba is the quickest-to-reach major tourist destination from Malaga, at about an hour each way. Seville and Granada are about twice as time-consuming (about 4 hours round-trip). Neither is really suitable for such a day-trip due to the time needed to see its major attractions.

I am doubtful about beaches in the area around Porto in October. The Atlantic coast tends to be cooler than the Mediterranean.

You can check travel times by train on the user-friendly Deutsche Bahn website, however, you'll probably end up needing to use buses as well.

Pick one country. Travel between the 2 is somewhat painful. And, in your case, going from España and then back will waste a lot of vacation time.

We did 3 weeks in central/northern Portugal in 2017. Lisboa, Coimbra, Aveiro, Porto, Lisboa.
And 3 weeks in northern España in 2018. Bilbo, Donostia, Irunea, Zaragoza, Sitges, Barcelona.

In both cases, "travel by train".
Comboios Portugal is clean, efficient and really inexpensive. Our train trips were: Lisboa-Coimbra (IC, 2ª), Coimbra-Aveiro (R), Aveiro-Porto (U), Porto-Lisboa (AP, 1ª). We also took a day trip via train up the Douro as I wanted to see the dam at Tua. The website makes it very easy to buy discounted tickets in advance.
Renfe is clean, efficient and moderately priced. The Renfe website is not the easiest to use, but I managed.

Thank you . I think that’s what we will do when you did Portugal did you have a car or how did you travel? I really appreciate your suggestion

If you are thinking of only one home base in Portugal, I think Lisbon meets your needs most. You can train to Cascais for the beach, as well as to Sintra, Evora, Coimbra etc.
If you decide to stay only in Portugal I would suggest a combination of the following:
Lisbon, Evora, maybe an overnight in Coimbra and then Porto. Evora is a smaller town, but you could rent a car to see more of the Alentejo region and some of the other towns close by. I believe you could also find some small tours that leave from there.

Thank you so much this is very very helpful

I've spent about 8 weeks in Andalucia and Madrid and another 2 weeks in Barcelona over several trips in the past 5 years. The only place in Spain that I'd spend a full week or more is Barcelona. There's plenty to see and do in the city and lots of good day trips too. Andalucia is too spread out to make day-tripping feasible, with or without a car.

Three weeks is not enough for both countries.

I would skip Malaga, the beach there is nothing to brag about and while there are things to see there, Malaga would rank way down my list of favorite places in Spain.
Granada is great, especially the Alhambra.

Madrid and area (Toledo and Segovia) would take up 6 days in my opinion; Sevilla, Cordoba and Granada would take up another 6 days. Barcelona and area 4-5 days. The Basque region of Spain is another in the north, not sure you want to visit that.

Portugal, plan on 3-4 days for Lisbon with more for day trips to Evora and Sintra. Between Lisbon and Porto, there are Navarre, Obidos, Batilha Cathedral and more. Porto is wonderful, don't miss it and a trip or cruise up the Douro River valley. Plan on a 4 days for Porto with a day or two for the in-between Lisbon and Portugal. Also, consider day trips from Porto to Santiago de Compostela and Salamanca.

These are some wonderful ideas all these suggestions are really helping me narrow down what we want to do . I so appreciate all this input. Having never been to this area I rely on the experience of others.

Hello... I'm also looking at travel between Spain and Portugal this summer and I'm curious about geovagriffith's suggestion to make Salamanca a day trip from Porto, since Salamanca is in Spain. I am considering this my return route into Spain and not finding many options other than a bus that goes from Porto to Coimbra to Salamanca. Are there other options?

Salamanca is over 200 miles from Porto, so it is not a viable day-trip. Even Santiago de Compostela is more than 130 miles away. I'd be looking at closer options. A comprehensive guidebook to Portugal will highlight worthwhile stops in that part of the country.

I know a lot of people love Barcelona but I prefer Seville , Madrid and the south coast. I do think it is very easy to do the two countries and I have done it several times. You can get many flight from Lisbon to Barcelona or the way we did it was a stop for a few days in Mallorca . You can take a ferry or Fly to Barcelona from there.