Spain and Portugal 24 day Itinerary, begin Aug. 22

You can add 1 more day to Sevilla and add Cordoba too.

I would recommend going on a site like rome2rio.com to enter all of your locations. Then write down how many hours it takes between locations. This will give you a good indication if you need to add a day to locations. My first thought is 1 day for Seville is not enough. I would drop either Segovia or Salmanca to spend more time in Seville.

That would be way too many 1- and 2-night stays for me. Although I enjoyed spending multiple nights in both Segovia and Toledo, I'd make both of them day-trips from Madrid rather than uprooting myself for just one might in each city.

How do you plan to get from place to place? By car? If so, where do you plan to pick up the car? Are you thinking about picking the car up in Portugal and dropping it off in Spain? Check out drop off costs before you plan much further!

Once you know how you'll travel, figure out approx times to travel from place to place, and play around with the order. Check for weekly closures to make sure you avoid a day when everything is closed.

I usually have a dozen iterations before I have an itinerary I like!

Tips: Rome to Rio site. Look into the Portugal experts on TripAdvisors, there is a gentleman who is very helpful with transportation questions. On a recent trip to Portugal we skirted off to Seville for 2 nights and a full day for 4 major sites due to missing these sites on 3 other visits to Spain. Seville is over the top for me. It is expensive shoulder and season time. Alhambra in Granada is a wonder! Note it was a 3 1/2 to 4 hour drive from Evora on wonderful roads to Seville. I believe from Lisbon to Seville it is a night train to Madrid and then on Seville. Lisbon to Faro train is appx 3 hours plus transportation to Selema. The main beach road is under construction, busy and slow. The local buses use the slow road. Toll road is fast, empty and pricey.

Suggest 3 nights in Lisbon. If you are considering Sintra, it is dead at night. A stay makes early morning outings easier and with less tourist bus patrons. Everyone has their favorite, mine is the fortress castle. Take in the southern beaches of Portugal on another trip. We popped into La Antilla (near Huelva) as we went west into Portugal from Seville. It was lovely! Also, we stayed near Nerja (in the past) for a week in early spring with our bikes and had a pleasant adventure. Two nights in Granada is fine if sticking to #1 sites. Agree with making day trips to Sergovia and Toledo from Madrid, might even skip one.
Skip northern Portugal for another day!

Faro to Seville by bus is the preferred route. This route has a limited time table.

Amoita car rental charges 7 E per day extra to take the car to Spain. It is to cover emergency services for a car in Spain. Ok to pick-up or drop-off between Lisbon and Faro. If you have car for one week or more no charge for secondary drop-off site. I was unable to tie down AutoEurope if there would be unknown extra charges for different site drop-off. Europe Car was clear, more dollars overall.

Far too much travelling and one night stays to make this a pleasant trip. How are you getting around?

If you are heading from Lisbon to Seville, then it would make more sense to stay somewhere such as Tavira rather than Salema (which has become very over developed in the past 5 years and its character has been lost). Seville deserves more than one night. Try to cover some places as day trips to avoid moving on so often.

Late August and September will still be busy on the Algarve, so you may struggle to find accommodation, as many places are fully booked.

I would drop Porto and add more nights along the way to your existing itinerary.